The shopping streets and malls of The Hague, and what each is for

The largest shop unit in the centre of The Hague is not a shop.

The block on the Grote Marktstraat that was V&D and then Hudson’s Bay reopened on 1 January 2026 as a Leiden University campus, more than 20,000 square metres of it, with the main entrance on the Spui and around 5,000 students and staff expected through the doors every day.

That single change tells you most of what has happened to the main shopping street.

Thursday is koopavond in The Hague.

Shops that close at six the rest of the week stay open until nine, and the Passage, Primark and most of the Grote Marktstraat all follow it.

Get this wrong and you will stand outside a locked door at ten past six on a Wednesday.

Note that Stadshart Zoetermeer runs its late night on Friday instead.

Sunday is simpler than people expect.

The gemeente’s own winkeltijdenbeleid permits shops to open from 6.00 to 23.00 Monday to Saturday and says plainly that “alle winkels in Den Haag elke zon- en feestdag open zijn van 10.00 tot 23.00 uur”.

There is no Sunday restriction at all in this city.

What limits you is what shopkeepers choose to do, and in practice the centre runs noon to five or six.

Three days are different: on Good Friday, 4 May and 24 December shops must be shut by 19.00.

The Grote Marktstraat, and why it disappoints people

It is 400 metres long and 25 metres wide, it has been closed to motor traffic since 1996, and the current surface dates from a rebuild finished in March 2016 on top of a tram tunnel that cost 234 million euro.

The tourist board calls it “a shopping boulevard with international allure” and lists HEMA, Peek & Cloppenburg, C&A, Mediamarkt, De Bijenkorf, UNIQLO, Decathlon, The Sting and Douglas along it, plus a Pathe IMAX and a casino.

Read that list again.

It is the same list as every large Dutch city, which is the honest verdict: the Grote Marktstraat is efficient and completely interchangeable.

If you have come to The Hague and you spend your afternoon on it, you have seen a street you could have seen in Utrecht.

The exception is De Bijenkorf, which opened on 25 March 1926, occupies 11,000 square metres and was designed by Piet Kramer in full Amsterdamse School brick.

The building is the reason to go in.

2026 is its hundredth year.

One correction worth having: Primark is not on the Grote Marktstraat.

Its own store page gives the address as Spui 50, round the corner and across the tram tracks, and it runs to 21.00 on Thursdays and opens on Sundays from 11.00.

De Passage, which is the one thing here you cannot see elsewhere

Built between 1882 and 1885 and opened on 4 May 1885, De Passage is the oldest covered shopping arcade in the Netherlands and the only one of the four Dutch passages still standing.

Its own description is not modest and is roughly accurate: the tourist board ranks it “with the passages of Milan, Moscow and Brussels among the most beautiful shopping galleries still in existence in Europe”.

It opens Monday 11.00 to 18.00, Tuesday to Saturday 09.30 to 18.00, Thursday until 21.00 and Sunday 12.00 to 17.00, with the standing caveat that each shop sets its own times.

One of the largest Apple stores in Europe sits inside it, which is an odd thing to find under a nineteenth-century glass roof and worth the detour on its own.

Where the good shops actually are

The Hofkwartier is the answer for most people and almost nobody walks into it by accident.

It is the block between the Torenstraat and the Buitenhof, taking in the Prinsestraat, Molenstraat, Oude Molstraat and Papestraat, and the city’s own retail plan defines it as an area for speciaalzaken: “winkels met kunst, mode, sieraden, design en eten”.

Small units, independent owners, five minutes from the Grote Marktstraat and a different century.

Noordeinde runs past the king’s working palace and the retail plan classes it, with the Hoogstraat and the Plaats, as “exclusieve winkels voor de welgestelden”.

What actually makes it worth the walk is the art.

The tourist board calls it “de kunststraat van Nederland” and the galleries run to sculpture, contemporary photography, antique jewellery, art nouveau, art deco and design.

You can look at all of it for nothing, which puts the street into free things to do in The Hague as much as into shopping.

Art galleries in The Hague cluster here more tightly than anywhere else in the country outside Amsterdam.

The Denneweg was the antiques street and has become, in the tourist board’s words, “een ‘must’ voor liefhebbers van lifestyle en design op internationaal niveau”, with a growing number of luxury fashion shops.

Some of the old dealers are still there.

Vintage and antiques dealers in The Hague are concentrated on this street and on the Noordeinde, and the twice-weekly antiques market on the Lange Voorhout sits between the two.

The neighbourhood streets, which are where residents actually shop

Frederik Hendriklaan, universally “de Fred”, is nearly a kilometre long, carries over a hundred shops and is the most complete high street in the city.

It sits in the Statenkwartier, between the centre and the sea, and the Aert van der Goesstraat continues it.

If you want one street that does groceries, a butcher, a bookshop, clothes and lunch without a car, this is it.

Piet Heinstraat and Prins Hendrikstraat in the Zeeheldenkwartier are the small-shop answer: homeware, design, galleries, little clothing shops, coffee.

