The Dutchies have a new trophy on their shelf — they’re officially the proud owners of the highest quality of life in the world!
Alright, we know there are a lot of things that aren’t perfect here — like when you have to squeeze onto a crowded NS train between Schiphol and Amsterdam. But hey, let’s talk about the big picture!
The honour was bestowed upon the Dutchies from Numbeo, a cost-of-living database, which crowned the Netherlands as the best. 🏆
Orange is the new golden medal
The Dutchies are right on the top when it comes to quality of life. Right after them are Denmark, Switzerland, and Luxembourg — but the Netherlands is the best. Did we mention that? They’re the best!
Here’s how
The ranking is based on a series of factors, including the cost of living, purchasing power, housing prices, pollution, crime, health system access, and commute times.
READ MORE: 5 reasons the Netherlands is the best place to live for expat families
When it comes to the Purchasing Power Index, the Netherlands is at the (still impressive) eighth place.
Meanwhile, it turns out that the paracetamol your huisarts offers when you are about to die from one of the many flus that the Netherlands has to offer is still enough to put the Netherlands into the top 10 when it comes to health care!
Next, it probably won’t surprise anyone that the Netherlands doesn’t rank so highly when it comes to the cost of living. In 15th place, they’re coming right after France.
READ MORE: Yippee! Dutch housing prices are (finally) falling, here’s where they’ve reduced the most
And finally, when it comes to Property Price to Income Ratio, the Dutchies are the 11th on the list, proving that the housing crisis is still a real struggle for many.
Top 10 countries for quality of life
- Netherlands
- Denmark
- Switzerland
- Luxembourg
- Finland
- Iceland
- Austria
- Oman
- Australia
- Norway
Do you feel like this ranking is realistic when it comes to the Netherlands? Tell us in the comments!
I love living here and enjoy many aspects but surprised my home country of Canada did not make the top 10.
Singapore, Dubai!? Where do these places stand in the ranking
Maybe this ranking is based on average welfare not well-being.Since labor in the Netherlands is so expensive help in the household is not attainable for most families.
Omg. Beyond understanding. To start with: how can a country with 9 months per year rain be in the 1st place? How can one enjoy living here when neighbors for 20 years barely say hello to each other ? Shitty houses, crowded everywhere , where is the quality? Dumbeo should be called the company who came up with this stupidity.
The health care system is very poor compared to either Switzerland or Germany. I also think this ranking ignores the rise in casual racism and national stereotyping in NL. It does show how brilliant the Dutch are at promoting themselves though.
Yes the Nederland is best in every field indeed
Singapore is for me the best place in the World, though admittedly, I haven’t been to that many countries: Outside Europe that is. Switzerland was great 50 years ago, although badly spoiled I understand these days, due to the number of ‘unsuitable’ import. I’d choose Luxemburg by far above Denmark and the Netherlands though.
If you dutch maybe
None of the points mentioned actually indicate why NL is the best… Why focus on the stuff where they ranked lower? Very poorly written article.
Born and raised in Amsterdam it’s never been worse so based on that this is some bleak news
Sorry for a born dutchie I don’t feel like we should be getting this high up. Government failed our country for almost 10 years straight up and created something that most dutchies feel ashamed to be living in.
Well said.
This is beyond comprehension. For Dutch people things have only been crashing downhill. For all other ethnicities here, casual racism already destroyed a lot and makes life for a lot of us miserable. The Netherlands should’ve never been given the 1st place.
Probably true IF you are dutch working for NS or KLM, and not need public transportation or health care 🤣🤣, this article made my morning so funny
I life in the Netherlands and I disagree with this. The house market is very scare and expensive. The public transport very expensive as well and always with problems. If you want to take an airplane kilometric queues. The Health coverage very basic and not complet. Very low cultural activities, always having to pay for everything. Even if you wanna go to the nature sometimes you
need to pay. The supermarkets full of plastics. I still think the Netherlands is a good place to live, but far from being in the top of the ranking in my opinion.
