The Dorenbos relation is an empirical model that relates the position of the lowest fd level of any lanthanide ion with that of Ce3+ in the same host lattice. The relation is widely used to estimate the energy of fd levels of trivalent lanthanide ions in a given host lattice based on the peak position of the lowest fd level of at least one of the lanthanide ions in that host. The energy of fd levels is determined from peak maxima in excitation and emission spectra. In this work we use the position of zero-phonon lines (ZPLs) as input to investigate the accuracy of the Dorenbos relation. To this end, the ZPL positions of the fd bands for trivalent lanthanide ions in four different host lattices (CaF2, Y3Al5O12, LiYF4, and YPO4) were obtained and used as input in the Dorenbos relation. The results are compared to those obtained through the standard procedure using band maxima. The data indicate that the ZPL approach gives more accurate estimates for the position of the lowest fd level with standard deviations that are 2–3 times smaller than those obtained for band maxima. The results confirm the concept of the Dorenbos model (constant energy difference between the fd levels of lanthanides) and show that the accuracy is even better than previously reported. The main cause for the larger deviation from positions of band maxima is related to a larger inaccuracy in determining band maxima compared to ZPLs. --------------------------------------------------------------------------------