Recovering refrigerant: the rules, the certificate and the balance
During maintenance, repair and disposal, refrigerant must be recovered — not vented. Who is allowed to do that, what happens to it, and how you record it so your balance closes.
BRL 100 and STEK are Dutch national certification schemes — full support today is NL-only. See our honest country-coverage disclosure.
Letting refrigerant escape is not just bad for the climate — it's prohibited. The F-gas Regulation requires you to recover F-gases instead of blowing them off. For the refrigeration installer, recovery is therefore not a separate action but a fixed part of every intervention in which the system is opened. This article sets out the rules, the certificate requirements and the record-keeping.
The ban on venting
The core rule is simple: F-gases must not be knowingly vented into the atmosphere. During maintenance, repair and at the end of an installation's service life, the refrigerant must be recovered by certified personnel. This is set out in the F-gas Regulation and applies to all fluorinated greenhouse gases — the common HFCs (R-410A, R-404A, R-134a) as well as the HFO/HFC blends (R-32, R-454B). For natural refrigerants such as R-290 (propane), the F-gas regime doesn't apply, but other safety rules do come into play there.
Who is allowed to recover refrigerant?
Recovery is reserved for a technician with a valid F-gas personal certificate (BRL 200), working for a company holding the F-gas company certificate. The category of the personal certificate determines which work is permitted — from leak checking to full recovery and decommissioning. Work without a valid certificate is a direct finding at an ILT inspection or a BRL 100/STEK audit.
What happens to the recovered refrigerant?
Recovered refrigerant doesn't disappear — it takes one of three routes:
1. Recycling — reused internally in a comparable system after a basic cleaning (filtering, drying). 2. Reclamation — cleaned to virgin-equivalent specification by a specialised company, so it can be sold again as a full-grade refrigerant. 3. Destruction — disposed of at a licensed processing facility, mainly for heavily contaminated or phased-out refrigerants.
Which route applies depends on the quality and the type. With the quota reduction under EU 2024/573, reclaimed refrigerant is also becoming more commercially attractive: it doesn't count towards the quota for newly produced gas.
Recovery belongs in the balance
Every recovery is a change entry in your refrigerant balance. The refrigerant leaves the installation and goes to your own stock cylinder, to a reclamation company, or to destruction. If you don't record that, your balance won't close — and a balance that doesn't close is exactly what an auditor will probe. So record, per intervention: how many kilos, which type, and the destination.
How Koldwerk supports this
In Koldwerk, recovery is a change type in the refrigerant administration. On a work order where you recover refrigerant, you book the recovered quantity to the correct cylinder or destination, so the kg and CO₂-equivalent balance per type closes automatically. The change enters the append-only audit trail and the BRL 100 audit pack — provable, not just intended.
Further reading
- Refrigerant balance: a practical guide — how you keep the records closing
- BRL 200 F-gas personal certificate — your technicians' authorisation
- New F-gas Regulation (EU 2024/573) — quotas, bans and reclamation
Disclaimer: practical guidance based on Regulation (EU) 517/2014 and (EU) 2024/573. Implementing requirements around certification and processing may change — consult the official source, your Certification Body or the ILT for the version in force. Not legal advice.
Frequently asked questions
Is it mandatory to recover refrigerant?
Yes. The F-gas Regulation prohibits venting F-gases into the atmosphere. During maintenance, repair and disposal of an installation, the refrigerant must be recovered by certified personnel, so that it can be reused, reclaimed or destroyed.
Who is allowed to recover refrigerant?
A technician with a valid F-gas personal certificate (BRL 200, category A1/A2/B/C depending on the work) working for a company holding the F-gas company certificate. Without a certificate, you may not carry out refrigerant work.
What happens to recovered refrigerant?
It is recycled (reused internally after a basic cleaning), reclaimed (cleaned to virgin-equivalent specification by a specialised company) or destroyed at a licensed facility. Which route applies depends on the quality and the type of refrigerant.
Does recovery need to go into the refrigerant balance?
Yes. Recovery is a change entry that counts towards your closing refrigerant balance: it leaves the installation and goes back to stock, to a reclamation company, or to destruction. Without that record, your balance won't close and it will stand out at audit.