In this guide
The first time an international family sits down with a Dutch insurance comparison screen, one thing usually goes wrong in a specific and expensive direction. Parents arriving from systems where every family member has a price tag start looking for a family plan, comparing family premiums, and worrying about how much four people will cost.
There is no family plan. There is no family premium. There are two adult premiums, and the children come along for nothing.
That single structural fact changes what you should be shopping for. Once you know that your children cost you no premium and are exempt from the deductible, the interesting questions become narrower and far more useful: which add-ons are worth paying for, what happens to dental care at 18, and what part of your children’s healthcare is not run by an insurer at all.
Disclosure: this article contains affiliate links to UnitedConsumers and a.s.r., both approved partners of ours. If you sign up through them we may earn a commission at no extra cost to you. The premium you pay is the same as going direct, and it does not affect what we recommend.
What “free for children” actually means
Two separate rules do the work, and they are both worth stating precisely.
No premium under 18. A child under 18 is insured for the basisverzekering without any premium being charged. The child is registered on a parent’s policy and receives the full statutory basic package — GP care, hospital and specialist treatment on referral, prescription medicines in the covered categories, mental healthcare after referral, and the rest of the legally defined package. The obligation to pay a premium starts on the first day of the month after the eighteenth birthday.
No deductible under 18. The verplicht eigen risico is €385 in 2026 for adults. It does not apply to anyone under 18. When your nine-year-old needs a hospital X-ray, there is no deductible to burn through first and no bill arriving three months later. This is the point that most consistently reassures parents coming from the United States or from private systems elsewhere.
Two adults, three children, one policy structure: you pay two premiums. That is the whole cost picture for the basic package.
What you do still have to do is register each child. Insurance is not automatic just because the child exists. For a baby born here, cover runs from the date of birth, but you must register the child with an insurer within four months — in practice, do it in the same run of admin as the birth registration at the gemeente, and the cover is applied retroactively to the birth date. For children arriving with you from abroad, they are registered on the same footing as the rest of the family once you are registered residents and insured under the Dutch system. If you are still working out that first step, our Dutch health insurance guide for expats covers who is obliged to insure and from when.
The parts of children’s healthcare your insurer does not run
The consultatiebureau and youth health care (JGZ). Growth and development checks, hearing and vision screening, and advice on feeding and sleep run through the municipal youth health service, not your insurer. You do not claim it, it does not touch your deductible, and there is no charge. You are invited; you go.
Vaccinations under the national programme. Childhood immunisations in the national programme are organised through the same youth health route rather than billed to your policy.
School dentistry, in some municipalities. Some areas run dental services through schools or a regional service. Where they exist, they work through the same basic-package coverage described below.
Your child still needs a huisarts — a GP — for everything acute and everything requiring a referral. Register the whole family at one practice in your first weeks, because GP lists in the bigger cities do fill up, and being unregistered when a toddler spikes a fever at 9pm is an avoidable kind of stress. Our guide to finding an English-speaking doctor covers how the lists work, and how the Dutch referral system operates explains what happens after that.
Dental: covered until 18, and then it stops abruptly
Dental care is the single biggest source of confused expectations among expat parents here, in both directions.
Until 18, the basisverzekering covers most routine dental care. The annual preventive check-up, fillings, extractions, X-rays, fluoride application in defined cases and periodontal treatment fall inside the basic package for children, with no deductible. You register your child with a dentist, you go, and it is paid.
Orthodontics is the exception. Braces are, as a rule, not part of the basic package for children. This is where families discover a four-figure cost they had assumed was covered because everything else was. Some cases with a serious medical indication are treated differently, and a dentist or orthodontist will tell you whether yours is one of them — but plan on the assumption that routine braces are yours to fund, either through a supplementary orthodontics package or by saving for it.
Cosmetic treatment is not covered either, at any age.
