Dutch police registered roughly 87,000 bicycle thefts in 2025, about 45% more than in 2021, and cleared 2% of them.
The real figure is far higher, because most people do not bother reporting: CBS and the trade bodies put actual annual thefts somewhere between 700,000 and a million.
Read that as a design constraint rather than a warning.
The bike you ride here is not an asset you protect, it is a tool you expect to lose eventually, and every sensible decision about buying, locking and insuring follows from accepting that early.
What to buy
The default is a stadsfiets, the upright three-gear thing with a chain guard, a coat guard and a back-pedal brake.
It suits this city because The Hague is flat, journeys are short, and nobody here cycles in special clothing.
It is also the reason a bike does more to decide which district works for you than a car does.
A new one from a bike shop in The Hague is a real amount of money; a used one is a fraction of it.
Second hand is the normal route and it has one hard rule.
Ask for the frame number and the original receipt, and if the seller cannot produce either, walk away.
You are not being paranoid.
With a million bikes a year going missing, a cheap bike with no paperwork sold from a van in a car park is a stolen bike, and buying one is an offence rather than a bargain.
Safer sources are the kringloop shops, the reputable dealers who refurbish and sell with a receipt, and Marktplaats where the seller will meet you at their home address.
Expect a short test ride, and check the back-pedal brake works before you need it.
Two things to spend money on rather than save it on: lights that are built in and charge as you pedal, and a decent saddle.
Clip-on lights are stolen, forgotten and flattened, and riding without lights after dark is a fineable offence here, not a technicality.
Electric bikes change the maths
An e-bike is worth four or five ordinary bikes and thieves know it.
The theft figures have been rising fastest in exactly that category.
If you buy one, assume it needs two locks, secure indoor parking at home, and an insurance policy you have actually read.
If your commute is inside the city, ask honestly whether you need one.
The Hague is flat enough that the gradient argument does not apply, and the real obstacle to cycling here is the wind off the sea, which an e-bike does genuinely solve.
That is a reasonable case for one.
Convenience alone is not, given what happens to them.
Locks, and what the stars mean
Dutch bike locks carry an ART rating from one to five stars, awarded by an independent foundation that tests them by attacking them.
The rating is not marketing, and insurers use it directly.
One star is for a child’s bike.
Two stars is the usual minimum a bicycle insurer will accept, and it is the sensible floor for any bike you care about.
Three stars is the moped grade and is increasingly what insurers demand for an expensive e-bike.
Four and five are motorcycle territory.
Buy an ART-2 lock at minimum, and check your policy before you buy rather than after a claim is refused.
For an e-bike the standard advice is two locks, at least one of them ART approved at two stars or better.
Technique matters as much as the lock.
The ring lock built into the frame immobilises the wheel and nothing else, which is enough to stop a bike being ridden away and not enough to stop it being carried away.
Use a chain or a D-lock through the frame and around something fixed.
A bike locked only to itself is a bike waiting in a queue.
Where you may leave it
The Hague enforces parking rules on bicycles and enforces them by removal.
A bike may not stand unused on the street for more than 28 days anywhere in the city, and no more than 7 days in the binnenstad.
Around the stations and on the Grote Marktstraat it is 7 days inside a rack and 30 minutes outside one.
Before removing anything the gemeente attaches a coloured label, with yellow, green, blue and purple meaning different deadlines, some as short as two or three days.
If you are away for a fortnight and your bike is outside, that label is the thing that decides whether it is there when you get back.
There are nine managed bike parking facilities in the centre, run by Biesieklette, plus the Fietsflat on Rijnstraat and the one on Anna van Buerenstraat by Centraal.
The first 24 hours are free, you check in and out with a free Haagse Fietspas, and the beach facilities are managed and free too.
For a working day in town this is simply the correct answer, and it costs nothing.
When the gemeente has taken it
Removed bikes go to the Fietsdepot Haaglanden at Poolsterstraat 50 in the Binckhorst.
Getting it back costs 25 euro.
Wrongly parked bikes are held for six weeks, abandoned ones for two, and anything classed as a wreck is destroyed straight away.
You have to prove the bike is yours, and the depot names two acceptable proofs: a receipt showing the frame number, or a key that fits.
Photograph the frame number now and keep the receipt somewhere that is not a drawer in a flat you might move out of.
It is the single most useful two minutes of admin in this article.
If the police recovered your stolen bike rather than the gemeente removing it, you pay nothing.
A bike that is genuinely finished, rather than merely removed, is bulky waste and the gemeente collects it free, which is covered in the rubbish article.
When it is actually gone
Report it to the police, online or at a station.
The police are blunt about why: only a report puts the bike into the national stolen bicycle register, and without one there is no route by which they can return it to you even if they find it.
You will need the frame number, which is why it is written down.
Then tell your insurer, if you have one.
Bicycle cover is usually a separate policy rather than part of the contents insurance you set up when you moved in, and it will almost certainly require the ART rating of the lock and the key you still hold.
Keep the second key.
Getting it repaired
Every neighbourhood has a repair shop, and most will fix a puncture while you wait for a modest amount.
Bike repair shops in The Hague are also the place to buy the second-hand bike, because the ones that repair have a stock of trade-ins with paperwork.
One thing the tram network does not do is carry your bike.
Bikes are not allowed on trams at all, so unlike the train, where they travel off-peak, the bike and the tram are alternatives here rather than two halves of a journey.
That is worth knowing before you cycle somewhere in fine weather and look for a way home in the rain.
The one genuine consolation: the infrastructure is so good that none of this deters anyone.
Separated paths, priority at most junctions, and a city small enough that almost nothing is more than twenty minutes away.
You will still cycle.
You will just do it on a bike you would not mind losing, with a lock that costs a quarter of what the bike did.
Sources
- Politie registered theft figures for 2025 as reported by NOS and ANWB: around 87,000 reported bicycle thefts, a rise of about 45% on 2021, a clearance rate of 2%, and CBS and trade estimates of 700,000 to 1,000,000 actual thefts a year
- Politie.nl, fiets gestolen? doe aangifte: a report is what puts the bike into the fietsdiefstalregister, and without one there is no route to recovery through the police
- Stichting ART lock certification, as summarised by ANWB and the Dutch bicycle insurers: five star categories, two stars as the usual insurance minimum for a bicycle, three stars for mopeds and increasingly for e-bikes, and the two-lock recommendation for e-bikes
- Gemeente Den Haag, parkeerregels voor fietsen: 28 days maximum unused on the street, 7 days in the binnenstad, 7 days in a rack and 30 minutes outside one at the stations and on the Grote Marktstraat, and the coloured warning labels preceding removal
- Gemeente Den Haag, Fietsdepot Haaglanden: 25 euro to retrieve, Poolsterstraat 50 in the Binckhorst, six weeks for wrongly parked bikes and two weeks for abandoned ones, wrecks destroyed, proof of ownership by receipt with frame number or a matching key, and nothing to pay when the police recovered a stolen bike
- Gemeente Den Haag, gratis en bewaakt uw fiets stallen: nine managed facilities in the centre run by Biesieklette, the Fietsflat on Rijnstraat and Anna van Buerenstraat, first 24 hours free, free Haagse Fietspas for check-in, and managed free facilities at the beach
[…] is covered in the bike article, along with why the theft risk still gives you […]