Volunteering in The Hague: where to start and what it involves

Volunteer for a Hague organisation and you are automatically insured for accidents and damage while you are doing it.

You do not apply for that, you do not pay for it, and the municipality carries it.

It is the kind of thing nobody mentions because it has never been a problem, and it is worth knowing before you worry about the paperwork.

Where the work actually is

Den Haag Doet is the city’s volunteer platform and it lists more than 1,200 volunteer vacancies from more than 300 organisations.

You can search by neighbourhood, by cause or by board position, and there is an advice line on 070 302 44 19, Monday to Thursday from 10.00 to 15.00, if you would rather talk to someone than scroll.

It is run by PEP Den Haag, at Riviervismarkt 2, which is the same organisation rather than a separate one.

PEP is the connecting body between volunteers, resident groups, charities and companies in the city, and it also runs a volunteer academy whose training is mostly, though not entirely, free.

Its office is open Monday to Thursday from 09.00 to 17.00.

The English-language sister project is Volunteer The Hague, which exists specifically to connect internationals already living here with local non-profits in and around the city.

If your Dutch is not yet up to reading a vacancy text, start there.

No platform states a blanket language requirement, and that is the honest position: whether you need Dutch depends entirely on the role.

Sorting food parcels does not.

Running a conversation group does.

The general question is answered in do you actually need Dutch here.

The VOG, and the single question that decides whether it costs you anything

A Verklaring Omtrent het Gedrag is the Dutch certificate of conduct, and roles involving children or vulnerable adults generally ask for one.

There is a scheme that makes it free, and the important thing about it is that it belongs to the organisation, not to you.

You cannot obtain a free VOG as an individual.

Your organisation has to be admitted to the Regeling Gratis VOG first, and then it sets the application up for you.

If it is in the scheme, you pay nothing.

If it is not, you pay 33.85 euro for a digital application or 41.35 euro for a paper one.

The conditions sit on the organisation: its volunteers must work with vulnerable people, the work must be organised, voluntary and unpaid, it must have an active and properly worked-out prevention policy, it must not already be covered by other legislation (schools, playgroups and after-school care are restricted), and it must be registered at the Chamber of Commerce with a KVK number.

The CIBG, part of the health ministry, decides whether it qualifies.

Practically, the organisation needs eHerkenning to enrol and you need DigiD to finish your own application, which is one more reason to sort that out early; DigiD explained covers it.

Justis replies within one to eight weeks.

Ask the organisation whether it is in the scheme before you apply, because that one question is the whole difference.

Money, and the trap in it

Volunteering is unpaid, but a tax-free expenses allowance exists and it has three ceilings that all apply at once.

In 2026 someone aged 21 or over may receive a maximum of 5.75 euro an hour, up to 220 euro a month and up to 2,200 euro a year.

For under-21s the hourly figure is 3.40 euro, with the same monthly and annual caps.

Where no hourly rate is agreed, the monthly and annual maximums still apply on their own.

Anything above those figures stops being an expenses allowance and starts being income.

If you are receiving a benefit, two rules matter.

You must always tell UWV that you are going to volunteer, and with a WW benefit you also need its permission.

The organisation must be an ANBI, an SBBI or an association or foundation entitled to use the tax authority’s volunteer scheme, and the work itself must have been done exclusively by volunteers for at least a year, so you cannot volunteer into a post that used to be a job.

The trap is in the small print.

The 220 euro a month and 2,200 a year ceiling covers the total you receive for the volunteering, including travel costs and expenses.

People reimbursed for a long commute have gone over it without realising.

The tax treatment of everything else you receive is in the Dutch tax year for employees and the Dutch allowances.

In The Hague specifically, the municipality expects people receiving bijstand, the social assistance benefit, to make an active contribution to society, so volunteering is often part of that conversation rather than an optional extra.

If your residence status is not straightforward

Asylum seekers are permitted to do volunteer work, including in their first six months, and no work permit is required for it.

What is required sits with the organisation: it must obtain a vrijwilligersverklaring, a volunteer declaration, from UWV.

That declaration is valid for three years and attaches to the type of work rather than to the individual, so an organisation that already holds one for a role does not need a new one for you.

People who hold a residence permit, including recognised refugees, need none of this and have the same position as anyone else.

If you are on a permit tied to an employer or a study, check what your own permit allows before you commit; residence permits and the IND sets out the categories, and the counter at The Hague International Centre will answer it in person.

Places that genuinely need people

Voedselbank Haaglanden is a non-profit foundation that works exclusively with volunteers, serving more than two thousand households a week across The Hague, Rijswijk and Zoetermeer from six distribution points.

