School holidays in the Netherlands, region by region
The Netherlands splits school holidays into three regions, Noord, Midden and Zuid, so a friend in another city can be on holiday in a week you are not. The 2026 to 2027 dates, which of them are fixed and which are only advice a school may deviate from, and how to find your own region.
Last checked Aug 21, 2026
School holidays in the Netherlands, region by region
The Netherlands divides school holidays into three regions, Noord, Midden and Zuid, so the same holiday falls on different weeks depending on where your host family lives. The kerstvakantie, meivakantie and zomervakantie dates below are fixed; the herfstvakantie and voorjaarsvakantie dates are advisory, and your school may use different ones.
Which region you are in
Noord covers Groningen, Friesland, Drenthe, Overijssel, most of Noord-Holland and Flevoland, and parts of Gelderland and Utrecht. Midden covers most of Gelderland, all of Zuid-Holland, most of Utrecht, and part of Noord-Brabant. Zuid covers Limburg, most of Noord-Brabant, Zeeland, and parts of Gelderland. A handful of municipalities sit close to a regional boundary, so if you are not sure which region your host family's town belongs to, check the region list on rijksoverheid.nl rather than guessing from a map.
The 2026 to 2027 dates
Herfstvakantie (autumn): Noord 10 to 18 October 2026, Midden and Zuid 17 to 25 October 2026.
Kerstvakantie (Christmas): the same everywhere, 19 December 2026 to 3 January 2027.
Voorjaarsvakantie (spring): Noord and Midden 20 to 28 February 2027, Zuid 13 to 21 February 2027.
Meivakantie (May): the same everywhere, 24 April to 2 May 2027. Some schools add an optional second week; advisory dates for that extra week were published for 1 to 9 May 2027, but check your own school's calendar for whether it applies to you.
Zomervakantie (summer): Noord 10 July to 22 August 2027, Midden 17 July to 29 August 2027, Zuid 24 July to 5 September 2027.
Fixed dates versus advisory dates
Of the five holidays above, three are published as fixed dates: the kerstvakantie, the meivakantie and the zomervakantie. Schools are expected to follow those. The herfstvakantie and the voorjaarsvakantie are published only as advisory dates: OCW, the education ministry, sets them as a recommendation, and an individual school may use different dates without asking OCW for permission. So if your host family's school takes a different week in October or February than the table above, that is normal, not a mistake. Ask the school for its own calendar (schoolgids) to be sure.
Schools also close for individual studiedagen, teacher training days scattered through the year outside the holiday weeks above. These are set entirely by the individual school and are not published in any national list, so they only ever appear on the school's own calendar.
Your hours do not change during a holiday
None of this changes your legal limits. 8 hours a day (checked 2026-08-18). 30 hours a week (checked 2026-08-18). 2 full free days a week (checked 2026-08-18). All three apply during a school holiday exactly as they do on any other week. See school-holidays-do-not-add-hours for what that means in practice, and agree your own holiday weeks with your host family early, separate from the school calendar.