In the Netherlands, a number of water supply companies are considering the use of reverse osmosis as a multifunctional barrier against salts, hardness, microorganisms and organic micropollutants such as pesticides. This paper presents the suitability of reverse osmosis as a barrier against organic micropollutants. For pesticide and organic contaminant removal following ozonation/GAC-filtration, reverse osmosis proves to be a safety barrier only. As a single or first stage barrier cellulose acetate membranes prove to be inadequate for pesticide and chlorophenol removal. Application of composite membranes looks very promising. Depending on the membrane type rejections greater than 97% can be achieved for pesticides such as simazine, atrazine, diuron, bentazon and DNOC and five chlorophenols allowing a feed concentration as high as 3.3 ug/l without exceeding the standard of 0.1 ug/l. Additional research is needed to prove reverse osmosis to be an universal barrier or that, post treatment i.e. GAC-filtration of the low DOC-permeate is needed.