STEK annual report: when is the deadline?

Every STEK-recognised company has to submit a refrigerant annual report every year. The logical follow-up question: by exactly which date? That question often comes up as the year-end approaches — and the honest answer is more nuanced than one calendar date that applies to everyone.

What the STEK annual report actually covers

The annual report is the statement of your refrigerant changes over the past year: installed charge per refrigerant type, additions, recoveries and the leak percentage calculated from those. What exactly needs to be in it and how the leak percentage is assessed is described in detail in The STEK quality mark — what it is, what it gets you and how to keep it. This article deals specifically with the question of when you have to submit that statement.

Is there one fixed submission date for everyone?

We searched the public documentation on stek.nl (opent in nieuw tabblad) — the technical-requirements documents per module (A, B, D, E), the FAQ page and the page with examples and procedures — and could not find a nationally published calendar date, the same for all participants, by which the annual report has to be in. That doesn't mean there is no deadline: STEK works with a participant platform in which deadlines like this are usually communicated per account, and that correspondence is (logically) not publicly searchable.

So don't assume a fixed date from this or any other article you find about it. Check your own deadline on the STEK participant platform (opent in nieuw tabblad), or ask directly at STEK Deelnemers via deelnemers@stek.nl. STEK can be reached by phone on (035) 542 75 20, Monday to Thursday from 8.30am to 5.00pm and on Friday from 8.30am to 12.00pm (source: stek.nl/contact (opent in nieuw tabblad)).

The cadence you can plan for

Even without one hard date, you can make the process predictable by not waiting until the end of the year:

• Record changes immediately, not afterwards. Recording every ADDITION and RECOVERY separately as soon as you make it prevents you from having to reconstruct half a year of receipts in December. See F-gas logbook: what needs to be in it? for exactly what a logbook that adds up requires.
• Check your refrigerant balance monthly. The difference between installed and theoretically present refrigerant is the first indicator of a leak or a missed change. A practical guide to the refrigerant balance shows how you check that every month without hassle, instead of only at the year-end close.
• Deliberately set aside time after the year-end to check the annual figures before you submit them — even if you yourself aren't sure exactly when the deadline falls, this way you're never caught empty-handed if STEK asks for them.
• Set your own internal reminder, for example at the start of January, to check the date on your participant platform and put it in your calendar. That way you don't depend on a STEK email ending up in spam.

In Koldwerk you don't have to keep track of the first two points manually: the refrigerant module registers every change at the moment itself, and the reports module turns that data into a STEK-compliant annual report with one export button — so that, as soon as you know the exact submission date, all you have to do is export instead of reconstruct.

What happens if you're late (or think you might be)?

STEK's public documentation doesn't specify fixed fine amounts or an automatic sanction period for a missed annual-report deadline. For deviations that STEK identifies during assessment, a process of warning and improvement plan is customary, which on repetition can lead to withdrawal of the recognition (see the overview article above for that procedure in detail). It's plausible that a structurally late or incompletely submitted annual report is handled in a comparable way to an audit finding, but we haven't been able to find a specifically published sanction policy for that. Not sure whether you're late (or at risk of being late)? Then proactively contact deelnemers@stek.nl — in practice that almost always works better than waiting.

Further reading

• The STEK quality mark — what it is, what it gets you and how to keep it — the full overview of requirements, leak rate and what needs to be in the annual report.
• STEK vs BRL 100 — what is the difference, and which one do you need? — for anyone who still mixes up the two quality marks.
• Refrigerant balance: a practical guide — how you check monthly whether your balance is correct, instead of only at the year-end close.

Disclaimer: For this page, the publicly available documentation on stek.nl was consulted; it did not publish a fixed submission date for the annual report that is the same for all participants. For your exact deadline and any consequences of missing it, always rely on your own STEK participant platform or contact deelnemers@stek.nl — not on this article.