Postal Codes and Addresses in the Netherlands

Posting a letter in the Netherlands? Find out how to make sure your letter is properly addressed...

The Dutch national postal service is operated by TNT under the name PostNL.

Post Offices

Post offices in the Netherlands offer a wide range of services: they sell stamps (zegels), telephone cards, greeting cards, postcards, office supplies and shipping material. Larger post offices also have money changing facilities.There are no postcard stamps in the Netherlands, as the postage rate is the same for mailing a postcard or standard letter.

Roadside mail boxes where letters are posted are orange.

In general post office hours are Monday to Friday 09:00-17:00. However, in Rotterdam and Amsterdam there are all-night post offices and some major towns have post offices that stay open late on Thursday or Friday night and open on Saturday mornings.

• To locate your nearest post office and its hours of operation: Click here and enter the city name

Netherlands Postal Codes

Dutch postal codes are written as a sequence of four digits followed by two uppercase letters, for example 1234 AB. Until 2005 certain letters were not used for technical reasons (F, I, O, Q, U and Y), but to allow new combinations these letters are now used. For historical reasons the following combinations are not used: SS, SD and SA.

Here are two postcode finders to find addresses or postal codes in the Netherlands:

• To find an address or postal code with TNT: Click here (in Dutch)
• To find an address or post code with Postcode.nl: Click here (in English)

Dutch Addresses (how to read them)

Example:

• Boerhaavelaan 7,
  2500 DL Den Haag

The first line is the name of the street followed by the number. The first two digits of the postcode indicate a city and a region. The following two digits and letters indicate a range of house numbers usually on the same street. A postal code in the Netherlands usually covers eight single addresses.

When the street number is followed by a letter (14a) or range of letters (14a-c) it will always be in lower case to differentiate it from the two letters in the postal code.

Due to the length of many Dutch city names, they are sometimes shortened:

• 's-Gravenhage becomes Den Haag
• 's-Hertogenbosch becomes Den Bosch
• Alphen aan den Rijn becomes Alphen a/d Rijn
• Capelle aan den Ijssel becomes Capelle a/d Ijssel

Glossary of Postal Terms