Total student debt falls for the first time, to €28 billion

The total amount of student loans owed in the Netherlands has fallen for the first time, according to national statistics office CBS.

Students and former students owed €28 billion at the start of 2026 – €800 million less than a year earlier. The fall is due to fewer students taking out loans since the basic grant was reinstated for higher education students in the 2023-2024 academic year.

The grant was scrapped in 2015 and replaced with a loan system, leaving a generation of students to borrow to cover their living costs.

Some 1.5 million people had student debts in January, a figure that has now fallen for three years running. The number of current students with a loan has dropped to around 400,000, down 210,000 since 2023.

The number of former students with debt is still rising, but more slowly. It went up by just over 6,000 this year, compared with 28,000 a year earlier, and now stands at more than 1.1 million.

People owing large debts are also more common. Some 145,000 people owe €50,000 or more, twice as many as six years ago, and almost 5,000 owe at least €100,000. At the other end of the scale, almost half of all borrowers owe less than €10,000.

The average debt has risen by €5,900 since the loan system was introduced, to €18,300. Current students owe €15,600 on average, €1,000 less than last year, while former students owe an average of €19,200.