The Zeeheldenmarkt takes over the Prins Hendrikplein every Thursday from 11.00 to 19.00 with fresh, artisan and sustainable produce, which is the only market in the city that runs into the evening.

Weimarstraat is a kilometre and a half through the Regentessekwartier and the tourist board’s line on it is the right one: “dé winkelstraat in Den Haag voor wie houdt van unieke vondsten en lokale ondernemers”.

It is the least polished street on this list and the most interesting.

Theresiastraat, “de Trees”, serves Bezuidenhout and is a short walk from Den Haag Centraal.

Reinkenstraat is Duinoord’s, and runs to delicatessens and speciaalzaken among houses from around 1900.

Paul Krugerlaan in the Transvaalkwartier is described by the city as a street where “you can stroll through the Middle East to Asia in just a few hundred yards”, and it is the retail spine of the area around the Haagse Markt.

Keizerstraat is Scheveningen’s oldest shopping street and the Palace Promenade is the covered one by the beach.

The malls, ranked by whether the journey is worth it

Westfield Mall of the Netherlands in Leidschendam is the serious one: over 250 shops and restaurants under one roof at Liguster 202, open Monday to Saturday 10.00 to 20.00 and Sunday 12.00 to 18.00, with free parking in all its car parks.

The car parks have a 200 cm height limit, which catches vans and roof boxes.

Go for range and for a wet Sunday; do not go expecting anything you cannot buy online.

It is a short hop from Leidschendam.

Winkelcentrum Leyweg in Escamp calls itself the largest partly covered shopping centre in The Hague with more than 110 shops.

Its standing koopzondag is the last Sunday of the month, with some shops open every Sunday.

This is a proper everyday centre rather than a destination, and it is the right answer if you live in the south of the city.

Bogaard stadscentrum in Rijswijk, renamed from In de Bogaard in 2021, lists more than 150 shops, runs its late night on Thursday to 20.00 and opens on Sundays from 12.00 to 17.00.

Stadshart Zoetermeer has close to 200 shops and restaurants, and its koopavond is Friday to 21.00, which is the single most useful fact about it.

Both are covered in the pieces on the towns around The Hague.

Haagsche Bluf is the overrated one.

It opened in 2001 on the site of an old cinema and passage, it won a prize that year, and it is a pretty open-air courtyard built from replicas of Hague and Delft historic facades with a couple of genuine eighteenth-century French fountains dropped in.

It photographs beautifully and it is a very small number of shops.

Its food hall went bankrupt in March 2025 and closed.

Walk through it on the way to the Hofkwartier rather than treating it as a destination.

Things people get wrong

The Hague has no Markthal.

That is Rotterdam, forty minutes away, and it is one of the better entries in day trips within an hour.

Chinatown is real and it is on the Wagenstraat and Gedempte Burgwal, a couple of minutes from the Grote Marktstraat, with Asian supermarkets and restaurants under two Chinese gates.

It is the reason the international food shops here are better than the city’s size would suggest.

And a Dutch high street is not a British one for furniture and white goods.

Furniture shops in The Hague are mostly out on the Megastores and the woonboulevards rather than in the centre, which matters a great deal if you have just arrived and are furnishing a flat from nothing.

The cheaper route through the same problem is second-hand, vintage and kringloop.

If you have one afternoon: the Passage, then the Hofkwartier, then the Noordeinde, and eat in the Hofkwartier rather than on the Grote Marktstraat.

The rest of what to do with the day is in twenty things to do in The Hague.

