BUDGET met?
Dutch public money · read from the reports governments file themselves
6%of the 342 Dutch municipalities spent no more in 2025 than the budget their council adopted.
Every November a municipal council adopts a budget for the year ahead. After the year it files the accounts. Both go to Statistics Netherlands in one format, line by line: over twenty million cells a year. We set them side by side for every municipality since 2017. In 2025 they spent €5.5 billion more than they budgeted (+7.2%), and received €9.4 billion more than they expected (+12%). 6 did not file both reports with CBS.
€33.6 bn budgeted, €37.3 bn spent
€6,565 m budgeted, €7,290 m spent
€7,462 m budgeted, €7,636 m spent
€5,143 m budgeted, €5,265 m spent
€2,692 m budgeted, €3,093 m spent
€7,029 m budgeted, €7,342 m spent
€3,332 m budgeted, €3,494 m spent
€6,674 m budgeted, €7,080 m spent
€2,866 m budgeted, €3,005 m spent
€13.3 bn budgeted, €13.7 bn spent
€1,711 m budgeted, €1,517 m spent
342 municipalities · 2017–2025 · 6,713 reports · 2,495,775 filled lines · spending on the budget scale: under ← within 2% → over
Policy areas
Where the budget gives way
The nine main policy areas every municipality reports on, and the two care budgets inside the social domain that decide most years: what the councils adopted in November, against what the accounts say was spent.
| Area | Budget 2025 | Spent | Gap |
|---|---|---|---|
| Governance and general revenueBestuur en ondersteuning | €13.3 bn | €13.7 bn | +3.4% |
| SafetyVeiligheid | €2,866 m | €3,005 m | +4.9% |
| Roads, transport and waterVerkeer, vervoer en waterstaat | €5,143 m | €5,265 m | +2.4% |
| EconomyEconomie | €1,711 m | €1,517 m | −11% |
| EducationOnderwijs | €3,332 m | €3,494 m | +4.9% |
| Sport, culture and recreationSport, cultuur en recreatie | €6,674 m | €7,080 m | +6.1% |
| Social domainSociaal domein | €33.6 bn | €37.3 bn | +11% |
| Health and environmentVolksgezondheid en milieu | €7,029 m | €7,342 m | +4.5% |
| Housing and planningVolkshuisvesting, leefomgeving en stedelijke vernieuwing | €2,692 m | €3,093 m | +15% |
| Youth careJeugdhulp | €6,565 m | €7,290 m | +11% |
| Care and support (Wmo)Wmo | €7,462 m | €7,636 m | +2.3% |
Year by year
Every year, a pattern
Spending and income against their budgets, for all municipalities together, and how many of them stayed within what they had adopted. The budget is the one adopted before the year began; the amendments councils pass during the year are part of the gap.
| Year | Filed both | Within budget | Spending budgeted | Spent | Gap |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2017 | 388 | 69 | €52.0 bn | €54.4 bn | +4.7% |
| 2018 | 380 | 44 | €52.3 bn | €56.0 bn | +7.1% |
| 2019 | 355 | 37 | €54.9 bn | €58.1 bn | +5.9% |
| 2020 | 355 | 11 | €56.9 bn | €62.3 bn | +9.5% |
| 2021 | 352 | 22 | €58.6 bn | €62.7 bn | +6.9% |
| 2022 | 345 | 12 | €59.3 bn | €64.9 bn | +9.4% |
| 2023 | 342 | 7 | €64.9 bn | €72.6 bn | +12% |
| 2024 | 342 | 16 | €71.4 bn | €77.6 bn | +8.8% |
| 2025 | 342 | 20 | €76.4 bn | €81.8 bn | +7.2% |
All 342
Every municipality, one square
Today's municipalities by province, each coloured by how far its spending landed from its budget — a cross where it did not file both reports, stripes where it filed with errors. Hover for the numbers, click to look one up.
Top 10s
The 10 worst and the 10 best
The 10 municipalities furthest over the budget their council adopted, and the 10 furthest under — as a share of that budget, so a town of 5,000 and a city of 900,000 compare. Not filing both reports, or filing them with errors, ranks worst of all, repeat offenders first. Pick a group to compare municipalities of a size, and an area to rank on that one. Ties share a rank. Click a name for its card.
