DNR2025 replaces DNR 2011: what changes in your liability and your insurance?

DNR2025 is the new version of De Nieuwe Regeling (the New Regulation), the general terms that BNA and NLingenieurs draw up together for assignments to architects, engineers and consultants. It replaces DNR 2011. For your liability the amounts stay the same: the fee up to a maximum of € 1,000,000, or three times the fee up to a maximum of € 2,500,000.

What does change: damage from a cyber incident falls outside your liability if you took ordinary measures, there is a rule on the use of AI, and you must have suitable general and professional liability insurance. If you switch, you align your quotation, your policy and your agreements on structural safety with it.

In this article

1. What is DNR2025, and does it replace DNR 2011?
2. Up to what amount are you liable under DNR2025?
3. Which damage do you never have to compensate?
4. How long can a client hold you liable?
5. What must your insurance cover under DNR2025?
6. What does DNR2025 say about AI and cyber incidents?
7. Does the limitation hold up in court and with public clients?
8. What do you arrange when you switch to DNR2025?

What is DNR2025, and does it replace DNR 2011?

Yes. DNR2025 is the successor to DNR 2011. It is a set of general terms for the relationship between a client and a consultant who designs or advises, such as an architect, structural engineer or building services consultant. BNA and NLingenieurs draw them up together (BNA and NLingenieurs, Explanatory notes to DNR2025, section 1).

The regulation has existed since 2005. It was revised in 2011 and adjusted in a limited way in 2013. According to the explanatory notes it was modernised again in 2025, because practice, legislation and digitalisation had changed. Clients were also increasingly making departures from the old regulation (Explanatory notes to DNR2025, sections 1.1 and 1.2).

DNR is not a law. It applies only if you declare it applicable in your quotation or confirmation of the assignment and the client receives it before or when the assignment is concluded. According to the explanatory notes, merely referring to a website is usually not enough. If the client does not receive the text, the client can have the terms annulled (Explanatory notes to DNR2025, section 5).

Up to what amount are you liable under DNR2025?

By default up to the fee excluding VAT for that assignment, with a maximum of € 1,000,000. If you expressly agree it in writing, it is three times the fee, with a maximum of € 2,500,000. The limitation does not apply in the case of intent or deliberate recklessness by the consultant (Explanatory notes to DNR2025, article 14.9).

The amounts are the same as in DNR 2011. There, too, parties could choose between the consultancy fee up to a maximum of € 1,000,000 and three times the fee up to a maximum of € 2,500,000. Without a choice the lower amount applied (DNR 2011, article 15).

If the client is a consumer, the maximum is never lower than € 75,000. A private individual who pays you € 10,000 to calculate a renovation can therefore hold you liable for up to € 75,000 (Explanatory notes to DNR2025, article 14.10).

If you want to accept more liability than the standard, DNR2025 says you also discuss a suitable fee for it. The explanatory notes warn against a limitation per event without a cap on the number of events, because the liability is then effectively unlimited (Explanatory notes to DNR2025, article 14.12).

Which damage do you never have to compensate?

DNR2025 excludes a list of types of damage, whatever the cause. It concerns damage that can run high and is hard to insure (Explanatory notes to DNR2025, article 14.7):

• business interruption, loss of production, loss of turnover and loss of profit
• reputational damage, loss of interest and delay damage
• loss of value of products
• costs that would also have been incurred if the advice had been right from the start
• damage from a cyber incident that happened despite customary measures

For an assignment for a building, you are in addition only liable for damage that a customary CAR policy would not cover. A CAR policy (Construction All Risks) is the insurance that the client or contractor usually takes out for the work in progress. If part of the structure collapses during construction because of an error in your calculation, the damage to the work itself falls under that policy (Explanatory notes to DNR2025, article 14.8).

How long can a client hold you liable?

A business client must bring a legal claim within five years after the assignment is terminated or completed. After that every claim lapses, even if the error only comes to light later. It is a limitation period that ends rights outright (a hard end date that a letter cannot stop), not an ordinary prescription period (Explanatory notes to DNR2025, article 14.11).

You must invoke it yourself. The court does not apply the period of its own motion. It does not apply to consumers, who keep the statutory periods (Explanatory notes to DNR2025, article 14.11). DNR 2011 also had five years from the end of the assignment (DNR 2011, article 16).

Before that happens, the client must give you formal written notice of default and a reasonable period to repair the error. An email is enough. Only if repair is permanently impossible is this not needed. The explanatory notes give the example of foundation piles that have already been placed and break because of a calculation error in the reinforcement (Explanatory notes to DNR2025, articles 14.1 and 14.2).

What must your insurance cover under DNR2025?

You must take out and keep suitable general and professional liability insurance. General liability insurance covers injury and damage to property. Professional liability insurance covers financial loss from wrong advice, a wrong design or a wrong calculation. The client may ask for an insurance certificate (Explanatory notes to DNR2025, articles 16.1 and 16.2).

