The average retirement age in the Netherlands has gone up again, reaching 66 years and four months last year, according to new figures from national statistics agency CBS.

That is 2.5 months later than in 2024, and marks a continuation of the trend toward later retirement which started in 2006 when the average age was just 61.

Then the government began implementing a string of measures to boost this, phasing out early retirement schemes and increasing the state pension age to its current level of 67 years.

Freelancers retire on average three years later than employees, the CBS said. Figures from 2023 – the most recent statistics available – show the self-employed stopped work at an average age of just under 69.

In total, some 100,000 people stopped working last year.

Some 45% of the people who retired last year were women, compared with just 28% at the beginning of the century, when far fewer older women were working.