How do municipal elections work?
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There will be municipal elections on Wednesday, 18 March 2026. If you are allowed to vote, you will go to a polling station in the municipality where you live on that day. Every municipality has several polling stations. Often these are libraries, community centres or other public places. You will receive a list of all polling stations by post. In this article you can read how voting works.
To be eligible to vote in the Netherlands, you must be 18 years of age or older.
Dutch and European citizens residing in the municipality are eligible to vote in municipal elections. Are you not from Europe, but have you fled, for example? Then you can also vote if you are registered in the municipality, have a residence permit and have lived in the Netherlands continuously for 5 years or more. This does not apply to Ukrainians who have protection in the Netherlands under the
If you are eligible to vote in the municipal elections, you will receive a voter pass by post. You must bring this voter pass with you when you go to vote.
You can authorise someone to vote for you
Unable to vote yourself? Then someone else who also lives in your municipality may do this for you. This is called authorisation.
Fill out the back of your voter card.
Write the name and address of the person you are authorising.
You and the authorised representative must both sign.
The authorised representative brings your completed and signed voter card and a copy of your passport or ID to the polling station
You hand in your voter card at the polling station and show your passport or valid ID
Most
At the polling station, you will see a table that usually has 3 people sitting behind it. When it is your turn, hand over the voter card you received in the post and show your ID. This can be a passport, an identity card, a driver's licence or a residence permit. The polling station staff will give you a voting form. Take it with you to the polling booth. When you unfold the form you will see a list of all the parties and persons you can vote for in your municipality.
You use the red pencil to colour the box for the name of the person you want to vote for. You may only colour in one box. If you colour more than one, your vote is invalid.
Once you have voted, you fold the voting form again. And you put it in the
The news media are paying a lot of attention to the municipal elections.
Throughout the day, news media give attention to the election. For example, there are news stories about how many people went to vote. And videos of party leaders voting themselves. At 21:00 the polling stations close. Then the people at the polling stations start counting the votes. When all the votes from all the polling stations in the municipality are counted, they are added together and announced.
On TV, there are several news media that have an all-night program about the election. They explain what the exit polls say about the possible outcome, they discuss turnout and have interviews with experts. Later in the evening, the preliminary results for each municipality come in.