Population of the Netherlands 2010-2026, by religion

How the Religious Make-Up of the Netherlands Changed, 2010-2026

The Netherlands offers one of the clearest pictures of secularisation anywhere in the Western world. In the space of a single generation it has gone from a country with a religious majority to one where most people report no faith at all. The share of the population with no religious denomination has climbed from around 45% in 2010 to roughly 58% by 2026, while every major Christian church has shrunk. This steady erosion of organised religion sits at the opposite end of the spectrum from the still-dominant Catholicism mapped in our churches and religious associations in Poland analysis. Where Poland counts believers in the great majority, the Netherlands now counts them as a minority, a contrast that captures the wide range of religious experience within Europe. It is a transformation that has unfolded largely without conflict, the quiet by-product of generational change rather than any dramatic break with the past.

The roots of Dutch secularisation reach back to the 1960s. For much of the twentieth century the Netherlands was organised into religious and ideological pillars, a system known as verzuiling, in which Catholics, Protestants and the secular each had their own schools, newspapers, broadcasters and political parties. From the 1960s these pillars began to crumble in a process called ontzuiling, as rising prosperity, education and individualism loosened the grip of the churches. What began then has continued ever since, so that the figures for 2010 to 2026 are simply the latest stretch of a decline that has been running for more than half a century. Understanding that long backdrop is essential to making sense of how quickly faith has receded.

The decline has been broad but uneven. The Roman Catholic Church, historically the largest single denomination, has fallen the furthest, from about 27% of the population in 2010 to around 16% in 2026, while the Protestant churches have slipped from 18% to 12%. Islam, by contrast, has held broadly steady at around 6%, and a small but slightly growing group follow other faiths. This pattern of shrinking Christianity beside stable minority religions is a recurring feature of Western European secularisation, traced more widely in our religion in Europe analysis. The Dutch case is notable mainly for how far and how fast the change has gone, leaving the country among the most secular in the region. The speed of that change, compressing into fifteen years a shift that took far longer elsewhere, is what makes the Dutch case such a striking object of study for anyone tracking the future of religion in the West.

Behind the headline figures lies a deep generational divide. Religion in the Netherlands is increasingly the preserve of the old: around two-thirds of people over 75 report a faith, against only about a third of those under 35. As older, more religious generations pass on and are replaced by largely secular younger ones, the overall religious share continues to fall, a momentum that is hard to reverse. Set against the global balance of faiths in our world religions analysis, the Netherlands looks like a preview of where much of wealthy Europe may be heading. This report breaks the trend down by denomination, by the religious-secular split and by practice from 2010 to 2026. Each section that follows isolates one thread of that story, but the underlying pattern is consistent throughout: a society steadily and, so far, irreversibly loosening its ties to organised faith across every measure available.

Religious Composition of the Netherlands: Full Table

The table sets the scale of change in stark terms. In 2010 the religious and non-religious halves of the country were almost balanced, at 55% and 45%; by 2026 the non-religious have pulled clearly ahead at 58%, and the religious have fallen to 42%. The Roman Catholic column tells the sharpest story, dropping eleven points to become a much-diminished largest faith, while the Protestant churches have lost a third of their 2010 share. Only Islam and the small 'other' category have grown, and only modestly. Read across the two columns, the table is essentially the story of Christianity receding and a secular majority emerging, with minority faiths holding their ground at the margins. It is the demographic signature of a society that has moved decisively away from organised religion. The numbers leave little room for ambiguity, recording not a gentle drift but a wholesale realignment of how the Dutch relate to religion in the space of a decade and a half.

The Religious Composition of the Netherlands in 2026

Seen as a single snapshot, the Netherlands of 2026 is a majority-secular country with a Christian and Muslim minority. Around 58% report no religion, about 16% are Roman Catholic, 12% Protestant, 6% Muslim and the remaining 8% follow other faiths, including Hinduism, Buddhism, Judaism and smaller Christian groups. No religious group comes close to the non-religious majority, and the largest faith, Catholicism, accounts for less than a fifth of the population. This distribution, set against the worldwide spread of people and beliefs in our world population analysis, places the Netherlands firmly among the post-Christian societies of north-western Europe, where no single faith any longer commands majority allegiance and the absence of religion has become the norm rather than the exception. For a country that organised its schools, newspapers and political parties around religious lines within living memory, the scale of that reversal is difficult to overstate, and it has reshaped public life as much as private belief.

It is worth noting that no religious denomination does not always mean strict atheism. Surveys distinguish between those who actively reject belief and a larger group who simply no longer identify with any church, including many who hold vague spiritual or ietsist beliefs, a Dutch term for a sense that there must be something beyond the material world. This unchurched spirituality means the religious landscape is less a clean divide between believers and atheists than a broad spectrum, with committed church members at one end, convinced non-believers at the other, and a large, fluid middle in between. The headline figures capture formal affiliation, but the lived reality of Dutch belief is more varied than a single percentage can show.