At 18 it changes twice over. Your child now pays a premium, has their own €385 deductible, and loses dental cover. Adult dental care in the Netherlands is not part of the basic package beyond specific surgical and specialist categories, which is why so many adults here carry a small tandartsverzekering or simply pay per visit. If you have a seventeen-year-old, the year to have this conversation is now, and our overview of English-speaking dentists in the Netherlands is a practical place to start.
Check a.s.r.’s basic policy and dental add-ons →
Add-ons for a family: priced per person, chosen per person
Supplementary insurance (aanvullende verzekering) is where the actual decisions live, and the structure is important: you buy it per insured person, not per household. Insurers do apply their own conditions to children’s supplementary cover, and those conditions vary — some link a child’s package to the parents’ choice, some do not. Read the policy conditions for the specific insurer rather than assuming a family discount exists.
That per-person structure also means you are allowed to be asymmetric about it, which most families should be:
Orthodontics. The clearest case for a family add-on, because the cost is large, predictable in kind if not in timing, and completely absent from the basic package. Note that packages typically pay a percentage up to an annual or lifetime maximum, and many have a waiting or qualifying period — buying it three months before the braces go on rarely works. If braces are likely for a child now aged eight or nine, this is a decision to make deliberately rather than in December of the year you need it.
Physiotherapy. Children’s physiotherapy has more basic-package cover than adults’ does, so the case for an add-on here is usually about an adult in the household with a recurring back or knee problem.
Glasses and contact lenses. Modest sums, capped, and easy to compare against what you actually spent last year. Families with two or three spectacle-wearers sometimes come out ahead; families with none never do.
Tiers, not components. Most insurers sell supplementary cover as bundled packages rather than as individual items, so you cannot usually buy orthodontics on its own. That is where families overspend: paying for a tier because of one useful component and funding four they will never claim. Price the tier against the single thing you actually want, then check whether a cheaper tier already includes it.
The honest way to decide is to look backwards, not forwards. Add up what your household genuinely spent on dental, physio, glasses and cross-border care over the last two years, and compare it with twelve months of premium for the tier you are considering. If the numbers are close, the add-on is not worth the administration. If a single predictable item — braces, most often — dominates, buy for that item. Our comparison of the best health insurance add-ons in the Netherlands goes through the categories one by one, and the supplemental insurance guide covers the tier structures.
One discount is worth checking before you buy a tier per person. UnitedConsumers is a Dutch consumer collective — not an insurer — that has worked with VGZ since 2006 and gives members 20% off all aanvullende verzekeringen and off the tandartsverzekering (unitedconsumers.com/zorgverzekering, checked 18 September 2026). Because supplementary cover is priced per insured person, a percentage discount scales with household size in a way a flat welcome offer does not: on four supplements it is four times the saving. The trade-offs are that you are choosing within VGZ’s supplement range rather than the whole market, and that the site carries no English-language information, checked 18 September 2026.
Pregnancy, birth and the first year
If your family is about to get bigger, three specifics matter.
Midwife-led care and delivery are in the basic package, and maternity and obstetric care do not draw on your deductible. What is not free is the eigen bijdrage for kraamzorg — the maternity nurse who comes to your home in the days after the birth — which carries a statutory personal contribution per hour. It is a modest, known amount rather than a surprise, but it is real, and some supplementary packages cover part of it.
A non-medically indicated hospital birth brings its own personal contribution. Choosing where to give birth is therefore partly a cost question here, unlike in most systems expats arrive from.
The baby is insured from birth and, as above, must be registered with an insurer within four months. Our pregnancy and maternity care guide walks through the Dutch model, which is genuinely different from what most families expect, and the maternity and paternity leave guide covers the employment side.
Building the family setup: a short sequence
- Both adults get a basisverzekering. Cover is legally identical for the basic package at every insurer, so you are comparing premium, policy type (naturapolis versus restitutiepolis) and contracted hospitals — not coverage.