You are kidding right? I would have agreed with this 10 years ago but the Netherlands is in a real mess. Health care, taxes and high costs and availability of housing has made this country a terrible place to live.
I think the four points you made only explain why the Netherlands should not be top of the list. In general it’s a very nice place to live. Not too extreme, not that political, low crime, not much poverty, good employment conditions, but not very friendly. Outside the cities village life is insular and not welcoming I hear quite backwards racism a lot. The phrase if you ain’t Dutch you ain’t much seems to prevail.
If there is one single reason we shouldn’t be on top of this list, it’s alllllll those people living here, complaining about how ter-ri-ble it is to live in the Netherlands. Until they come across another article somewhere, saying the Netherlands suck. Then those same people will tell you just how great it is here (read: how great they are). If a lot more factors would be considered in this list, we’d still end up in the top 10 out of, what is it, 192 countries?
Complaining about living in a top 50 country even, would still be very inappropriate considering all those people struggling everywhere around the world. And the weather, really? We have pretty decent weather from at least half March – half October and a very mild climate overall. Many places in the world suffer from extreme weather due to climate change (-50 -> +50 celsius). We, again, are lucky as F to live here.
You all don’t understand statistics. You don’t even need to be top 10 in any list to make it to the number 1 spot.
One dude mentions neighbors. My whole street helps each other out and we have street parties once a year. Maybe you should move out of A’dam centre? Healthcare? How about life expectancy?
What did the government do the past 10 years “most Dutchies are ashamed of”? Den Uyl sucked, Kok (paars) was a nightmare, Balkenende was a wuss, now Rutte is a joke. Not according to me btw. Our government always sucks in the eyes of a considerable amount of Dutchies, just like anywhere else in the world. But the Dutch seem to overdo their totally unfounded amount of complaining.
So, keep complaining guys! Whether we’re really on the nr 1 spot, or in the top 10, maybe even top 20, it’s doesn’t matter. We live in a pretty damn good country, filled with people who don’t seem to realize how lucky they are 🤢
I completely agree with you.
Thank you! At last someone who’s thankful and not blinded by the impulse to complain about everything in a country as great as this.
Wow: you clearly speak from the right wing point of view, not dealing with a lower income, not working in healthcare, education, driving a car, so not dependent on the public transport and not caring about the environment, the poor mental healthcare and how we are a tax payers paradise for the rich and not caring about the part of the Netherlands outside of the Randstad or things like racism that is still holding people back, the pay gap between men and women and why childcare is still poorly arranged and expensive in the Netherlands, making it hard for women to continue their careers after motherhood. Etcetera, etcetera.
The Netherlands is probably the saddest country to live on earth. People live to go on vacation in summer. Healthcare, childcare is a joke and just about everything that ends with the word service. There is one season, autumn. The national food is served from a vending machine. Want to buy a normal house with a garage and a garden, good luck.
Quality of life does not exist when you are one of Earth’s most densely populated countries.
Last but not least, it is a culture that focuses on self. Which is ironic as they truly do not grasp the brutality of their colonial past, aka the golden years.
Otherwise a great country.
In de ogen van een vluchteling uit arme landen hebben wij het zeer goed.
Lmao this is a joke right? Please recheck these calculations
Quality comes with the high price. Everything is way more expensive now here, more & more than already previously expensive 🥲
Hahahaha. What a nonsense. I’m sort of a Dutch but still an outsider and disagree with this. We tend to accept a lot of things especially when they are free. The Dutch standard can be very low, so to make someone happy is very easy.
Over years the cost of living skyrocket. From healthcare, renting or buying a house which is ussually very small.
In the last 22 years it changed a lot. From good to bad and vice versa. I still remember buying a beer for 1,- Gulden which translate to € 0.50 and not the cheapest beer.
