Factoring debt position in the Netherlands 2015-2019

In 2019, nearly 11 billion euros of outstanding bills of Dutch companies, or debiteurenpositie, was covered by factoring, an increase of around seven percent when compared to 2018. Factoring is a transaction in which a business sells its accounts receivable (also known as invoices), to a third-party financial company (called a factor). The factor then collects payment on those invoices from the business’s customers. The main reason that companies choose to factor is that they want to receive cash quickly, so they can meet their immediate cash needs, rather than waiting the 30 to 60 days it often takes for customers to pay their bills. For this reason, and as can be seen in this statistic, factoring in the Netherlands is mostly associated with SMEs.