Flood defences protect us from the water but are also integrated with many other functions such as housing and nature. This shared-use of the flood defences often comes with conservative estimates for a robust design that guarantees the flood safety. While having multi-functional flood defences generally impose restrictions on the design, some secondary uses near the dike could contribute to reducing flood risk. With the new probabilistic risk approach recently adopted in the Netherlands, the effect of the shared-use of flood defences on flood risk reduction is explored and a framework for multifunctional flood defences is developed.