Dutch General Elections
AS OF 2026-07-22 · 42 CONTESTS · general election, 29 October 2025 · WIKIPEDIA, NATIONAL ELECTORAL AUTHORITIES
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Every Dutch general election from 1886 to 2025: the census-suffrage school struggle, the great Pacification of 1917, the pillarised decades, purple cabinets and the Fortuyn revolt, and the fragmented coalition politics of the present.
General elections
42
1886–2025
Latest
2025
D66 largest · Rob Jetten
House seats
150
76 for a majority
The Pacification
1917
PR and universal suffrage in one stroke
The chronology
Every general election, newest first, across six eras, from two-round district contests on a tax-based franchise to the world's purest proportional system. Click any election for the full result and the story.
The fragmented century · 2003–2025
The electorate came loose from its moorings: Wilders on the right, upstart parties in every direction, and record fragmentation — governments now need four partners. Rutte's four cabinets spanned thirteen years; the 2023 election made the PVV the largest party, and 2025 swung back to D66 under Rob Jetten after the Schoof cabinet's collapse.
D66 26PVV 26VVD 22
PVV 37GL/PvdA 25VVD 24
VVD 34D66 24PVV 17
VVD 33PVV 20CDA 19
VVD 41PvdA 38PVV 15
VVD 31PvdA 30PVV 24
CDA 41PvdA 33SP 25
CDA 44PvdA 42VVD 28
Purple and the Fortuyn revolt · 1994–2002
In 1994 Labour and the Liberals governed together for the first time, excluding the confessionals from power since 1918 — the 'purple' cabinets of Wim Kok. The experiment ended in shock: Pim Fortuyn, assassinated nine days before the 2002 election, whose party then surged into government from nowhere.
Depillarisation · 1967–1989
The pillars crumbled fast: D66 arrived in 1967 promising to blow up the system, the Catholic vote collapsed, and the three confessional parties fused into the CDA — which promptly led every government of the 1980s under Lubbers, while Den Uyl's PvdA fought the era's polarised battles from the left.
CDA 54PvdA 49VVD 22
CDA 54PvdA 52VVD 27
PvdA 47CDA 45VVD 36
CDA 48PvdA 44VVD 26
PvdA 53CDA 49VVD 28
PvdA 43KVP 27VVD 22
PvdA 39KVP 35VVD 16
KVP 42PvdA 37VVD 17
Postwar reconstruction · 1946–1963
After occupation and liberation, the restored parties rebuilt the country through Catholic–Labour 'Roman-red' coalitions under Drees, the architect of the Dutch welfare state. The pillars held: election after election returned the same five parties in nearly the same proportions.
KVP 50PvdA 43VVD 16
KVP 49PvdA 48VVD 19
PvdA 34KVP 33ARP 10
PvdA 30KVP 30ARP 12
KVP 32PvdA 27ARP 13
KVP 32PvdA 29ARP 13
Pacification and the pillarised nation · 1917–1937
The great Pacification of 1917 settled the school struggle and rebuilt the system in one stroke: universal male suffrage, nationwide proportional representation and equal funding for religious schools. Women voted from 1922. For half a century the confessional parties, anchored by the Catholics, sat in every government while the country organised itself into separate Catholic, Protestant, socialist and liberal worlds.
RKSP 31SDAP 23ARP 17
RKSP 28SDAP 22ARP 14
RKSP 30SDAP 24ARP 12
General League 30SDAP 24ARP 13
AB 32SDAP 20ARP 16
AB 30SDAP 22ARP 13
AB 25LU 21SDAP 15
The census-suffrage kingdom · 1886–1913
The Netherlands elected its House of Representatives in two-round district contests on a franchise limited by tax and property tests — under a tenth of the population at first. Politics revolved around the school struggle: Liberals against a rising alliance of Catholics and orthodox Protestants, with socialists arriving at the century's turn.
AB 25LU 20SDAP 18
AB 25LU 21ARP 21
LU 25AB 25ARP 15
Catholic 25ARP 24LU 21
LU 38Catholic 22ARP 18
Lib 31VL 29Catholics 25
LU 54Catholic 25ARP 20
LU 45ARP 27Catholic 26
LU 48ARP 19Catholics 19
LU 47ARP 19Catholics 19
The long arc in charts
The proportional era since 1918. Hover any point for the exact figure.
Turnout since 1918
Voting was compulsory until 1970, turnout above 90% for half a century, and even without the duty, Dutch turnout stays close to 80%.
The shrinking largest party
The winning party's share has fallen from the Catholic 30%-plus of the pillarised decades to D66's 16.9% in 2025, the lowest ever for a Dutch first-place party, and the arithmetic behind four-party cabinets.
Records & superlatives
Highest turnout
95.6%
1959 — compulsory voting lasted until 1970
Lowest turnout
73.3%
1998 general election
Most seats won
54
CDA, 1986 — of 150 seats
Highest vote share
35.3%
CDA, 1989 — no Dutch party has ever won a majority alone
Most parties listed with seats
17
1918 — among Europe's most fragmented parliaments
The Pacification
1917
one election settled the school struggle, adopted PR and opened universal suffrage
How Dutch general elections work
The purest proportionality
The whole country is effectively one district: 150 seats divided by national vote share, with no threshold beyond the quota for a single seat, about 0.67%. It is among the most proportional systems on earth, and parliament's fragmentation shows it.
The formation is the real contest
No Dutch party has ever won a majority, so the months after the vote, the formatie, with its informateurs and coalition agreements, decide who governs. Formations have taken as long as 299 days.
Pillars, then fragments
For half a century Catholics, Protestants, socialists and liberals each voted for their own pillar's party. Depillarisation dissolved those loyalties, and the Dutch electorate is now among Europe's most volatile.
The Prime Minister emerges
Voters elect only the House. The Prime Minister is whoever the coalition puts forward, usually the largest government party's leader, but 2023 produced an unaffiliated PM heading a cabinet of four parties.