An insurance obligation was already in DNR 2011, but only for professional liability (DNR 2011, article 11(3)). What is new is that the insurance must be suitable. According to the explanatory notes this means, among other things, a sum insured that matches the projects and the agreed cap, and no exclusion of precisely your core risk, such as design errors for a structural engineer.

BNA and NLingenieurs have drawn up a framework policy for DNR2025, an example of the cover that fits the regulation. It sets a sum insured of € 1,000,000 or € 2,500,000 per assignment, with at most twice that amount per calendar year (BNA and NLingenieurs, DNR2025 framework policy, section 2.2).

The framework policy also names what is often not covered. A standard policy covers one type of work, for example structural advice or building services advice, not both. Failing to perform or performing late, and incorrect cost estimates, are usually not insured. By default the cover applies only to damage in the Netherlands, and the error, the damage and the claim must all fall within the term of the policy (DNR2025 framework policy, sections 1.1 and 2.2 to 2.3).

What does DNR2025 say about AI and cyber incidents?

You may use AI tools, but AI does not limit your duty of care. If an AI tool calculates incorrectly, you remain responsible for the choice to use it and for how you use the result. The explanatory notes call for human review and for results you can check (Explanatory notes to DNR2025, article 15.2).

Damage from a cyber incident is excluded, but only if you took customary measures. The explanatory notes give as examples access management, encrypted project environments, updates, multi-factor sign-in, documented back-ups and staff training. Anyone who does not take those measures is, according to the explanatory notes, probably not insured either (Explanatory notes to DNR2025, article 14.7).

Does the limitation hold up in court and with public clients?

Usually yes, as long as there is no intent or gross negligence. In 2021 the District Court of Northern Netherlands released an engineering firm from paying damages, even though the firm had made errors in analysis reports. The firm received about € 20,000 for the work, a small part of the possible damage. The court found the limitation reasonable and saw no gross negligence (District Court of Northern Netherlands, 21 July 2021, ECLI:NL:RBNNE:2021:3156).

In that case the damage claimed was a price difference on the sale of material. That is loss of turnover and profit, which DNR 2011 already excluded as direct damage. The court even applied the limitation against a party that had not concluded the contract itself, but for whom the work had been done (ECLI:NL:RBNNE:2021:3156, grounds 4.10 to 4.19).

If you work for a public body, the contracting authority may not demand liability that is unlimited in any way. The Proportionality Guide names precisely the small advisory assignment where an error can have large consequences. Liability for an indefinite period is regarded as disproportionate (Proportionality Guide, rule 3.9 D). A limitation of your own, such as that of DNR2025, therefore remains a point for discussion there.

Research on rework shows why the cap matters. In two Australian construction projects, rework cost 3.15% and 2.40% of the contract value. Changes by the client and errors and omissions in the contract documents were the main causes (Love & Li, 2000). On a contract value of € 3 million, 2.40% is already € 72,000. That is more than many structural engineers' fee for such a project.

What do you arrange when you switch to DNR2025?

1. Name DNR2025 in your quotation and confirmation of the assignment, and send the PDF with it. Keep proof that the client received it.
2. Choose one or three times the fee for each assignment, and record the choice in writing.
3. Compare it with your policy: does the sum insured fit, is your type of work on it, and does the cover apply in the country of the project?
4. For a structural design, agree who oversees the coherence of the structure. DNR2025 asks parties to record this in advance.
5. If the client asks for more liability or a longer period, ask for a higher fee as well.

Point 4 comes from the new chapter on structural safety. For an assignment with structural elements, the agreement must state who is responsible for the coherence of the structural design and the coordination of structural safety (Explanatory notes to DNR2025, articles 10.1 to 10.3).

Ongoing assignments under DNR 2011 remain under DNR 2011, unless you agree otherwise together. According to the framework policy, the insurer can also cover work under older regulations, such as DNR 2011 and DNR 2005, on the new policy (DNR2025 framework policy, section 2.1).

Sources

• BNA and Koninklijke NLingenieurs, Explanatory notes to De Nieuwe Regeling 2025 (DNR2025) (in Dutch), version 03, accessed 31 October 2026. bna.nl
• BNA and NLingenieurs, De Nieuwe Regeling 2011 (in Dutch), first revision July 2013, articles 11, 14, 15 and 16. nlingenieurs.nl
• BNA and Koninklijke NLingenieurs, Framework policy for professional liability insurance DNR2025 (in Dutch), accessed 31 October 2026. bna.nl
• District Court of Northern Netherlands, 21 July 2021, ECLI:NL:RBNNE:2021:3156 (in Dutch). uitspraken.rechtspraak.nl
• PIANOo, Proportionality Guide (Gids Proportionaliteit), third revision, 1 January 2022, rule 3.9 D (in Dutch). pianoo.nl
• Love, P.E.D. & Li, H. (2000). Quantifying the causes and costs of rework in construction. Construction Management and Economics, 18(4), 479-490. doi.org