A tree that has grown too big, blocks the light, threatens the foundations or the drains or is simply in the way of an extension: sooner or later almost every garden owner faces the question of whether a tree may be removed. The answer is not "it is my garden, so I decide". Felling trees is subject to rules from the municipality, from nature conservation law and from neighbour law, and as the owner you have a duty of care for the safety of what stands in your garden. This article sets out those rules, from the kapvergunning (tree felling permit) to the breeding season, the neighbours' branches and the question of when to bring in a landscape gardener or tree surgeon.
The felling permit under the Omgevingswet
Since 1 January 2024, the "felling permit" has formally been called an omgevingsvergunning (environmental permit) for an environment plan activity: felling a stand of trees. The word felling covers more than cutting down: uprooting, transplanting and very drastic pruning, such as removing the crown, are also classed as felling in most municipal rules. The rules are not set out in a national law, but in your municipality's omgevingsplan (municipal environment plan). Before the Omgevingswet (Environment and Planning Act) they were in the Algemene Plaatselijke Verordening (APV, General Local Bylaw) or in a separate tree bylaw; municipalities must incorporate those rules into the environment plan by the end of 2031 at the latest; until then the old bylaws remain in force and, under transitional law, a felling permit based on the APV already counts as an environmental permit for an environment plan activity (Article 22.8 of the Omgevingswet). In practical terms, this means there is no national answer to the question "may I fell this tree?"; the answer differs per municipality and sometimes per neighbourhood.
Most municipalities use one or more of the following criteria:
- Trunk girth or trunk diameter. Trees below a certain thickness are exempt; above it, a permit is required. The measurement is almost always taken at a height of 1.30 metres above ground level. The threshold varies widely, from a trunk girth of a few tens of centimetres (Rotterdam, for example, 50 centimetres, measured at a height of 1.30 metres) to more than a metre, and some municipalities protect hardly any trees in private gardens. For a multi-stemmed tree, it is usually the thickest stem or the sum of the stems that counts; consult your municipality's rules.
- List of valuable or monumental trees. Many municipalities have a tree list or green map of trees that are protected because of their age, species, rarity or contribution to the streetscape, regardless of who owns them. If your tree is on that list, felling is only possible in exceptional situations, and work on the crown and in the root zone is usually restricted too. The Bomenstichting (Dutch Tree Foundation) also keeps a Landelijk Register van Monumentale Bomen (National Register of Monumental Trees); inclusion in it gives no legal protection, but the Bomenstichting calls on authorities to protect registered trees and municipalities look at it when drawing up their own lists.
- Area-based protection. Some municipalities protect all trees in certain neighbourhoods, in a protected townscape or village view, on country estates or within a certain distance of the public road. Other municipalities have instead made the entire built-up area permit-free for trees on private land.
The only reliable way to find out for your tree is the permit check in the Omgevingsloket (the government's online permit portal) on omgevingswet.overheid.nl, supplemented by your municipality's rules on stands of trees and any tree list. If your municipality's felling rules are still in the APV or tree bylaw, they are not always included in the Omgevingsloket; in that case consult the municipality's website or service desk. Keep the result. A landscape gardener who fells trees will often check this for you, but as the owner you remain responsible: felling without a permit can result in a fine, a replanting obligation and in serious cases criminal prosecution.
Application, grounds for refusal and replanting obligation
If you need a permit, you submit the application via the Omgevingsloket with DigiD (the Dutch government login), or you authorise your landscape gardener. You state the species, the trunk girth, the location on a site plan and the reason for felling, and add photos. Felling follows the regular procedure: the municipality decides within eight weeks of a complete application and may extend that period once by six weeks. After the decision comes an objection period of six weeks, during which neighbours and interest groups can also lodge an objection. Because a felled tree cannot be put back, a felling permit generally only takes effect four weeks after publication (Article 16.79(2) of the Omgevingswet); if someone applies to the court for interim relief during that period, you may not fell until a decision has been made on it. Many municipalities also advise waiting until the permit is final and irrevocable. As a result, allow three to four months between application and felling. The municipality charges fees (leges) according to its fees bylaw.
The municipality weighs your interest against the value of the tree: natural and environmental value, landscape or streetscape value, cultural-historical value and its value for liveability and recreation. Good reasons for felling are danger to the surroundings (a diseased, dead or unstable tree), demonstrable damage to foundations, drains or paving that cannot be resolved any other way, and sometimes a building plan that cannot otherwise be carried out. Nuisance from leaves, shade or fruit usually carries little weight. The municipality can attach a replanting obligation to a permit: within a certain period, often the next planting season, you must replant a tree of a prescribed species and size, sometimes in the same spot and sometimes elsewhere on the plot. A replanting obligation can be imposed as a condition of the permit (based on the environment plan or the APV) or, after illegal felling, as a remedial measure through an enforcement order or an order subject to a penalty. In case of acute danger, for example a tree leaning over the house after a storm, most municipalities have an emergency felling procedure: you report it immediately to the municipality, which quickly assesses whether the tree may be removed, and you submit the formal application afterwards.
