🇳🇱 Amsterdam · Schools
Schooling and childcare in Amsterdam
Free, high-quality Dutch state schools where places are allocated by a central system, alongside subsidised international streams and fully private international schools.
The thing people get wrongAmsterdam allocates school places centrally, and the deadlines run a year ahead of when parents expect. Primary registration happens around a child's third birthday and secondary places are matched by lottery — arriving in August and looking for a school is the wrong order.
The Dutch state system
State education is free apart from a voluntary parental contribution, and standards are consistently high. Primary school (basisschool) runs from four to twelve, and Amsterdam operates a citywide registration in which parents rank schools in order of preference; children are placed by a matching process weighted towards proximity. At the end of primary, a combination of the teacher's advice and a national test steers a child towards vmbo, havo or vwo, which shapes the rest of their education.
- Register a preference list in the term around your child's third birthday.
- Secondary places in Amsterdam are matched by a central lottery weighted by preference.
- Children with no Dutch go through a newcomer class (nieuwkomersklas, or ISK for teenagers) first.
International and bilingual options
Amsterdam and Amstelveen have a well-established international sector, split between subsidised Dutch international schools — cheaper, but generally restricted to families who are in the Netherlands temporarily or hold a foreign nationality — and fully private international schools. Both are heavily oversubscribed, and admission is usually settled in the winter for the following August. Some Dutch state secondaries also run bilingual streams (tweetalig onderwijs), which are free and academically demanding.
- Subsidised international schools have eligibility criteria — check them before planning around one.
- Private international fees run to five figures a year, plus registration and capital charges.
- Bilingual (TTO) streams in state schools are an underused middle option.
Childcare before school
Daycare (kinderopvang) for the under-fours is private, expensive and has waiting lists long enough that people register during pregnancy. Working parents can claim the childcare allowance (kinderopvangtoeslag) from the Belastingdienst, which reimburses a substantial share of the cost depending on income and hours. After-school care (buitenschoolse opvang) is arranged separately and books up just as quickly.
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