Write your surname on the letterbox before you do anything else.
In a Dutch building with six identical brass flaps and no names on any of them, post does not get delivered to the right flat, it gets pushed through whichever one looks likeliest.
This is the single most common reason new arrivals lose an important letter in their first month.
The same applies to the doorbell panel and, if you are in a shared entrance, the intercom.
Deliveries here run on names as much as numbers, and a lot of official post that matters, from the letter carrying your BSN to bank cards, arrives as ordinary paper post that nobody will chase you about.
The address, written correctly
A Dutch address is street, house number, then a postcode of four digits and two letters, then the town.
The letters are not decoration: the four digits identify a district and the two letters narrow it to a stretch of one street, which is why online forms fill in your street automatically once you type the postcode and house number.
House number additions matter and are frequently mangled.
Numbers followed by a letter, a hyphen, or an abbreviation like hs for huis or bis are separate dwellings, not the same one.
Getting the addition wrong on a delivery address puts your parcel behind a door that is not yours.
Stamps and letters
A standard stamp costs 1.40 euro.
Since 12 July 2026 PostNL’s standard for ordinary letter post is delivery within two delivery days rather than one, with a faster option available at a higher price if you genuinely need next-day.
There are no post offices in the old sense.
PostNL operates through counters inside other shops, usually a supermarket, a tobacconist or a bookshop, and those are where you buy stamps and hand over parcels.
Supermarkets sell stamps in sheets at the till.
If you have no stamp in the house, buy a postzegelcode online from PostNL and write the code on the envelope by hand.
It is a normal thing to do here and it works at the letterbox on the corner.
Sending a parcel
Buy the shipping label online rather than at the counter.
PostNL says so itself on its own sending page: online is faster and cheaper than buying at a PostNL point.
You print it or show a QR code, and the counter scans it.
For small flat items there is the brievenbuspakje, which goes through a letterbox and carries track and trace, so the recipient does not have to be at home.
For anything that will not fit, it is an ordinary parcel with the usual weight bands.
Anything genuinely large is not a postal question.
A wardrobe or a bicycle goes by a removal or transport company, and quotes for that vary enormously.
Receiving a parcel when you are out
Which is most of the time, because Dutch delivery windows are wide and Dutch working hours are not.
The system handles it in a fixed order.
PostNL tries the neighbours first.
If that fails, the parcel goes to a PostNL point or a parcel locker, and the driver leaves a card with a not-home code that lets you see on track and trace where it went.
A PostNL point holds a parcel for 7 days.
A parcel locker holds it for 3, which is the deadline that catches people who go away for a long weekend.
The fix is to set a standing delivery preference in the PostNL app: home, a named PostNL point, a parcel locker, or an agreed spot at the property, plus a second choice for when nobody answers.
Do it once and the whole problem goes away.
DHL, DPD, GLS and UPS all run their own parallel networks of service points with their own apps and their own rules.
There is no shared system.
If you order a lot, you will end up with three or four apps, and that is simply how it is.
Ordering from outside the EU, which changed in July 2026
The old exemption from import duties on small consignments is gone.
Since 1 July 2026 a flat European import duty of 3 euro per product category applies to e-commerce shipments from outside the EU worth up to 150 euro, on top of VAT, which is usually 21%, and on top of the carrier’s handling charge.
Some shops collect all of it at checkout.
Where they do not, the carrier collects before delivery: PostNL sends a digital payment request, collects the duty on behalf of Dutch Customs and passes it on in full.
You have 14 days to pay, and after that the parcel goes back.
The practical consequence is that a cheap item from a non-EU marketplace is no longer cheap once three euro a category, a fifth in VAT and a handling fee are added.
Check whether the seller ships from a European warehouse, because if it does, none of this applies.
The ja/ja sticker, which is a Hague speciality
The Hague reversed the usual arrangement on unaddressed advertising.
Instead of opting out with a nee/nee sticker, you opt in with a ja/ja sticker, and without one no commercial leaflets may go through your letterbox at all.
The gemeente enforces it and can impose a fine of 500 euro per violation on the distributor.
What still arrives regardless of stickers: messages from the gemeente, notices from the grid operator, and material from volunteers and non-commercial organisations.
Huis-aan-huis papers with enough journalistic content also continue.
If your letterbox is buried in leaflets, it means a previous tenant put a ja/ja sticker on it.
Peel it off.
If you want the supermarket folders, which are genuinely useful for working out where the offers are, order the sticker online, and Duurzaam Den Haag supplies a free nee/nee sticker for anyone who wants the opposite.
Moving house
Two separate things, and people do one and forget the other.
Changing your address at the gemeente updates every government body at once, which is one of the reasons registration matters so much here.
It does not redirect your post.
For that, PostNL sells a forwarding service that redirects mail from the old address to the new one for a fixed period.
Worth it for the first three months after a move, particularly if you left a shared building where nobody will make much effort to chase you down.
The rest of the moving-day list, meter readings and the utility switch, sits in the utilities article, and the internet connection, which has its own lead times and is the one thing you cannot arrange on the day, is covered in the providers article.
Sources
- PostNL Newsroom, nieuwe postzegelprijs per januari 2026: a standard stamp costing 1.40 euro from 1 January 2026
- PostNL Newsroom, nieuwe postzegeltarieven per 12 juli 2026: the standard stamp price remaining 1.40 euro after 12 July 2026, letter post delivered as standard within two delivery days, and a next-day option available at a higher price
- PostNL, versturen: shipping labels bought online being faster and cheaper than at a PostNL point, the brievenbuspakje+ with track and trace and no requirement for the recipient to be home, and the postzegelcode bought online when no stamps are available
- PostNL, niet thuis bij bezorging and bezorgvoorkeuren: delivery attempted at the neighbours first, then a PostNL point or parcel locker, a card left with a not-home code, 7 days of storage at a PostNL point and 3 days in a parcel locker, and standing delivery preferences set in the app or through track and trace
- PostNL Newsroom, nieuwe Europese invoerregels voor e-commercezendingen tot 150 euro vanaf 1 juli 2026: the abolition of the existing import duty exemption, a flat European import duty of 3 euro per product category, VAT and handling costs in addition, collection by the carrier where the shop has not charged them, a digital payment request from PostNL collecting on behalf of Dutch Customs, and 14 days to pay before the parcel is returned
- Gemeente Den Haag, Ja/Ja-sticker in Den Haag: unaddressed commercial advertising delivered only to letterboxes carrying a ja/ja sticker, enforcement by the gemeente with a fine of 500 euro per violation, the continued delivery of gemeente messages, grid operator notices and material from volunteers and non-commercial organisations, and free nee/nee stickers from Duurzaam Den Haag
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