Breeding season and protected animals
Separately from the municipal rules, the rules for species protection apply, which since 2024 are no longer in the Wet natuurbescherming (Nature Conservation Act) but in the Omgevingswet and the Besluit activiteiten leefomgeving (Bal, the Environmental Activities Decree). The core: it is prohibited to disturb or destroy the nests of breeding birds (Article 11.37 Bal for birds), and to kill protected species such as bats, squirrels and certain insects or destroy their resting places. A tree with an occupied nest may therefore not be felled, not even with a felling permit in hand; the permit only governs your relationship with the municipality, not your relationship with nature.
There is no breeding season laid down by law. In practice the period from 15 March to 15 July is used as a guide, but what counts is whether birds are actually breeding: a wood pigeon may already be sitting in February and a second clutch can last into August. A careful landscape gardener checks the tree for nests, cavities and signs of bats before felling, and postpones felling if there are any. With cavities in older trees, an ecological quick scan may be needed before you can proceed. The safest period to fell is late autumn and winter: outside the breeding season, with bare crowns that give a view of nests, and in the tree's dormant period if you want to transplant. Pruning has the same restriction: even a small pruning job must not disturb an occupied nest.
Outside the built-up area: notification to the province
If your tree stands outside the bebouwingscontour houtkap (built-up area boundary for tree felling), the boundary the municipality designates in the environment plan and which until then coincides with the old 'built-up area' of the Wet natuurbescherming, then alongside or instead of the municipal rules the regime for stands of trees may apply that used to be in the Boswet (Forestry Act) and then in the Wet natuurbescherming, and is now included in Section 11.3 of the Besluit activiteiten leefomgeving. That regime applies to stands of trees of a certain size, such as a wooded plot of ten ares (1,000 square metres) or more or a row of more than twenty trees, and requires a notification to the province at least four weeks (and at most one year) before felling (Article 11.126 Bal); provinces may deviate from this in their environmental bylaw, Gelderland for example uses six weeks. After that a replanting obligation within three years applies (Article 11.129 Bal). For the ordinary garden owner, the exception is what matters most: trees on yards and in gardens, fruit trees and windbreaks around orchards are exempt from these rules. If you live in the countryside with a copse, a wooded bank or an avenue on your own land, do not rely on the garden exception and check with both the province and the municipality; both competent authorities can impose requirements.
Neighbour law: branches, roots and the distance from the boundary
Trees rarely stay within your garden alone; they overhang, cast shade and drop leaves at the neighbours'. The neighbour law in Book 5 of the Burgerlijk Wetboek (BW, the Dutch Civil Code) provides clear rules for this, which you need to know both as the owner of a tree and as the neighbour of a tree.
- Distance from the boundary (Article 5:42 BW). You are not allowed to have trees within 2 metres of the boundary and shrubs and hedges within 0.5 metres, measured from the centre of the base of the tree, unless the neighbour has given permission, a municipal bylaw or local custom permits a smaller distance, or the neighbours' land is public. The neighbour cannot object to trees that do not rise above the dividing wall between the properties. Many municipalities have reduced the distance for trees in their APV, for example to half a metre; check this before you demand removal or plant. How the boundary itself is determined and what else comes into play is covered in Putting up a fence or boundary partition.
- Limitation. The claim to have a tree standing too close to the boundary removed becomes time-barred after twenty years; if a tree has stood within the prohibited distance for more than twenty years, the neighbour can usually no longer enforce removal. The period runs from the moment the unlawful situation arose: planting within the prohibited distance or, if the tree was initially lower than the dividing wall, the moment it grew above it. Overhanging branches, however, can always still be dealt with via Article 5:44 BW.
- Overhanging branches and encroaching roots (Article 5:44 BW). If branches of the neighbours' tree overhang your property, you may not simply saw them off. You must first formally ask the owner to remove them; if they do not do so within a reasonable period, you may cut them off yourself and keep them. For roots that grow into your ground there is no such requirement: you may remove them straight away. Fruit that falls from the neighbours' tree onto your property is yours (Article 5:45 BW). Anyone who prunes without a formal request or too drastically and damages the tree can be liable for the damage; so never prune in a way that puts the tree at risk, and put the request in writing.