The Decline of Roman Catholicism

Roman Catholicism remains the largest faith in the Netherlands, but it is also the fastest-shrinking. The Catholic share of the population has fallen from about 27% in 2010 to around 16% in 2026, a loss of more than a third in fifteen years, and Catholics are now among the oldest religious groups, with an average age approaching sixty. Active practice is lower still, with only a small fraction attending Mass regularly. This steep slide echoes the wider retreat of the Catholic Church across northern Europe, including the trends in our Catholic population in Germany analysis. Once the anchor of religious life in the southern Netherlands, the Church now faces ageing congregations, closing parishes and a steady drift of nominal members into the non-religious majority, with little sign of renewal among the young. Without a substantial influx of young Catholics, whether through birth or conversion, the Church's share seems set to keep falling for the foreseeable future.

The Protestant Churches

The Protestant churches carry deep historical weight in the Netherlands, which was a Calvinist stronghold for centuries, yet today they are a modest minority. Their combined share, spanning the Protestant Church in the Netherlands and the older Reformed bodies, has fallen from about 18% in 2010 to around 12% in 2026. Protestantism was overtaken in size by Catholicism during the twentieth century and has continued to contract, though it retains pockets of strength in the so-called Bible Belt running across the country. Protestants are notable for higher rates of active attendance than Catholics, a pattern of committed minorities also visible in our Evangelical church members in Germany analysis. The historic faith of the Dutch Republic now survives as a smaller, but in places more devout, strand of national life. The contrast between a shrinking national share and pockets of intense local devotion is one of the defining features of Dutch Protestantism today, and a reminder that averages conceal sharp regional variation.

Islam in the Netherlands

Against the decline of the Christian churches, Islam stands out for its stability. The Muslim share of the Dutch population has held at around 5% to 6% throughout the period, making Islam the third-largest religious identity in the country, after Catholicism and Protestantism. Dutch Muslims are predominantly of Turkish and Moroccan heritage, with smaller communities from Suriname, Afghanistan and elsewhere, and they are a notably young population, with an average age in the thirties. Although small, the community is often overestimated by the public, a Europe-wide misperception explored alongside the real figures in our countries with the largest Muslim population analysis. As Christian identification fades and the Muslim share holds steady, Islam is gradually becoming a larger part of the country's shrinking religious total. As the Christian denominations continue to contract, this stability means Islam's relative weight within the religious population is slowly rising, even as its share of the whole country barely moves.

Migration has reshaped the religious map as much as secularisation. The stability of the Muslim share reflects established Turkish and Moroccan communities and continued, if modest, immigration, while newer arrivals from eastern Europe, Latin America and Africa have brought their own Catholic, Orthodox and Pentecostal traditions. These flows partly offset the decline of native Dutch Christianity, slowing the fall of some denominations and adding to the diverse other category. Without immigration, the Christian share would likely have fallen further still. Religion in the Netherlands is therefore increasingly a tale of two dynamics: a secularising native-born majority on one hand, and a more religious, often younger immigrant-origin population on the other, pulling the overall figures in opposite directions.

Change in Share by Religious Group, 2010-2026

Setting the groups side by side shows where the change has been concentrated. The non-religious gained around thirteen percentage points between 2010 and 2026, the mirror image of losses elsewhere; the Roman Catholic Church lost about eleven points, the Protestant churches around six, while Islam rose by roughly one point and other faiths by three. In other words, almost all of the growth in the secular majority came directly at the expense of the two big Christian churches. This redistribution, from inherited Christianity toward no religion, is the engine of Dutch secularisation, and it parallels the falling Catholic identification charted in our Catholic Church adherents in Poland analysis, even though Poland starts from a far higher base. The direction is the same across Europe; only the speed and starting point differ. The Netherlands, in this sense, is not an outlier but a frontrunner, showing earlier and more completely a change that is gradually working its way across the continent.

The Religious and Non-Religious Split

The single most important threshold in the data is the crossover between the religious and the non-religious. In 2010 the religious still formed a slim majority, at about 55% against 45%; by 2026 that has reversed decisively, with the non-religious at 58% and the religious at 42%. The Netherlands crossed the halfway line during the 2010s and has not looked back, joining a small but growing group of countries where the irreligious are the majority. This shift in the basic religious-secular balance, rather than any change within the faiths, is what most sets the modern Netherlands apart, much as belief itself has weakened in our belief in God in the UK analysis. A country once defined by its religious pillars is now defined, statistically at least, by their absence. That single crossover, from religious to secular majority, is the hinge on which the entire dataset turns, and the moment that most clearly marks the country's transformation.

