The Netherlands is the most permissive kratom market in Europe, and the one most often described inaccurately, usually by people selling kratom, and usually with the single word “legal.”
It is more interesting than that.
It is not a controlled substance
We checked the Opiumwet, the Dutch Opium Act, as it stands, valid from 9 July 2026. Neither kratom, nor Mitragyna speciosa, nor mitragynine, nor 7-hydroxymitragynine appears on Lijst I (drugs with unacceptable risk) or Lijst II (soft drugs).
That is a straightforward finding with a straightforward consequence. Kratom is not a controlled drug in the Netherlands. Possessing it is not a criminal offence. Importing it for personal use is not drug smuggling. Nobody is going to be prosecuted under the Opiumwet for having kratom in a drawer.
This is why kratom is sold openly in Dutch smartshops, and why the Netherlands has the most developed kratom retail sector on the continent.
It is also not a legal food
Here is the part the shops tend not to mention.
Dutch drug law is not the only law that applies. Under Regulation (EU) 2015/2283, which is directly binding in the Netherlands, any food without a significant history of consumption in the EU before 15 May 1997 is a novel food and may not be placed on the market until authorised. Kratom has no record of significant food use in the Union before that date, and the burden of showing otherwise falls on whoever sells it: the Commission’s own catalogue notice says it is for the food business operator “to be able to prove a history of consumption as foodstuff before 15 May 1997”.
No authorisation has ever been granted. We read the Union list of authorised novel foods, the annex to Implementing Regulation (EU) 2017/2470, in the consolidated text in force from 10 August 2026. Kratom is not in it. The details of that check, and a correction to what this page previously said about the Commission’s catalogue, are on our European Union page.
So selling kratom in the Netherlands for human consumption (as a food, a tea, a supplement) is not lawful. Not because of drug law, but because of food law. The Opiumwet leaves it alone; Brussels does not.
This is the actual legal position, and it explains the labelling you will see in any Dutch smartshop or webshop: kratom sold as incense, as a botanical specimen, as “not for human consumption.” That wording is not eccentricity or coyness. It is the mechanism by which the sale stays on the right side of food law, and everyone involved (seller, buyer, and often the regulator) knows what the product is actually for.
What that means for you
- Possessing kratom in the Netherlands is legal. You are not committing a drug offence.
- Buying it is, in practice, straightforward, and the market is well established.
- Selling it for consumption is not lawful, and a seller who makes explicit consumption or health claims is on considerably weaker ground than one who does not.
- Taking it across a border can be a serious matter. Kratom is controlled in at least twelve European countries, among them France, Poland, Sweden, Romania, Denmark, Finland, Italy and Portugal. Dutch legality confers nothing once you leave. A short drive from Amsterdam can turn lawful possession into a criminal offence, and “it’s legal at home” is not a defence.
The health picture, honestly
The 2022 EFSA assessment of botanical kratom preparations concluded that consumption has the potential to lead to adverse neurological effects, including addiction and withdrawal syndrome, and to elicit organ toxicity. It also found the available data insufficient to fully characterise the risk.
That is not a clean bill of health, and it is not a condemnation. It is a statement that there are documented harms and a thin evidence base, which is the honest summary and the one you will rarely find on a shop’s website. Dutch legality is a fact about Dutch law. It is not a finding about safety, and the two are routinely conflated.
Will it change?
There is no proposal before the Dutch parliament to schedule kratom under the Opiumwet that we are aware of as of the date above. Kratom’s status here has been stable for years.
But the direction of travel in Europe is one way. The EU Drugs Agency already records kratom as controlled in at least twelve European countries. Pressure at EU level tends to follow national action rather than precede it. We re-check this page on a schedule, and the verification date at the top is the date we last read the Opiumwet ourselves. Not the date we last thought about it.