The Non-Mailing Indicator

How does the Non Mailing Indicator work? This article explains how it can help to reduce the amount of mail and visits to your registered address. If you do not want to be approached by businesses and organisations sending you physical mail or visiting your registered address, you can activate the Non Mailing Indicator or NMI. By doing so, you indicate that you do not want to receive unsolicited mail or sales visits. Once you have activated the NMI, both your Business Register extract and the information on the Netherlands Chamber of Commerce KVK website will specify this.

No more unsolicited mail?

There is no guarantee that you will no longer receive any unwanted mail or sales visits. After all, the Business Register is a public register and available 24/7. Many organisations are continuously updated on any changes in the Business Register, including new registrations. And businesses can use the Business Register data to check business relations' data, or to look for potential new customers - you may want to do so yourself. View the options.

And as other resources are available as well - yellow pages, websites, etc. - it is impossible to guarantee your address details will never be used for marketing campaigns or other unsolicited mail. 

Protection

The protection offered by the NMI is limited to physical mail and door-to-door visits. The NMI does not shield you from offers and ads sent through email, phone, direct messaging or WhatsApp. Once you have registered your company, you will inevitably be approached. Companies and organisations use the public data found in the Business Register to do so.

The Telecommunications Act does offer some protection against unwanted email and phonecalls. Read more about this in the article How to limit unwanted commercial solicitation.

Can I be found easily after activating the NMI?  

Activating the NMI will make your company details less visible. For instance, Google has a policy not to include any companies that have activated the NMI on Google Maps.

How to activate the NMI

Use the (Dutch only) form for switching the non-mailing indicator on or off.

When you register in the Business Register, you can activate the NMI straightaway. Activating the NMI at a later date usually has little noticeable effect: if you wait until, let us say, some months after your registration, many organisations will already have recorded your details in their files. And so they will remain, unless they get regular database updates from KVK.

So if you want to prevent receiving unwanted mail or visits, you would do well to activate the NMI directly upon registration.

How long before the mailings stop?

As soon as KVK has activated the NMI (within a few working days) and the address database users have processed this, the number of mailings should drop. Address database users are required to process the NMI in their databases.

Frequently asked question

Companies are only allowed to send you commercial email if you have given them your consent. There is an exception to this rule. If the company has sold a service or product to you (i.e. you are an existing customer), they may email you about similar services or products without asking your permission. 


If you receive unwanted digital mail (spam), ask the sender to stop. If they do not stop, you can lodge a complaint with the Netherlands Authority for Consumers and Markets ACM. They also offer tips on how to avoid receiving spam.

The Business Register is public and established by law. The Business Register Decree, section 35, Commercial Registers Act sections 17 and 47, states that KVK must register the telephone number of every entrepreneur. This allows anyone to check who they are doing business with, including by phone, and whether the company really exists. The business telephone number is a legal requirement.

You can change your business details in the phone guide and Yellow Pages (Telefoongids & Gouden Gids) yourself online, via detelefoongids.nl. Open your entry on detelefoongids.nl, click on your name to see the details. Then click the 'Manage your company data free of charge' link (in Dutch: 'Beheer gratis jouw bedrijfsgegevens').

To request removal of your details by Google, use this form. To request removal from other websites, you can use the Dutch Data Protection Authority (Autoriteit Persoonsgegevens, AP) sample letters (in Dutch). 

On social media, manage the visibility of your details through your settings.