The institutional consequences of this decline are visible across the country. Hundreds of churches have closed or been repurposed as homes, shops, libraries and cultural venues, and the Roman Catholic Church in particular has merged parishes and reduced clergy to cope with shrinking, ageing congregations. The financial base of the churches has weakened as donations and membership fall, while their voice in public debates over ethics, education and end-of-life law has diminished. Yet religious institutions retain influence out of proportion to their numbers in certain areas, from faith schools, which remain popular, to charitable work. The fading of the churches is thus not a clean disappearance but a slow, uneven retreat from the centre of national life.

The Religious Landscape in 2010

To appreciate the scale of change, it helps to look back at the starting point. In 2010 the Netherlands was still a country where religion claimed a small majority: about 45% had no denomination, but 27% were Roman Catholic, 18% Protestant, 5% Muslim and 5% of other faiths. Catholics and Protestants together made up nearly half the population, and the religious-secular balance was finely poised. That 2010 profile already reflected decades of decline from a far more religious mid-twentieth century, when the great majority of Dutch people were churchgoing Christians, a long arc comparable to the shifts traced in our religious people in England and Wales by religion analysis. From this near-balanced baseline, the following fifteen years tipped the country firmly into the secular column. Viewed from that near-even starting line, the steady accumulation of small annual changes into a decisive secular majority is all the more striking for how undramatic each individual year appeared.

The Netherlands Among Europe's Secular Nations

Placed beside its neighbours, the Netherlands ranks among the most secular countries in Europe, though not quite the most. Its non-religious share of around 58% is higher than Sweden, the United Kingdom and France, and far above traditionally Catholic countries such as Spain or Poland, but it remains below Czechia, frequently described as the least religious nation in Europe. This puts the Netherlands firmly in the secular north-west of the continent, part of the broad gradient from religious east and south to secular north and west mapped in our population by religious community in Finland analysis. The Dutch trajectory, from religious majority to secular majority within living memory, illustrates the speed at which long-established patterns of belief can give way once secularisation takes hold. Its position on that European gradient is a useful reminder that secularisation is not a single global wave but a patchwork, advancing at very different speeds in different national contexts.

Religious Attendance in the Netherlands

Identification with a religion is one thing; active practice is another, and in the Netherlands the gap is wide. The share of people who attend a religious service at least once a month has fallen from about 18% in 2010 to around 12% by 2026, so that even many who name a religion rarely take part in it. Catholics, the largest group, attend the least often, while Protestants and Muslims show higher rates of regular participation. This gulf between nominal belonging and real practice, common across the secularising West, mirrors the pattern among nominal believers in our believers of a religion other than Catholicism in Spain analysis. As both identification and attendance decline together, the Netherlands illustrates how secularisation works on two fronts at once, hollowing out practice even faster than affiliation. The result is that the true religious core of the country, those who both identify and actively practise, is considerably smaller than even the headline affiliation figures suggest.

Age is the single best predictor of religion in the modern Netherlands. Religious identification rises steeply with age, from around a third of the youngest adults to roughly two-thirds of the over-75s, and the most devout cohorts are precisely those now passing from the scene. Because each new generation enters adulthood less religious than the one before, and because the religious are concentrated among the elderly, simple demographic replacement guarantees further decline regardless of any change in individual attitudes. This built-in momentum is why analysts expect the non-religious share to keep growing, and why the 2024 pause is widely read as a likely blip rather than a reversal of the underlying generational trend.

Taken together, the data charts one of Europe's most complete transitions from a religious to a secular society. In fifteen years the Netherlands has moved from a near-even religious-secular balance to a clear secular majority of around 58%, driven above all by the decline of the Roman Catholic and Protestant churches, while Islam and other minority faiths have held their modest ground. The change is generational and appears largely one-directional, with each younger cohort less religious than the last, even allowing for the small pause recorded in 2024. For researchers, the Netherlands serves as a leading indicator of where other wealthy, historically Christian countries may be heading. The key measures to watch are the pace of Catholic decline, the resilience of Protestant and Muslim practice, and whether the 2024 flattening proves to be a genuine turning point or merely a brief interruption in a long secular trend. That question, more than any single percentage, will shape the next chapter of religion in the Netherlands.

For students of religion, the Netherlands is valuable precisely because its transition is so far advanced. It offers a glimpse of what a genuinely post-Christian society looks like in practice: not a sudden collapse of faith, but its gradual privatisation and retreat, leaving cathedrals and customs in place while belief quietly drains away. Many of the markers of religion, from Christmas and Easter holidays to historic church buildings, remain woven into national life even as active faith fades. The Dutch experience suggests that secularisation, once under way, tends to be slow, deep and hard to reverse, shaping the cultural inheritance of a country long after most of its people have stopped believing, a quiet preview of a possible future for much of the Western world.

Frequently Asked Questions: Religion in the Netherlands