Follow the money
The Municipalities Fund, from both ends
The largest single source of municipal income is the Gemeentefonds, a chapter of the national budget. The Ministry of Finance publishes what it planned and paid; the municipalities report what they budgeted and received. Two independent sources on one flow of money — they agree to within a few per cent, and both show it growing between plan and payment: the fund grows during the year, and so does municipal spending.
| Year | National budget: planned | Municipalities: budgeted | National budget: paid | Municipalities: received |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2017 | €27.1 bn | €26.9 bn | €27.8 bn | €27.8 bn |
| 2018 | €28.3 bn | €28.0 bn | €29.1 bn | €29.2 bn |
| 2019 | €30.1 bn | €30.1 bn | €31.3 bn | €31.0 bn |
| 2020 | €31.8 bn | €31.6 bn | €33.4 bn | €33.4 bn |
| 2021 | €32.8 bn | €32.4 bn | €35.0 bn | €35.3 bn |
| 2022 | €35.6 bn | €34.3 bn | €40.0 bn | €39.6 bn |
| 2023 | €40.5 bn | €38.7 bn | €42.2 bn | €41.2 bn |
| 2024 | €42.9 bn | €42.2 bn | €43.8 bn | €44.0 bn |
| 2025 | €44.9 bn | €44.4 bn | €47.7 bn | €47.7 bn |
The national budget
The ministries
Every chapter of the national budget: what Prinsjesdag presented, what the last amendment approved, and what was spent. Here a gap is not always a miss — debt management and state loans land on Finance, money moves between articles and funds, and the funds are paid from the ministries, so the chapters are never added up. Open a chapter to see its articles.
Provinces
The twelve provinces
The provinces file in that format too, on their own policy areas.
Look up
Look up a province or a municipality
The country or a province, totalled over the municipalities it had each year — or one municipality: its budget against its accounts, year by year and area by area, per inhabitant, and beside municipalities of its size.
Europe, next
EU cohesion money: allocated, and paid
The question, one level up. For 2021–2027 the EU allocated €1,641 million of cohesion money to the Netherlands' programmes; by 30 September 2026 it had paid 37.1% of it — 5th of 27 member states, against 28.4% across the EU, by the European Commission's own figures.
Net payments (pre-financing and interim) against the programmes' total EU allocation, 2021–2027 period, as of 30 September 2026. The period's money can be spent until 2029.
Method
How this was measured
Every number on this page comes from what governments report themselves. Nothing is estimated, imputed or scraped from PDFs; where the sources disagree or leave a gap, the page says so.
The source
Every municipality and province reports its budget and its annual accounts to Statistics Netherlands (CBS) in one standard format: every policy area (taakveld) against every kind of cost and income, unedited. We read every filing since 2017: 6,713 reports, 2,495,775 filled lines.
Budget and actual
Budget is the primary budget the council adopts in November for the year ahead — the plan before the year begins. Actual is the annual accounts, filed the summer after. Amendments passed during the year (begrotingswijzigingen) are not in what municipalities report to CBS, so they are part of the gap: a council that approved more spending mid-year still shows as over its original plan. That is the question the site asks — how far the year moved from the plan.
What counts as spending
All costs (lasten) and income (baten) on the policy areas, as the BBV rules total them before reserves. Left out: the two lines that move money rather than spend it — reserve movements (0.10) and the year's result (0.11) — and land development (8.2, grondexploitatie), where land is bought, serviced and sold and its costs are capitalised as stock, so both sides swing with deals rather than services. Including everything, our totals match CBS's own published totals to within about 1%. Amounts are CBS's latest release.
The rules
Every municipality must file its budget and its accounts with CBS, and file them right. A year without both reports is the worst result there is: nothing to hold the plan against. A report whose negative spending lines add up to more than 5% of its total is a filing error — a budget does not plan negative youth care. Both count as a budget not met and rank first among the worst; a municipality that breaks the rules again is shown as such. In 2017–2025: 31 years without both reports, 11 with a filing error.
Comparable years
The comparison starts in 2017: the BBV reform replaced the old function codes with today's policy areas that year. The social domain was recoded in 2023 and again in 2025; youth care and Wmo care are held together across both recodings. Every municipality CBS lists for a year is counted; the money is totalled over those that filed both reports. Mergers (388 municipalities in 2017, 342 now) change who is counted, never the totals of those that filed. A province is totalled over the municipalities it had in each year, by CBS's own map of that year.
The national budget
The Ministry of Finance publishes every budget article's stages: the budget presented on Prinsjesdag, the spring and autumn amendments, and the outturn. We compare Prinsjesdag with the outturn, and show the last amendment beside it. Chapters are never added up: the funds are paid from ministries, so a sum counts money twice.
Sources
Statistics Netherlands (CBS): municipal and provincial budgets and accounts, population, municipal boundaries (CC BY 4.0). Ministry of Finance: the national budget and its outturn. European Commission: EU cohesion money per member state. Compiled, checked and published by DopeCode. Built 2026-10-01.
Next
Where the targets go next
Water boards and joint arrangements
CBS's data also holds the 21 water boards and the 153 joint arrangements (gemeenschappelijke regelingen) through which municipalities run services together. The water boards are already fetched; their own coding is still to map.
The reasons
Why a line moved is written in the amendments and annual reports councils and ministries publish. Matching each gap to the decision behind it turns a number into an account.
Europe, every member state
Beyond cohesion money, the EU publishes the Commission's forecasts against the outturn, the recovery fund's milestones, and climate and digital targets against the measured values — per member state. One question, BUDGET met?, for all 27.