- Nuisance (Article 5:37 BW). Shade, leaves and falling fruit are not in themselves unlawful nuisance; that only comes into play when the nuisance is serious and structural, for example a tree that takes all the light out of a living room all year round. The court takes into account how long the tree has been there and what is customary locally.
For a tree on the boundary itself, or a hedge that serves as a boundary partition, there is mandeligheid (joint ownership): common ownership, under which neither neighbour may fell without the other (Article 5:62 BW). In all cases, talking it through is wiser than a formal demand; most disputes about trees ultimately come down to the feeling of not having been heard. How to approach this is covered in Renovating and the neighbours.
Safety, duty of care and storm damage
As the owner of a tree you have a duty of care: you must reasonably prevent your tree from causing damage to others. This follows from the general doctrine of tort (Article 6:162 BW). If a branch or an entire tree falls on the neighbours' car, shed or conservatory, you are liable if you could and should have known that the tree was dangerous, for example because of visible rot, fungi at the base of the trunk, dead wood in the crown, cracks or earlier storm damage that was not followed up. If a healthy, well-maintained tree falls over in a severe storm, this is generally regarded as an event you could not have prevented and you are not liable; the damage is then for the owner of the damaged property or their insurer. The difference therefore lies in demonstrable maintenance: have large trees checked periodically and keep the reports and invoices.
A tree safety inspection, often carried out using the visual tree assessment (VTA) method, is done by a certified tree surgeon. The European professional certificate for this is European Tree Worker (ETW), for climbing, pruning and felling, and European Tree Technician (ETT) for advice and inspection. An ordinary landscape gardener can perfectly well fell a young or small tree, but a large tree between houses, above a roof, next to cables and pipes or close to the public road is work for a tree surgeon with climbing equipment or an aerial work platform, who takes the tree down in sections and lowers the pieces in a controlled way. Climbing a ladder yourself with a chainsaw is one of the most dangerous things you can do in your garden; the cost of professional felling is determined by the height and size of the tree, the accessibility, the need for an aerial work platform or climbing work, the removal of the wood and whether the stump needs grinding.
Alternatives: pruning, pollarding or transplanting
Felling is irreversible; there is often a less drastic solution. Maintenance pruning removes dead wood and crossing branches and keeps the crown healthy and safe. Crown reduction reduces the crown by a limited percentage and preserves the natural shape; that is the approach for a tree that blocks too much light. Crown lifting removes the lowest branches and gives space and light under the tree without changing its height. Pollarding, cutting all the main branches back to stumps, is a drastic intervention that only tree species such as plane, lime and willow tolerate well, requires a lot of aftercare and in many municipalities is classed as felling, so you need a permit for it. With beech, birch or oak, for example, pollarding leads to rot setting in and an unsafe tree; a good tree surgeon refuses that work. Transplanting is an option for younger trees if the tree is in the way of a building plan; it requires preparation in the preceding season and in most municipalities also counts as felling.
Which intervention is right depends on the species, the age, the health and the reason for your wish. A tree surgeon can assess this in a short inspection and help find a solution that lets the tree stay, for example a lighter crown combined with a root barrier against damage to paving or drains. Which pruning suits which time of year is covered in the Maintenance calendar for your home.
Step-by-step plan
- Measure the trunk girth at a height of 1.30 metres and identify the species. Write down why you want to fell it and consider whether pruning is enough.
- Do the permit check in the Omgevingsloket and consult your municipality's rules on stands of trees and the tree list. Keep the result. If you live outside the built-up area, check with the province too.
- Inform the neighbours, especially if the tree is close to the boundary, changes the shade or the view on their side or has to be felled via their garden. For a tree on the boundary you need their permission.
- Apply for the permit if one is required, with photos, site plan and reasons, and wait for the decision period and preferably the objection period. In case of acute danger, ask about the emergency felling procedure.
- Schedule the felling outside the breeding season, preferably in late autumn or winter, and have the tree checked for nests and cavities beforehand.
- Choose the right tradesperson: a landscape gardener for small trees and redesigning the garden, a certified tree surgeon for large trees, climbing work and trees above buildings or pipes. Request several quotes and record whether removal of the wood and branches, grinding the stump and restoring the garden are included.
- Comply with the replanting obligation if one has been imposed, within the set period and with the prescribed species and size, and keep the proof.
In short: whether you may fell a tree in your garden is decided by your municipality's environment plan, usually on the basis of the trunk girth at 1.30 metres and a list of protected trees; there is no national answer. A permit goes through the regular procedure of eight weeks plus the objection period and may come with a replanting obligation. Even with a permit you may not disturb breeding birds or protected animals, you must take the neighbours into account and you remain responsible for the safety of the trees that stay standing. On VerbouwPro you post the felling or pruning as a job free of charge and landscape gardeners and tree surgeons from your region respond.