Is the Netherlands expensive to live in?

Ask whether the Netherlands is expensive and the answer depends on where you are coming from. Measured against the rest of Europe, it is: prices for what households buy were about 20 percent above the EU average in 2025. Measured against the United States or the United Kingdom, it is cheaper. The official comparison puts the US about 19 percent and the UK about 6 percent above the Dutch price level.

How Dutch prices compare with other countries

Eurostat, the EU statistics office, compares price levels across countries every year, with the EU average set at 100. The figure below covers everything households consume, from food and rent to transport and haircuts, including health care and education paid for by the state, converted at market exchange rates. It comes from official open data.

Of the 39 countries in the comparison, the Netherlands ranks 11th. It is pricier than Belgium, Germany and France, and clearly cheaper than Ireland, Denmark or Switzerland.

The Netherlands has become relatively cheaper for Americans and Britons

Between 2020 and 2025 the Dutch price level stayed almost flat against the EU average, 121 then 120. Over the same years the US went from 135 to 143 and the UK from 122 to 128. In 2020 Dutch and British prices were close; by 2025 the gap had opened up.

Part of that is exchange rates rather than prices in the shops, because the comparison converts everything to euros. For someone paid in dollars or pounds, though, that is exactly the effect they feel when they move.

What is expensive in the Netherlands, and what is not

The overall level hides big differences by category. The table compares the Netherlands with its neighbours Germany and Belgium, and with Ireland, another English-speaking option inside the EU. 100 is the EU average.

Housing and energy is the most expensive category in the Netherlands, at 134, level with Belgium and far below Ireland at 190. Groceries are a surprise: at 99 they are just under the EU average and cheaper than in Germany, Belgium or France. Clothing and shoes are the cheapest category, at 93.

The bigger split is between goods and services. Goods in the Netherlands sit at 109, services at 131. Anything that involves someone's working time, from a restaurant meal to a plumber, costs noticeably more than the things you can buy off a shelf.

Housing is where the money goes

The housing figure above is a national average and includes rents, energy and water. What a home costs in practice depends on the city. The average existing home sold for €479,527 in 2025, with big differences between cities, which we break down in our story on home prices.

Prices are only half of the picture; what people earn is the other half. The average Dutch household had about €61.6k a year to spend after tax in 2024, and our story on income by city shows how that varies.

What these figures do and do not tell you

A price level index compares countries, not cities, and not your personal budget. Homes in Amsterdam sold for about €631k on average in 2025, far above the national figure, and a household that rents spends its money very differently from one that owns. The index also moves with exchange rates.

Use it to set expectations, then look at the place you are moving to. You can compare neighbourhoods on price and the other figures that matter to you in the explorer, open a city, or see how the figures are built on our data sources page.