Returns after the 2026 holidays: how to send items back to a Dutch webshop from abroad

January is the busiest return season of the year in the Netherlands. Gifts that do not fit, a jumper in the wrong colour, a gadget received twice: in the first weeks of the new year a good share of the December orders goes back to the webshop. If you live in the Netherlands, you stick a return label on the box and walk to a parcel point. If you live abroad, you discover that exactly that label is worthless there.

In this article you will read why a return across the border is tricky, which periods apply, how to arrange a return via your Dutch address, who bears which costs and what proof to keep. One rule first: every webshop has its own return conditions, and those take precedence over everything stated here in general. Check the shop's return conditions before you send anything back.

Why returning from abroad is tricky

The return label a Dutch webshop encloses or lets you download is a label from PostNL, DHL or another carrier for a shipment within the Netherlands. From Germany, France or the United States it is of no use to you: the carrier there does not recognise the label, and the webshop expects the parcel at a Dutch parcel point. Booking your own international shipment to the return address is possible, but expensive, and from outside the EU you have to make clear on the customs documents that it is a returned shipment.

Then there is the deadline. Within the EU, a distance purchase comes with a statutory cooling-off period of fourteen days from the day you receive the parcel; after that you have another fourteen days to send it back. Around the holidays many webshops extend that period, so that a gift bought in November can still go back in January. The period counts from delivery in the Netherlands, that is at your DZH address, not from the moment the parcel reaches you.

How a return via your Dutch address works

If the item is still with us, it is simple. In My DZH you ask us to send the parcel back to the webshop and you pass us the shop's return label or return instructions. We then send the parcel within the Netherlands to the return address. This is a service on request: we only do it when you ask for it in My DZH, never on our own initiative.

If the parcel is already with you, it takes two steps. You send the item yourself to your DZH address in the Netherlands and note in My DZH that it is a return, with the webshop's return label attached. As soon as it arrives with us, we forward it within the Netherlands to the shop. From outside the EU you state on the customs documents that it is a returned shipment. Start early: the journey to the Netherlands takes days to weeks, and the shop's return period keeps running in the meantime.

Who bears the costs?

The shipment from your country to the Netherlands is always paid by you. The return within the Netherlands may be charged to you by the webshop if that was stated in the conditions beforehand; on a withdrawal within the cooling-off period the shop must refund the purchase price and the standard delivery costs. The forwarding by us is a service on request, with an amount you hear in advance. Weigh that up before you start: with a cheap item, sending it back is sometimes more expensive than keeping it or selling it on locally.

Frequently asked questions