Wetboek van Strafrecht, art. 252, Sexual Imagery of an Apparent Minor (Virtual Child Sexual Abuse Material)

Wetboek van Strafrecht, art. 252 (until 1 July 2024: art. 240b) (BWBR0001854)

A citation is an address, not a summary. The first part names the law; what follows narrows it to the exact section, article or paragraph.

What follows is LexLint's own research summary of this law, not legal advice.

In force since 1 July 2024.

An AI prohibited practices rule binding public and private bodies.

As of 6 September 2026.

What it requires

Do not produce, distribute, offer, publicly display, import, export, acquire, or possess a sexual image of a person who apparently has not yet reached the age of eighteen, whether or not that person is real; a computer-generated or synthetic depiction is reached on the same terms as a real one.

If you get it wrong

Criminal exposureYes

Criminal exposure note

Imprisonment of up to six years or a fine of the fifth category; up to eight years for a person who makes an occupation or habit of the offense (art. 252, second paragraph, applicable to the predecessor art. 240b's equivalent structure).

What it makes you log

Logging duty

Article 252 is a criminal prohibition on distributing, offering, publicly displaying, producing, importing, exporting, acquiring, possessing or accessing a sexual image of a person who apparently has not yet reached eighteen, whether or not that person is real. It states no duty to create, keep or produce a log or record of any kind.

Kind: None
As of: 22 September 2026

Who checks it

Audit expectation

none

What this law does

Drafted with AI from the cited sources under the direction of UnGovr staff. UnGovr holds editorial responsibility for this page.

Whoever distributes, offers, publicly displays, produces, imports, transships, exports, acquires, possesses, or accesses a visual representation of a sexual act involving a person who apparently has not yet reached the age of eighteen, whether or not that person is actually involved, is punished with imprisonment of up to six years or a fine of the fifth category.

The provision does not require the depicted minor to be real, so it reaches a computer-generated or otherwise synthetic depiction on its own terms. Its predecessor, art. 240b, carried the same apparent-involvement wording with a four-year maximum before the Wet seksuele misdrijven renumbered and raised the penalty for the current text, effective 1 July 2024.

When LexLint raises it

generates_content
publishes_adult_content

Read the law

wetten.overheid.nl, consolidated text of the Wetboek van Strafrecht

Every line above is drawn from the primary source linked here, read on the date shown. This is a research summary, not legal advice.

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