Ooh yeaah, still Dutch market is way overprized compare to Germany.
The other thing is that we do not make friends so easy nor fast and yet discrimination does happen with a blind eye.
Joke of the Century 🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣
I feel we are a keeping up appearances society. Off course we are very lucky to live in a first world country with good health care when you break a leg or need surgery, with insurances getting more and more for the rich and the pharmaceutical industry having way too much power, as does the sugar industry for instance, forcing doctors to rather prescribe us medicine and supermarkets to sell us cheap junk food and the government is putting higher taxes on vegetables and other healthy foods. Also in hospitals there’s still hardly any part of the budget being spend on healthy food for the patients (visitors and staff can get better food in the cafetaria’s served downstairs), while it’s been proven that gut health increases with healthy foods and lowers inflammation and can support for ex. the curing of cancer. Further more: racism still is clearly a thing that the Dutch love to ignore, but absolutely still is holding people back when it comes to scholing, housing and getting jobs and growth possibilities in their careers, as does the patriarchy still hold women back due to the pay gap, badly arranged and expensive childcare making still many parents chose that the women (mothers) stay at home and thus don’t get to continue their career and stay more dependent on their men and more vulnerable in case of divorce, having less of a career to go back to, in general ending with way less financially than the men. And although the Netherlands proves itself to be feminist, but below the surface women still suffer from the inferior gender norm. Which makes that they still have to work harder to prove themselves in jobs and have a harder time too to grow in their careers than men. Like I said: A lot is keeping up appearances. Plus environment?! We have the most polluted waters of Europe (oké that’s too because in the Netherlands it all comes together, but still: can’t say it’s good) and we are far behind on the emission norms. And in the educational system the teachers are being forced to work with way too many children with too little support and means, having too preform for the government and most of all write great plans for them, so they are legally save, thereby making the educational system more and more about registration instead of focusing on the kids and what they really need. The same is happening in the hospitals, where nurses are forced to do certain actions in a certain amount of time and they too most of all have to register every in certain formats so the government can be pleased… In nursing homes you see this too. Every where the human factor is being lost, because registration and so called “time efficiency” is valued over people really connecting and bonding en from there being able to learn and heal. The Netherlands too has only become more poor the latest decennia. In the mental health care too. Only the cognitive treatments and most and foremost those from the GGZ are being valued, while it’s been proven that trauma get’s stuck in the body. But for alternative therapies you need to pay extra in your insurance and even than you don’t get the whole treatment paid. So mental health care too has become something for the rich… So yes: we still may be lucky we live here at all. But it’s been way better in the Netherlands and it’s only going backwards for those that need support in one way or another and for those that work in healthcare and education and those kind of jobs. They only have gotten more and more and more and more taks the last decennia and the salary hasn’t accordingly gone up, plus the support nor means haven’t been met either. So it’s only improved for the Dutch upperclass.
It’s quite strange that when a Dutch survey is done , for some reason they are always in the top, it’s not even good promotion, biased is a good word to use , l think that many immigrants who made their home here are reasonably comfortable but it’s not the number one country 😂😂😂
Stupidest article i’ve ever seen… clearly you have no idea what u talking about after reading it.. its not even worth debating with u
You all missing the best place for quality of life South-Africa. Ignoor the politics and loadshedding (that can be fixed for personal use with money) you have the BEST quality of life.
I read through all of the comments, and the negative ones seem to have a bit more justification LOL. After living here for 5 years, I can say that the country has amazing infrastructure, from roads to bike paths, bridges, you name it. Being flat makes it also somewhat practical, mostly for cycling. Public transport is also good, at least in Amsterdam, and I am not talking about trains, because I know they can be unreliable.
But man, the gloomy weather, the boring culture, national cuisine that dogs won’t eat, the stupid wind all year round, zero landscape to enjoy..It’s all making me super depressed. My 30% ruling expires in 1 months, and soon I’ll be buying a one-way ticket outa here.