Your council takes a decision. There is a proposal, a debate, amendments and a vote. Ten years from now, someone needs to be able to reconstruct that whole story, in a system that probably will not exist any more.
That is exactly what the Archiefwet 2026 asks of you. The act enters into force on 1 January 2027, replacing the Archiefwet 1995. For the clerk's office, the practical consequence is this: agendas, minutes, decisions and supporting papers are not a by-product of the meeting. They are archivable information you have to capture properly from the very first moment.
The Archiefwet does not stand alone. The Wet open overheid (Woo) governs access to information your organisation still holds. The Wet modernisering elektronisch bestuurlijk verkeer (Wmebv), in force since 1 January 2026, gives citizens and businesses the right to communicate with you officially by digital means. All of them push in the same direction: information has to be digital, findable and traceable.
This article explains what the Archiefwet 2026 means for your meeting process and what you can put in place now.
What the Archiefwet 2026 requires
- A shorter transfer period. Records kept permanently move to an archive service after ten years instead of twenty, so the public gains access sooner.
- Archiving by design. You set up archiving at the moment information is created. In practice: as you create a document, you record whether it must be kept or destroyed.
- A stronger role for the archivaris. The archivaris is the focal point for information governance and sustainable accessibility. The qualification requirement is being modernised, with more emphasis on training and professional development. The role shifts from supervising the process to actively steering it.
- More specific grounds for restricting access. Where the Archiefwet 1995 had three broad grounds, the new act works with a wider and more specific set. You must justify in each case why a ground applies and how long the restriction lasts. (See editorial notes.)
- Digital findability and durability. Digital information must be stored securely and stay readable, findable and usable. That calls for consistent file formats and metadata.
The terminology changes too
The new act aligns its vocabulary more closely with the GDPR (AVG) and the Woo. Several terms you will meet in your own documentation:
| Archiefwet 1995 | Archiefwet 2026 |
|---|---|
| Zorgdrager (record custodian) | Verantwoordelijk overheidsorgaan (responsible public body) |
| Archiefbescheiden (archive records) | Documenten (documents) |
| Archiefbewaarplaats (archive repository) | Archiefdienst (archive service) |
| Selectielijst (selection list) | Selectiebesluit (selection decision) |
| Good, ordered and accessible condition | Duurzaam toegankelijk (sustainably accessible) |
That last change is more than wording. "Sustainably accessible" underlines that information management is a continuous process, not a one-off act.
Which meeting records are covered?
Decisions, and the route towards them, are almost always archivable, and they largely originate in and around the meeting. Every stage of your meeting process therefore has to meet the standards of authenticity, completeness and traceability.
Your digital audit trail includes:
- meeting agendas;
- minutes;
- decisions and resolutions;
- meeting papers, including reports and presentations;
- recordings of meetings, both video and audio;
- chat logs containing substantive discussion of matters decided or voted on.
That last category is the one most often overlooked. If a chat message contains a considered judgement or a commitment, it forms part of the institutional memory.
Running your meeting process in a board portal means these records are created digitally and in a structured way from the outset. That is archiving by design in practice.
Best practices for archive-ready meetings
Appoint your archivaris and give the role standing. Assign responsibility to someone who can drive the topic proactively. Arrange training and put that person at the table with IT and governance so the workflow between departments runs smoothly.
Archive from the point of creation. Apply the right standards and mandatory metadata fields as soon as a record comes into being. Set access controls so information cannot be altered, and label documents so it is clear what is kept and what is destroyed.
Work from one central system. Keep every meeting record, from agenda to board resolution, together and in digital form. Nothing goes missing, and anyone retrieving the file later gets the full picture behind a decision. Make sure the system searches well. Everything in one place saves the clerk's office a great deal of hunting.
Set up version control and an audit trail. Record who created or amended each document, and when. That tells you which version is final and shows the stages a document went through.
Align retention schedules with the ten-year transfer period. Build alerts into your system so you assess in good time whether a record goes to the archive service or is destroyed.
Think ahead about file formats. Choose formats suited to long-term preservation, and do so at the start of the workflow. Then you never have to convert anything later.
Make the access assessment testable. Ensure your archivaris knows the restriction grounds and that there is a working method for judging, document by document, whether a ground genuinely applies. The justification has to withstand scrutiny.
Practical steps to get started
| Step | Explanation |
|---|---|
| Run a baseline audit | Compare your current meeting process against the requirements of the new act. Look at metadata, file formats, how you flag documents for archiving and how you handle long-term preservation. Your improvement list follows from that. |
| Map the lifecycle of your meeting records | How are records created, how are they approved and where are they stored? How do you decide what is kept and what is destroyed? Does that already meet the new requirements? |
| Define roles and responsibilities | Appoint your archivaris and set out their role in the workflow around meeting records. |
| Choose or test your technology | If you do not yet use a board portal, consider one. Check that the platform supports metadata, has version control, keeps records searchable and produces transfer-ready exports. |
| Train everyone involved | The archivaris needs training, but so do meeting planners, minute takers and governance teams. They need to know what changes and how to act on it. |
| Review regularly | Check periodically that records are captured correctly, with the right labels and triggers for archiving. |
From meeting to managed archive
Most archiving solutions sit beside your meeting process. That means exporting records, re-keying metadata and maintaining a second system purely for compliance. With iBabs Archive, archiving continues inside the workflow the clerk's office already uses.
You configure retention once per agenda type and every record inherits the right schedule automatically. You also keep a clear distinction between retention periods from before and after the Archiefwet 2026 enters into force.
The process has two deliberate control points:
- A two-step freeze. The meeting administrator submits a finalised agenda for freeze. The records manager checks completeness and freezes it. Once frozen, content and metadata cannot be altered.
- Destruction with mandatory approval. When the retention period expires, destruction only proceeds after the archivaris signs off. Every action is logged with user, timestamp and role, so you can reconstruct the full life of any record.
For transfer, iBabs Archive packages a batch as a SIP (ToPX 2.3), generates the transfer declaration, and keeps records in iBabs until your archive service confirms they arrived intact. iBabs Archive is designed to ISO 16175, the international standard for digital records management, and the underlying platform is ISO 27001 certified.
Conclusion
The Archiefwet 2026 is settled and the date is fixed. You have until 1 January 2027, and most of that time will go into arranging your processes rather than reading the act.
Start with your meeting process. Capture agendas, minutes, decisions and supporting papers in the right format, with the right metadata and labels that make clear what is kept and what is destroyed. iBabs offers a secure environment with an audit trail of what was decided and why, so the clerk's office is supported rather than overloaded.
References and further reading
- Nationaal Archief, the new Archives Act
- Nationaal Archief, restrictions on public access
- Digitale Overheid, Eerste Kamer approves the new Archives Act
- Digitale Overheid, Wet modernisering elektronisch bestuurlijk verkeer
- ICTRecht, the new Archives Act
- Woo compliance
- Transparency during elections
- Automating meeting workflows
- Managing actions and decisions