Roles run from three to sixteen hours a week and you apply by emailing your details and a short introduction to solliciteren@voedselbankhaaglanden.nl.

Use its vacancies page rather than the older links, several of which are dead.

Resto VanHarte cooks and eats with people who would otherwise eat alone, and runs four evenings a week in The Hague: Tuesdays at Buurthuis De Yp on the Oeverwallaan in Ypenburg, Wednesdays at De Huiskamer van Leidschenveen on the Harriet Freezerhof, Thursdays at De Kronkel on the Westeinde in Kortenbos, and Fridays at Wijkcentrum De Geest on the George Bizetstraat in Loosduinen.

Doors open an hour or half an hour before dinner.

The Red Cross branch for The Hague, Rijswijk and Wassenaar is at Zilverstraat 2 and recruits for first-aid and emergency-support roles, both of which come with training.

Stichting Mara works with people in vulnerable positions and runs OPstap Den Haag, its local buddy project.

The Hague Humanity Hub, at Fluwelen Burgwal 58, is the English-language hub for organisations working on peace and justice.

It has no volunteering page of its own; the route in is through Den Haag Doet, and the professional side of it is covered in the international networks and which are worth the fee.

The language roles, which run in the direction people expect least

Gilde Den Haag runs SamenSpraak from the same building as PEP, on 070 356 12 81.

The commitment is one hour a week with a language partner, for a year, and the role is to be the Dutch speaker.

Read that again if you were hoping to practise: this is a job for people who already speak Dutch and want to help someone else learn it.

The Taalhuis at the central library, Spui 68, works the same way, supporting newcomers and people who struggle with reading and writing.

Training is not optional: every language volunteer at the library takes a basic course in dealing with low literacy, run by Taal aan Zee.

Libraries in The Hague are the delivery point for a lot of this.

If you are on the other side of that exchange and want to practise rather than teach, the free conversation groups in 22 library branches are described in how to actually make friends in The Hague, and the paid options at the language schools in The Hague are compared in learning Dutch in The Hague.

What it does for you, said plainly

Volunteering is the most reliable way an adult arriving in this country ends up in a room with the same people every week, which is the actual mechanism behind friendship here rather than anything to do with being outgoing.

It also builds a Dutch reference and a Dutch work history, which matters more than it should when you start applying for jobs; finding work in The Hague explains why.

Two things not to do.

Do not take on a weekly commitment you will resent in November, because dropping out of a rota with four people on it is worse than never joining.

And do not treat it as networking: people notice, and the organisations that are worth your time are the ones where nobody is doing that.

If a rota is the wrong shape for your life, a club or a course gets you to the same place: sports clubs and how joining one works here and hobby groups, makers and evening classes are the alternatives.

