Abstract This study examines the relationship between ambient dose H*, ambient dose equivalent H*(10), and effective dose E for external neutron irradiation over 163 operational spectra from different workplaces. The results show that H* provides a reasonable estimate with a controlled margin, even if overestimated, to assess E compared with H*(10), which can lead to a significant overestimation or underestimation of E depending on the neutron spectra. The results highlight the limitations of H*(10) and the superiority of H* in estimating E according to the requirements of the operational quantities, especially in environments with high-energy neutrons.