Ask whether the Netherlands is a good place to live and most answers online are opinions: forum threads, and lists of pros and cons from removal companies. This story answers with the official figures instead. On most of them the Netherlands does well. People rate their lives 7.6 out of 10, above the EU average of 7.2, and unemployment is among the lowest in Europe. On two it stands out the other way: prices are high, and more people report crime or vandalism in their area than almost anywhere else in the EU.
The Netherlands against the EU average
All figures come from Eurostat, the EU statistics office, for the most recent year available, via official open data. The rank compares the Netherlands with the 27 EU member states. For satisfaction, unemployment, life expectancy, crime and housing costs, 1 is the best score; for part-time work and prices, 1 is simply the highest.
| Measure | Netherlands | EU average | Rank in the EU | Year |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Life satisfaction, 0 to 10 | 7.6 | 7.2 | 9 of 27 | 2025 |
| Unemployment | 3.9% | 6.0% | 6 of 27 | 2025 |
| Part-time workers | 42.7% | 17.7% | 1 of 27 | 2025 |
| Life expectancy at birth | 81.9 years | 81.5 years | 16 of 27 | 2024 |
| People reporting crime or vandalism nearby | 16.7% | 10.0% | 26 of 27 | 2023 |
| People spending over 40% of income on housing | 6.5% | 7.7% | 17 of 27 | 2025 |
| Price level | 120 | 100 | 6 of 27 | 2025 |
No country leads on everything, and the Netherlands has a clear profile: satisfied, employed, working fewer hours, paying more, and less at ease about crime in the neighbourhood. The sections below take the measures one by one.
People are satisfied with their lives
Asked to rate their life as a whole, Dutch adults give it 7.6 out of 10, 9th of the 27 member states. The highest scores are in Romania and Finland, at 7.8, and Denmark at 7.7. Germany scores 7.0 and Belgium 7.6.
The differences at the top are small: a few tenths of a point separate the Netherlands from the leaders. The gap is larger at the bottom, where Bulgaria scores 6.3.
Work is easy to find, and often part-time
Unemployment in the Netherlands was 3.9 percent in 2025, against 6.0 percent across the EU, the 6th lowest of the 27.
What sets the country apart is how people work. 42.7 percent of workers have a part-time job, by far the highest share in the EU; next is Austria at 30.1 percent, and the EU average is 17.7. For anyone moving here, a part-time contract is an ordinary option rather than an exception.
Crime: what people report and what the police register
In Eurostat's household survey, 16.7 percent of Dutch people said crime, violence or vandalism is a problem in their area, against 10.0 percent across the EU. Only Greece scores higher. Since 2014 the Dutch figure has stayed between 15.0 and 18.5 percent, so it is not a one-year blip.
This is a question about how people experience their neighbourhood, not a count of crimes. The police registered 9.4 safety crimes per 1,000 residents nationally in 2024, and the rate differs hugely between cities and neighbourhoods, as our comparison of Dutch cities shows.
Expensive, but housing costs are less often a burden
Prices for what households consume were about 20 percent above the EU average in 2025, the 6th highest of the 27; our story on whether the Netherlands is expensive breaks that down by category.
Yet fewer people are overburdened by housing costs than in the EU as a whole: 6.5 percent spend more than 40 percent of their disposable income on housing, against 7.7 percent across the EU and 11.2 percent in Germany. That says nothing about how hard it is to find a home, only about what people pay once they have one.
Life expectancy is close to the EU average
A baby born in the Netherlands in 2024 could expect to live 81.9 years, close to the EU average of 81.5 and 16th of the 27. The highest is in Spain, at 84.0 years.
The EU figure for that year is an estimate and still provisional, so treat the small gap with care. On this measure the Netherlands is neither a leader nor a laggard.
What these figures do and do not tell you
National averages describe the country, not your experience of it. They leave out much of what decides whether a move works, such as the job, the language, the weather and how long it takes to find a home, and they hide large differences between cities and neighbourhoods.
Use them to set expectations, then look at the place itself. You can compare cities and neighbourhoods in the explorer, browse the cities we cover, read which city fits which kind of move, or see how the figures are built on our data sources page.