Sources

• Den Haag Doet (denhaagdoet.nl): “Werk je als vrijwilliger voor een Haagse organisatie? Dan ben je tijdens het vrijwilligerswerk automatisch verzekerd voor ongelukken en schade”; “Op Den Haag Doet vind je meer dan 1.200 vrijwilligersvacatures binnen Den Haag!” and “Op Den Haag Doet vind je vrijwilligersvacatures van meer dan 300 organisaties!”; advice line 070 302 44 19, Monday to Thursday 10.00 to 15.00
• PEP Den Haag (pepdenhaag.nl), Riviervismarkt 2, 2513 AM, telephone 070 302 44 44: “Wij zijn open van maandag t/m donderdag van 09.00 – 17.00”; “We richten ons op maatschappelijke betrokkenheid en ondersteunen vrijwilligersorganisaties, bewonersgroepen, bedrijven die zich willen inzetten”; PEP runs Den Haag Doet and the volunteer academy, of which “De meeste trainingen op de academie zijn gratis, en voor sommigen betalen de deelnemers”. Volunteer The Hague (volunteerthehague.nl): “The Volunteer The Hague project connects internationals who are already living in The Netherlands with local non-profit organizations that are based in and around The Hague”
• Justis and gratisvog.nl: “Is de organisatie waar u gaat werken aangesloten bij de Regeling Gratis VOG? Dan hoeft u niet te betalen voor de VOG-aanvraag”; otherwise “de behandelingskosten voor een digitale VOG-aanvraag 33,85 en voor een schriftelijke VOG-aanvraag 41,35”; “Het CIBG (onderdeel van het ministerie van Volksgezondheid, Welzijn en Sport) beoordeelt of u als organisatie aan de voorwaarden voldoet”; the five conditions including work with vulnerable people, “in georganiseerd verband, vrijwillig en onbetaald”, “een actief en gedegen preventiebeleid”, exclusion where other legislation applies, and “Uw organisatie staat ingeschreven bij de Kamer van Koophandel en heeft dus een KVK-nummer”; the organisation needs eHerkenning and “De vrijwilligers hebben DigiD nodig”; Justis replies within one to eight weeks
• Belastingdienst, vrijwilligersvergoedingen: “In 2026 krijgt u een vergoeding van maximaal 5,75 per uur, tot een maximum van 220 per maand en tot een maximum van 2.200 per jaar” for volunteers of 21 and over, and “In 2026 krijgt u een vergoeding van maximaal 3,40 per uur” for those under 21 with the same monthly and annual caps; where no hourly rate is agreed, “de vergoeding in 2026 maximaal 220 per maand en 2.200 per jaar zijn”
• UWV: “Als u vrijwilligerswerk gaat doen, moet u dit altijd melden bij UWV”; “Met een WW-uitkering heeft u ook onze toestemming nodig”; the organisation must be an ANBI, an SBBI or “een vereniging of stichting en mag de vrijwilligersregeling van de Belastingdienst gebruiken”, and “het werk dat u gaat doen al minimaal 1 jaar alleen door vrijwilligers worden gedaan”; “U mag naast uw uitkering maximaal 220 per maand krijgen voor vrijwilligerswerk. En maximaal 2.200 per jaar”, and “Dit gaat om de totale vergoeding die u krijgt voor het vrijwilligerswerk, inclusief reiskosten en onkosten”. PEP’s guide for volunteer organisations: “De gemeente Den Haag verwacht van iemand een bijstandsuitkering ontvangt, dat hij/zij zich actief inzet voor de maatschappij”
• Rijksoverheid: “Asielzoekers mogen vrijwilligerswerk doen. Hiervoor is geen tewerkstellingsvergunning (TWV) vereist”. UWV: “De werkgever hoeft geen werkvergunning aan te vragen voor asielzoekers die vrijwilligerswerk doen” and “Wel moet de werkgever een vrijwilligersverklaring aanvragen”, valid three years and attached to the type of work. Nederlandse Arbeidsinspectie: “Asielzoekers mogen vrijwilligerswerk doen. Dit mag ook in de eerste 6 maanden” and “Hebben zij geen verblijfsvergunning? De werkgever heeft dan een vrijwilligersverklaring van het UWV nodig”
• Voedselbank Haaglanden: “De Voedselbank Haaglanden is een stichting zonder winstoogmerk. Onze organisatie werkt uitsluitend met vrijwilligers”; more than 2,000 households a week across Den Haag, Rijswijk and Zoetermeer from six distribution points; roles of 3 to 16 hours a week; “Stuur een e-mail met je contactgegevens en een korte introductie naar solliciteren@voedselbankhaaglanden.nl”; the live page is the vacancies page, with the older volunteer URLs returning 404
• Resto VanHarte Den Haag locations page: Ypenburg, Buurthuis De Yp, Oeverwallaan 130, “Iedere dinsdag. Inloop vanaf 17.30 uur, aanvang diner 18.00 uur”; Leidschenveen, De Huiskamer van Leidschenveen, Harriet Freezerhof 201, Wednesdays; Kortenbos, De Kronkel, Westeinde 425, Thursdays; Loosduinen, Wijkcentrum De Geest, George Bizetstraat 25, “Iedere vrijdag. Inloop vanaf 17.00 uur, aanvang diner 17.30 uur”
• Rode Kruis Den Haag, Rijswijk en Wassenaar, Zilverstraat 2, 2544 ER, recruiting for “Basis Eerstehulpverlener” and “Hulpverlener Noodhulp en Ondersteuning”. Stichting Mara (maraprojecten.nl): “Mara zet zich met vrijwilligers in voor mensen in kwetsbare posities, vanuit de visie dat iedereen van waarde is”, with OPstap Den Haag as its Hague buddy project. The Hague Humanity Hub, Fluwelen Burgwal 58, 2511 CJ: “A collaborative platform for changemakers working towards a more peaceful and just world”
• Gilde Den Haag, SamenSpraak, Riviervismarkt 2, telephone 070 356 12 81: “Spreekt u Nederlands, heeft u wat tijd over en zoekt u een zinvolle en plezierige tijdsbesteding? Dan kunt u bij SamenSpraak taalcoach worden van een anderstalige”, with a commitment of “een uur per week Nederlands met uw taalmaatje” for a year. Taalhuis Den Haag, Spui 68: “Help nieuwkomers en anderstaligen om zich thuis te voelen door ze te ondersteunen bij het leren van de Nederlandse taal” and “Alle taalvrijwilligers bij de bibliotheek volgen een basistraining bij het omgaan met laaggeletterdheid bij Taal aan Zee”