Death in Dutch numbers
In the Netherlands, what feels like a private, unspoken event happens around 475 times a day — and numbers, while they do not soften it, give it shape. They turn something hidden into something you can look at directly. Below are eight figures from CBS (Statistics Netherlands) and other public sources, each with a short explanation. None of them tell you how to live or how to die. They tell you what is.
1. About 173,000 deaths in 2025
That is the provisional CBS figure for 2025 (173,372), about 1,200 more than in 2024. Of those, about 87,600 were women and 85,800 were men. The annual number of deaths is rising slowly because the Dutch population is growing and ageing, not because death itself is becoming more common. Source: CBS, "173 thousand deaths in 2025" (2026).
2. 80.7 years for men, 83.5 years for women
Life expectancy at birth in 2025. Both men and women gained about two months compared to 2024. The gap between the sexes (about 2.8 years) has been narrowing slowly over decades. Source: CBS life expectancy, 2025.
3. 57 percent of deaths happen at age 80 or above
In 2025, about 99,100 of the people who died in the Netherlands were 80 or older. The share has been climbing for years and is the main reason annual death counts keep rising. The implication for families: most deaths in the Netherlands are not sudden. They follow a long final chapter, often shaped by frailty or chronic illness, in which preparation is possible. Source: CBS, 2025.
4. The leading causes are cancer, cardiovascular disease, and dementia
CBS groups causes of death into a few large categories. For years, cancer (kanker) and cardiovascular disease (hart- en vaatziekten) have been the two largest, together accounting for roughly half of all deaths, with cancer the larger share. Dementia is rising rapidly as the population ages. Specific cancers most often cited as causes are lung, colorectal, breast (in women), and prostate (in men). Source: CBS, "Deaths; underlying cause of death" (table 7052, regularly updated).
5. About 70 percent are cremated
Cremation became the dominant choice in the Netherlands around 2003 and has continued to grow. Industry figures and CBS data put the current share at roughly 65 to 70 percent cremation, 30 to 35 percent burial (the Cremation Society of Great Britain's international statistics put the 2023 NL share at 68.4 percent cremation). The cost difference between the two paths is real but smaller than most people assume; ceremony, location, coffin, and catering usually weigh more in the final bill. Source: CBS funeral statistics; LVC (Landelijke Vereniging van Crematoria) annual reports.
6. Just over a third of expected deaths happen at home
Reliable national breakdowns by place of death are released less frequently than total deaths, and the share shifts year to year. Among people whose death was expected (not sudden), about 37.5% died at home in 2024, 29% in a nursing home (verpleeghuis), 17.7% in hospital and 4.2% in a hospice. Men die at home more often than women, partly because they are more likely to have a partner who provides care. Source: overpalliatievezorg.nl / Palliaweb, 2024 figures.
7. 10,341 reported euthanasia cases in 2025
The Regional Euthanasia Review Committees (Regionale Toetsingscommissies Euthanasie) received 10,341 reports in 2025, about 6.0 percent of all deaths. Most concerned people with a serious physical illness such as cancer, neurological disease, lung disease, or cardiovascular disease; 499 concerned dementia and 174 a psychiatric condition. The committees judged 10,334 of the cases to have met the legal "due care" criteria. Source: Regionale Toetsingscommissies Euthanasie, figures 2021–2025 (2026).
8. About 4.8 million adults have registered consent for organ donation
Under the Active Donor Registration system that took effect on 1 July 2020, every adult in the Netherlands is asked to register a choice. By 1 January 2024, 10.6 million adults were recorded in the donor register. Of those, around 4.8 million gave consent, around 4.3 million did not, around 1.5 million delegated the decision to next of kin or another designated person, and about 3.3 million had not recorded an active preference and so are listed as having no objection. The single most useful thing you can do, regardless of your choice, is make sure your family knows it. Source: CBS, "Over 4 million people withhold consent for organ donation" (2024).
What these numbers do not say
Statistics describe averages. They do not predict your life or anyone else's. The 80-year average life expectancy includes people who die in their forties and people who live to 100. The 70 percent cremation share includes families who chose it after careful conversation and families who chose it because no preference had been recorded.
The most useful function of these numbers may be that they remove some of the strangeness. Death in the Netherlands has a rough shape: usually after age 80, often at home or in a nursing home, increasingly with cremation, sometimes through euthanasia, almost always preceded by months or years in which something could have been written down. Most of what makes it bearable for the people left behind is decided in that earlier window.
In the app
In the app you fill in, at your own pace, what you have already decided and what is still open: your wishes, where your papers are, and the people who will need to act on it. Everything becomes part of your Zorgmap, a private PDF you print or hand over to the person you trust; your family cannot open the app itself.
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Sources
- CBS, "173 thousand deaths in 2025" (2026). https://www.cbs.nl/en-gb/news/2026/11/173-thousand-deaths-in-2025
- CBS, life expectancy 2025. https://www.cbs.nl/en-gb/news/2026/11/173-thousand-deaths-in-2025/life-expectancy
- CBS, "Deaths; underlying cause of death (shortlist), sex, age" (table 7052). https://www.cbs.nl/en-gb/figures/detail/7052eng
- Regionale Toetsingscommissies Euthanasie, figures 2021 to 2025 and annual report 2025. https://www.euthanasiecommissie.nl/cijfers-2021-2025
- CBS, "Over 4 million people withhold consent for organ donation" (2024). https://www.cbs.nl/en-gb/news/2024/35/over-4-million-people-withhold-consent-for-organ-donation
- LVC, Landelijke Vereniging van Crematoria, annual cremation statistics. https://www.lvc-online.nl/
- Over palliatieve zorg (Palliaweb), "Plek van sterven": place of death among expected deaths, 2024. https://overpalliatievezorg.nl/keuzes/plek-van-sterven