Netherlands Cities Fine Homeless People for Sleeping Rough — But Policies Are Rapidly Changing

Dutch municipalities derive their authority to regulate public spaces from the Gemeentewet (Municipal Act) and adopt their own Algemene Plaatselijke Verordening (APV) — a local public-order bylaw — typically modelled on a template published by the Vereniging van Nederlandse Gemeenten (VNG, the Association of Dutch Municipalities). Most APVs historically included a ban on using public spaces as sleeping places, primarily aimed at preventing urban 'decay', wild camping by tourists, and public-nuisance situations. In practice, however, these provisions have been applied broadly against rough-sleeping homeless people. Research by political economist Merel van Rooy found that roughly 2,170 'homeless fines' were issued across 130 Dutch municipalities in a single year, averaging six per day and totalling over €300,000. The enforcement picture is starkly uneven and contested. Amsterdam handed out approximately 1,800 fines between 2021 and 2024 despite internal policies discouraging it. In June 2025, Amsterdam's mayor Femke Halsema announced the city would cease fining rough sleepers entirely, calling the measure counterproductive as unpaid fines simply accumulate and drive people deeper into debt. Leiden, Almere, and Maastricht have taken similar steps, while Rotterdam — by far the biggest issuer of fines — saw a 13% year-on-year increase even as other cities wound down. In February 2026, a Dutch court ruled it was disproportionate and arbitrary to prosecute a homeless Romanian man found sleeping under a bridge in Utrecht. A UN committee has also called on the Netherlands to end criminalisation-based responses to homelessness. The VNG's summer 2024 model-APV update explicitly cautions that 'it makes little sense to fine homeless people who are forced to sleep outside.'