Sources

• Gemeente Den Haag, winkeltijdenbeleid (denhaag.nl/nl/beleid-en-regelgeving/winkeltijdenbeleid/): “Winkels mogen open zijn van maandag tot en met zaterdag van 6.00 tot uiterlijk 23.00 uur”; “Alle winkels in Den Haag elke zon- en feestdag open zijn van 10.00 tot 23.00 uur”; “Op Goede Vrijdag, 4 mei en 24 december moeten winkels om 19.00 uur gesloten zijn”
• Binnenstadsmanagement Den Haag, branchering per gebied (binnenstaddenhaag.org/branchering-per-gebied/): Grote Marktstraat, Spuistraat, Venestraat and Wagenstraat as “internationale winkelketens, merkwinkels en warenhuizen”; Hoogstraat, Noordeinde and Plaats as “exclusieve winkels voor de welgestelden”; the Hofkwartier as “speciaalzaken. Aan de Prinsestraat, Molenstraat en Oude Molstraat vinden bezoekers winkels met kunst, mode, sieraden, design en eten”; the Denneweg as “interieur-, kunst- en antiekwinkels en vooral een groeiend aantal luxe modewinkels”
• Den Haag Marketing (denhaag.com) pages for Grote Marktstraat, Venestraat and Wagenstraat, Noordeinde, Denneweg, Hofkwartier, Frederik Hendriklaan, Zeeheldenkwartier, Weimarstraat, Reinkenstraat, Theresiastraat, Paul Krugerlaan and Haagsche Bluf, read 11 September 2026: “a shopping boulevard with international allure” with HEMA, Peek & Cloppenburg, C&A, Mediamarkt, De Bijenkorf, UNIQLO, Decathlon, The Sting and Douglas; “De galeries maken Het Noordeinde tot de kunststraat van Nederland”; the Denneweg as “een ‘must’ voor liefhebbers van lifestyle en design op internationaal niveau”; “De Frederik Hendriklaan, bijna een kilometer lang” with “ruim honderd winkels”; the Weimarstraat as “de winkelstraat in Den Haag voor wie houdt van unieke vondsten en lokale ondernemers”, 1.5 km through the Regentessekwartier; the Zeeheldenmarkt every Thursday on the Prins Hendrikplein; Paul Krugerlaan, “where you can stroll through the Middle East to Asia in just a few hundred yards”; Keizerstraat as “Scheveningen’s oldest and most historical shopping street”; Haagsche Bluf opened 2001 with “replica’s van bekende Haagse en Delftse historische gevels”; the city-centre norm of Thursday 10.00 to 21.00 and Sunday 12.00 to 18.00
• De Passage (depassage.nl and denhaag.com/en/passage): “De Passage werd op 4 mei 1885 officieel geopend in Den Haag door wethouder Vaillant”; “het oudste overdekte winkelcentrum van Nederland”; “The Hague Passage ranks with the passages of Milan, Moscow and Brussels among the most beautiful shopping galleries still in existence in Europe”; construction from 1882; hours Monday 11.00 to 18.00, Tuesday to Saturday 09.30 to 18.00, Thursday to 21.00, Sunday 12.00 to 17.00, with “each shop is free to set its own opening and closing times”; “one of the largest Apple stores in Europe”
• Grote Marktstraat, nl.wikipedia.org/wiki/Grote_Marktstraat: “ca. 400 m” by “ca. 25 m”; “Sinds 1996 is het een straat waar gemotoriseerd verkeer geen toegang meer heeft”; the Souterrain tram tunnel at 234 million euro; redesign 2012 to 2015 and reopening March 2016; De Bijenkorf “opened 1926, Amsterdamse School style”
• De Bijenkorf Den Haag: opened 25 March 1926 on the corner of the Wagenstraat, 11,000 square metres, architect Piet Kramer (shie.nl and nl.wikipedia.org/wiki/De_Bijenkorf_(Den_Haag))
• The former V&D and Hudson’s Bay building, Grote Marktstraat 48-50 / Spui 3: Den Haag FM, 30 November 2024, reporting that the building “haar deuren op 1 januari 2026 kan openen voor de studenten”, the main entrance at the Spui, over 20,000 square metres, a protected monumental facade, and roughly 5,000 students and staff a day; corroborated by universiteitleiden.nl, November 2022, and Omroep West
• Primark Den Haag, primark.com/nl-nl/stores/den-haag/spui-50: address Spui 50. Opening hours in this article from openingstijden aggregators rather than Primark’s own page, which returned a bot challenge
• Westfield Mall of the Netherlands (westfield.com/en/netherlands/mallofthenetherlands and denhaag.com/en/westfield-mall-of-the-netherlands): “Over 250 shops and restaurants can be found here together in one large building”; Monday to Saturday 10.00 to 20.00, Sunday 12.00 to 18.00; Liguster 202, 2262 AC; “free parking at all car parks”; “the maximum clearance of our car parks is 200 cm”
• Winkelcentrum Leyweg (leyweg.nl): “meer dan 110 winkels”; “het grootste (deels) overdekte winkelcentrum van Den Haag”; “naast onze vaste koopzondag -op de laatste zondag van de maand- zijn enkele winkels zelfs iedere zondag geopend”
• Bogaard stadscentrum, Rijswijk (winkels.bogaardstadscentrum.nl/openingstijden): week of 11 to 17 September 2026, Monday 11.00 to 17.30, Tuesday to Wednesday and Friday 09.30 to 17.30, Thursday 09.30 to 20.00, Saturday 09.30 to 17.00, Sunday 12.00 to 17.00, with “niet elke winkel heeft dezelfde openingstijden”; site strapline “meer dan 150 winkels”; renamed from In de Bogaard in September 2021
• Stadshart Zoetermeer (stadshart.nl/openingstijden/): Monday 12.00 to 17.30, Tuesday to Thursday 09.30 to 17.30, Friday koopavond 09.30 to 21.00, Saturday 09.30 to 17.00, Sunday 12.00 to 17.00; “vrijwel 200 winkels en horecagelegenheden”
• Foodhallen Den Haag at the Haagsche Bluf: Omroep West, 14 March 2025, “De Foodhallen in Den Haag is failliet”, “zat in het centrum van de stad aan de Haagsche Bluf”; corroborated by faillissementsdossier.nl and vastgoedjournaal.nl
• Deliberately not asserted: no current footfall or vacancy figure for the Grote Marktstraat could be read on any live page, and the gemeente’s own retail page (denhaag.nl/nl/beleid-en-regelgeving/retail-in-den-haag/) publishes its Retailmonitor only once every four years without figures on the page itself. Shop counts for the Noordeinde, Reinkenstraat, Theresiastraat, New Babylon and Winkelcentrum Ypenburg are not published by those centres and are not given here