Cost of living in Netherlands

Statistics Netherlands (CBS) — Budgetonderzoek (Household Budget Survey) 2020: average spending of one-person households (StatLine 85419NED) and its structure by spending category (StatLine 85420NED) ↗

Curated by SettleMetric

Data as of

Dec 31, 2025

Verified

Oct 21, 2026

Method

One-person households spent €23,600 a year in Statistics Netherlands' 2020 Household Budget Survey (Budgetonderzoek; StatLine 85419NED, 'all spending' for 'Type: Eenpersoonshuishouden', rounded by CBS to €100), i.e. €1,966.67 a month. The 2020 wave is the newest published (the next survey is planned for 2026, with results expected at the end of 2027), so the amount is lifted to 2025 prices with the Dutch HICP from the 2020 to the 2025 annual average (106.96 → 135.86, ×1.2702; Eurostat prc_hicp_aind, all items, 2015=100): €2,498.05 a month. Rent is removed: in StatLine 85420NED actual rentals are 18.3% and the imputed rent of owner-occupiers 13.2% of one-person households' spending in 2020, which leaves 68.5%: €1,711.16 × 1.1215 USD/EUR (ECB, 2026-10-20) = $1,919. The 16 remaining lines (CBS spending categories, with housing split into energy, water and services, and maintenance) are summed in cost-breakdown.

Notes

2020 was the pandemic year: restaurants and hotels fell from 5.4% of one-person households' spending in 2015 to 3.7%, and package holidays from 1.2% to 0.3%, and the price uplift does not correct that pattern, so the figure is more likely low than high. One-person households include pensioners; for singles below pension age CBS shows €24,300 a year for men and €22,500 for women (2020, all spending), which at the same shares and uplift would be about $1,976 and $1,830 a month. CBS counts consumption taxes (motor vehicle tax, water-board levy: 1.2%) and charitable giving (0.4%) as spending and both are kept. CBS has no line for the compulsory basic health insurance premium: its only insurance line for illness is supplementary cover, 0.5% of spending, so the premium is not in this figure. The Rijksoverheid's page on health-insurance costs gives the average premium people pay their insurer in 2026 as €1,884 a year (about $176 a month at 1.1215) and the compulsory annual deductible as €385. A uniform HICP uplift is crude: applying the Dutch HICP of each spending category instead (food ×1.31, housing ×1.36, alcohol and tobacco ×1.50, communication ×0.91) gives $1,900, 1% lower. Eurostat's HBS 2020 for the Netherlands (hbs_exp_t134: PPS 22,033 a year for one adult) is the same CBS survey, but its structure (hbs_str_t224) puts miscellaneous goods and services at 147 per mille against 6.6% in CBS's table, which points to a health-insurance premium in Eurostat's transmission that CBS's table leaves out; the Malta route (PPS to euro at the survey's own ratio) would therefore mix two scopes and was not used. CBS's euro figures need no conversion.

Nederlandse Zorgautoriteit (NZa) — Informatiekaart Zorgverzekeringen 2026 (published 15 December 2025): average premium of the 59 basic-insurance policies offered for 2026 ↗

Official source

Data as of

Jan 1, 2026

Verified

Oct 21, 2026

Method

The NZa's average of the nominal premiums of all 59 basic-insurance (basisverzekering) policies offered for 2026 (37 natura and 22 combination policies; no restitution policy since 2025): EUR 158.39 a month = EUR 1,900.68 a year = $2,132 at 1 EUR = 1.1215 USD (ECB reference rate of 2026-10-20). The premiums were announced by every insurer by 12 November 2025 and apply from 1 January 2026, so this is a realised market figure, not an estimate; it is an unweighted mean over policies, not over insured people. It is not a sample of three quotes: every adult pays the same community-rated premium for a given policy, whatever their age or health, so no age or health adjustment applies to a healthy 35-year-old.

Notes

The Netherlands is the closest analogue to Switzerland in this dataset: the basic insurance (basisverzekering, Zorgverzekeringswet) is a legal duty for everyone who lives in the country or works there under Dutch wage tax (Rijksoverheid: take it out within 4 months), it is sold by private insurers who by law must accept everyone, whatever their age or health, and may not ask a higher premium for it (Rijksoverheid), and it is already counted inside the freelancer tax burden. It is a bill, not a choice. It buys more than the criterion asks for: the basic package has no benefit ceiling, where the criterion assumes about $100k. It differs from the criterion's 'small deductible' in one way: a compulsory deductible (eigen risico) of EUR 385 in 2026 (about $432), which covers much hospital and specialist care and some medicines but not GP, maternity or district-nursing care (Vektis glossary); a voluntary deductible of EUR 100 to 500 more lowers the premium (Rijksoverheid). For 2027 the cabinet's September 2026 budget plans EUR 400. Other whole-market figures for 2026: the VWS budget estimated the average nominal premium at EUR 1,908 a year (EUR 159 a month; an estimate made in September 2025, Kamerstuk 36800-XVI nr. 2, table 17); Rijksoverheid states EUR 1,884 a year (EUR 157 a month) as the average premium people pay in 2026, without giving its basis; Vektis (the healthcare data centre of the insurers, not a public body) reports EUR 1,879 a year per premium-paying insured adult over 18, weighted by enrolment and before collective and voluntary-deductible discounts, which is about $2,107. The NZa puts the spread between the dearest and the cheapest policy at EUR 42.10 a month, so a cheaper choice exists. Because the figure here is the unweighted mean of all policies on offer, it sits slightly above what insured people pay on average. Not in this premium: the income-related Zvw contribution, collected through the employer or the tax authority, which in 2026 is a 6.10% employer levy on wages and 4.85% on the income of the self-employed up to EUR 79,409 (Belastingdienst); and optional supplementary insurance (aanvullende verzekering; 163 products in 2026, priced freely by each insurer, which may refuse applicants), for which the NZa information card gives no average premium, so no figure is stated here. For 2027 VWS expects the average premium to rise by EUR 12.50 a month to about EUR 169 a month (Rijksoverheid, 15 September 2026); insurers announce their 2027 premiums by 12 November 2026, so this value is due for re-reading then. The tax schemes use the Rijksoverheid's average of EUR 1,884 a year (EUR 157 a month, the 'geraamde gemiddelde nominale premie' in the Regeling vaststelling standaardpremie 2026); the NZa figure here is an unweighted mean of the policies on offer and is EUR 17 a year higher.