Zaanse Schans: The Dutch Village Charging Tourists for Entry

Fri Dec 05 2025 21:52:35 GMT+0200 (Eastern European Standard Time)

In a bid to manage overwhelming tourist numbers, Zaanse Schans, a historic Dutch village known for its picturesque windmills, plans to introduce an entry fee for visitors starting next spring.

The charming Dutch village of Zaanse Schans is preparing to charge tourists an entry fee of €17.50 ($20.50) in an effort to control the increasing influx of visitors. In 2025, it's estimated that 2.8 million tourists will visit the village, which houses only about 100 residents. The move aims to protect the privacy of locals and generate funds for maintaining local infrastructure while also sparking concerns among local shopkeepers about potential declines in business.

The historic Dutch village of Zaanse Schans is well known for its windmills, which a heck of a lot of tourists want to go to see. Indeed, they are some of the most picturesque examples in the Netherlands, and easy to get to from Amsterdam.

Last year, 2.6 million people visited - a gigantic amount for a small place with a resident population of just 100. It is far too many tourists, says the local council. And so, it has announced that from next spring it will charge every visitor from outside the area €17.50 ($20.50; £15) to enter, to try to control the numbers.

It's very rare for a community to take such a measure, but talking to Marieke Verweij, director of the village's museum, you can understand why they want to do this. In 2017 we had 1.7 million visitors… this year we're heading for 2.8 million, she says. But this is a small place! We just don't have room for all these people!

Worse, says Marieke Verweij, visitors often don't know that people live here so they walk into their gardens, they walk into their houses, they pee into their gardens, they knock on doors, they take pictures, they use selfie sticks to peek into the houses. So no privacy at all.

If only half the current numbers keep visiting after the admission charge is introduced, annual revenues will be around €24.5m. The council plans to spend the money on maintenance of the windmills and on new infrastructure. New toilets, for example. But the shop and restaurant owners are not happy at all.

The planned entrance charge is threatening the livelihoods of Zaanse Schans's retailers and restaurant-owners, says Sterre Schaap. She co-runs the gift shop, which is called Trash and Treasures. It's awful. It will mean that people who don't have a big wallet won't be able to come here, says Ms Schaap. It will mean that we will lose a lot of our shoppers.

If you're with a family of four and you have parking, it will be around €100. So people won't have a lot of budget over for other stuff. As I wait for my bus to leave Zaanse Schans, a bus load of people arrive, swiping their credit cards to pay for their rides.