The Dutch cabinet set out its plan for a “simpler, smarter and smaller” central government on 26 October 2026, in a letter to the House of Representatives from Eric van der Burg, State Secretary for Kingdom Relations and Effective Government, and a Rijksoverheid news release.

The numbers

  • Savings on the national civil service (rijksdienst) of €900 million in 2027, rising to €3.5 billion a year from 2035.
  • That comes to an estimated 25,000 full-time equivalents (FTE) fewer, “spread over several years”.
  • The cuts will not fall evenly. Police and defence are exempt, among others.
  • Which departments lose how many posts will be set out in the spring budget memorandum (voorjaarsnota). A multi-year plan for the civil service, with proposals from the Committee on the Future of the Civil Service, is due within six months.

NOS reports the reduction is about 16% of roughly 160,000 full-time civil servants. That share is NOS’s calculation, not a figure in the release.

What else is in the letter

  • Data sharing between agencies: the cabinet will have a legal basis worked out within two years so that bodies such as the Tax Administration, the Chamber of Commerce and municipalities can share residents’ and firms’ data more easily, so people do not have to supply information the government already holds.
  • Fewer rules: at least 500 rules a year scrapped or simplified (already announced); a brake on new rules; a study of a German-style reverse burden of proof, under which a ministry must show a rule is still needed or it lapses; and sunset checks on new rules.
  • Fewer advisers and evaluations: the 28 standing advisory councils and about 150 advisory committees are to be “substantially” reduced, with targets this year, and the roughly 400 policy evaluations a year are to fall sharply.
  • Offices and AI: one workstation per two staff, surplus buildings sold, more joint procurement, and targets and savings plans for using AI in the first quarter of 2027.
We can’t keep doing what we did. — State Secretary Eric van der Burg, 26 October 2026
Citizen impact: Dutch taxpayers are promised a cheaper central government, but the release does not say which services shrink. Executive agencies that deal with the public are not listed among the exemptions. The data-sharing law would mean less form-filling, and also more of your information moving between agencies; its privacy safeguards are not yet written.

What this piece refuses

We do not say which ministries or agencies will cut, or by how much; the cabinet has not decided. Reports that some units could lose up to 60% of posts, or that the freedom-of-information law (Woo) will be reformed, come from newspaper accounts of the letter. We have not read those passages in the letter itself, so they are not in our summary. The 25,000 figure is the cabinet’s own estimate.

Bottom line

€900 million in 2027 and €3.5 billion a year from 2035, about 25,000 fewer full-time posts, police and defence spared, details in the spring memorandum, and a cross-agency data-sharing law within two years.