- Register the children on one parent’s policy. No premium, no deductible. Whose policy is administratively convenient rather than financially meaningful.
- Register the whole family with a GP, and with a dentist for the children.
- Decide add-ons per person, starting from your own past spending, with orthodontics as the one item worth planning years ahead.
- Check your zorgtoeslag position. The healthcare allowance is assessed on adults and household income, and there is no separate children’s component — because children cost no premium. Our zorgtoeslag and huurtoeslag guide covers the thresholds.
- Diary the switching window. Premiums and conditions for the following year are published by 12 November. You can cancel by 31 December and take out new cover until 31 January, backdated to 1 January.
Anyone quoting you 2027 premiums today is guessing: insurers must publish them by 12 November. The 2027 mandatory deductible was announced on Prinsjesdag at €400, up from €385 (rijksoverheid.nl, checked 24 September 2026). The switching deadline explainer sets out the dates, and the health insurance wizard can narrow the shortlist before you compare live premiums.
The Short Version
Stop shopping for a family plan — it does not exist, and looking for it makes the Dutch system seem more expensive than it is. Two adults, two premiums, children free and deductible-free until 18.
Spend the attention you save on the three things that do cost money: braces, adult dental care from 18, and any add-on tier you are buying for one useful component. Register every child with an insurer, register the family with a GP and the children with a dentist, and treat the publication of next year’s premiums (by 12 November) as the moment to review — not as something you can research in September.
My practical tip: if you have a child aged eight to twelve, put the orthodontics question on your list for this year’s switching window rather than the year the orthodontist says yes.
More for families here: the Dutch health insurance guide for expats, what Dutch health insurance covers, best health insurance add-ons, raising kids in the Netherlands, and moving to the Netherlands with kids.
Frequently Asked Questions
Do I pay premium for my children's health insurance in the Netherlands?
No. Children under 18 pay no premium for the basisverzekering. They are registered on a parent's policy and insured at no cost until the first day of the month after their eighteenth birthday, at which point they need their own policy and start paying their own premium.
Does the eigen risico apply to children?
No. The mandatory deductible — €385 in 2026 — applies only from the age of 18. Care for a child under 18 that falls inside the basic package is reimbursed without any deductible being charged, to your child or to you.
Is dental care covered for children in the Netherlands?
Most routine dental care is covered by the basisverzekering until 18: the annual check-up, fillings, extractions, X-rays, fluoride treatment in defined cases and periodontal care. No deductible applies. Orthodontics — braces — is the significant exception and is generally not covered, which is what an add-on or a savings plan is for.
Do I need to register my newborn with a health insurer?
Yes, and promptly. A baby born in the Netherlands is insured from birth, but you must register the child with an insurer within four months. Do it in the same weeks as the birth registration at the gemeente and the cover applies retroactively to the date of birth.
Should the whole family be with the same insurer?
It is not required — partners can hold policies with different insurers and children can be registered on either parent's policy. Keeping the family together is mainly an administrative convenience, and it can matter for add-ons, because some insurers apply family conditions to supplementary packages. Compare the actual policy conditions rather than assuming a family discount exists.
Which add-ons are worth it for a family?
The ones matching costs you can already predict: orthodontics if a child is likely to need braces, physiotherapy if someone in the household has a recurring problem, and glasses or contact lenses if the family goes through them. Supplementary insurance is not a bet you win on average — it is a way to cap known spending, so start from your own last two years of receipts.
Is the consultatiebureau part of my health insurance?
No, and this surprises many new parents. Routine youth health care — growth checks, developmental screening and the national vaccination programme — runs through the municipal youth health service, not through your insurer, and there is no charge for it. It sits alongside your GP rather than replacing them.
When can I change my family's insurance for next year?
During the annual switching window at the end of the calendar year. Insurers publish their premiums and policy conditions for the following year by 12 November, you can cancel your current policy up to 31 December, and you then have until 31 January to take out a new one with cover backdated to 1 January.