Foreigners in NL feel more discrimination than in rest of EU

Foreign-born people in the Netherlands tend to feel more discrimination than foreigners in other European countries, new data by the EU statistical office Eurostat reveals.

The findings are in line with the results of the survey carried out by Dutch News last year showing that many international residents feel discriminated against, with 15% of respondents saying that they were made to feel like outsiders.

Eurostat refers to self-perceived discrimination, not specific episodes occurred in real life.

The agency said in 2024, 18% of people born abroad felt discriminated against in public spaces, such as cafés, shops or sports facilities in the Netherlands. This was the highest proportion recorded among EU countries, followed by Denmark and Austria. The EU average was 7.7%.

Non-EU nationals were also more likely to feel they had faced discrimination in public areas in the Netherlands than citizens from other EU countries (19.3% and 13.2%, respectively).

When looking for housing, 13.7% of people in the Netherlands who were born abroad felt they were not treated equally, while the EU average was 12.6%. In this case, citizens from other EU countries were more likely to feel treated poorly than non-EU nationals (19.6% and 12.1% respectively).

The perception of discrimination in the Netherlands among foreign-born people was also higher than the European average (9.7%) when contacting public bodies such as local councils (14%). This was reported by 12.8% of citizens from other EU citizens and 14.7% among non-EU nationals.

When dealing with educational institutions, 6.3% of foreign-born people felt they had been discriminated against while the EU average was 4.3%. The proportion was again lower among EU citizens (4.2%) than non-EU nationals (6.8%), Eurostat data shows.

In June, the Dutch government said it is launching a new “discrimination test” so departments can check whether their policies and algorithms risk ethnic profiling.