A group of Amsterdam residents are taking the city council to court for failing to tackle rising tourist numbers. In particular, they are angry that the council’s self-imposed limit of 20 million overnight stays a year has been broken for the past three years.

Amsterdam introduced the limit in 2020 after more than 30,000 residents signed a petition calling for action and pledged to take steps to keep to the maximum. However, this year almost 24 million overnight stays have been forecast.

Now campaign group Amsterdam heeft een Keuze (Amsterdam has a Choice) – supported by 12 residents’ groups – says it has had enough.

Together members have raised €50,000 to fund a legal case, including a €30,000 donation from local entrepreneur Alexander Klöpping, and the official summons – 26 pages long – was served on the council on Monday.

City tourism chief Sofyan Mbarki said he understood that residents are unhappy but said that tackling excessive tourism will take time.

The city has already taken steps, such as reducing the options for holiday rentals, increasing tourist tax and launching a “stay away” campaign to discourage budget tourists out to take drugs and party.

“But there is no single button we can press to solve everything in one go,” he told the Parool.

The campaigners say the city should raise tourist taxes further to discourage more visitors, while using the income to tackle the impact of tourism. They also propose banning tourists from cannabis cafés, as is the case in the rest of the country, and buying back hotel permits to reduce capacity.

Amsterdam already has the highest tourist tax in Europe, having increased the cost of overnight stays to 12.5% of the hotel bill.

The number of hotel beds, currently some 92,000, is set to increase by up to 6% in the coming years, but the council has imposed a blanket ban on new developments.

Other measures

Mbarki said in May he would present a package of additional measures to reduce tourism before December 1.

The council is also looking to better manage the number of day trippers, who totalled 26.7 million in 2024. Some 66% come from elsewhere in the Netherlands to go shopping or visit a museum.