Introduction and significance of the theme
Like the Raad voor Cultuur in the report Access to culture emphasized, the value of culture is multifaceted (Raad voor Cultuur 2024). Culture represents first and foremost an essential, intrinsic value. In this way, culture enriches people's lives and society as a whole. At the same time, culture has a social value thanks to its positive influence on mental and physical health (Gielen et al. 2020, Berkers et al. 2021). And culture also generates an economic value.
According to calculations by Statistics Netherlands, the added economic value of the cultural and creative sectors together amounted to 2022 billion euros in 29,9 (3,4 percent of the
On this page we will discuss the financial flows to the cultural sector that help to create this intrinsic, social and economic value. We build on previous research by Berenschot (2025) and Geven in Nederland (2024) in particular. And we use data from the EU, the Dutch government and Statistics Netherlands (CBS) on government expenditure and information from various annual reports and monitors from industry associations, cultural organisations and charities. In doing so, we map out how the cultural sector is financed and how the financial flows relate to each other.
In 2023 were the income of the cultural sector in the Netherlands at least 6,3 billionThis minimum amount is based on an analysis of government expenditure on culture, donations and sponsorship by citizens and companies and the own income of subsidized cultural organizations.
The income of the cultural sector can be divided into three main categories:
- Government expenditure: at least 3,94 billion euros.
These are resources from municipalities, provinces and the central government, but also from supranational organisations such as UNESCO and the European Union.
- Private contributions: at least 389 million euros.
This concerns contributions from private funds and friends' associations, gifts from private individuals, sponsorship by companies and lottery contributions.
- Own income of subsidized cultural organisations: at least 1,97 billion euros.
This amount is indicative. If we also include the income in the free cultural sectors, it amounts to at least 3,85 billion euros.
This includes income from, for example, the sale of tickets, products or services, from copyright or image rights or from catering and rental income.
*This is a minimum amount
The ratios between these financial flows show that the cultural sector generates a substantial part of its income itself. However, government contributions are the largest source of income. Private contributions are the smallest source of income. The ratios between these three financial flows are virtually unchanged between 2005 and 2023, with the exception of the years during the corona pandemic.
However, the financial situation in the cultural sector has changed significantly in recent years. Between 2015 and 2023, inflation (by 26 percent) rose much faster than the own income (13,7 percent) and private contributions (4,3 percent). Although government expenditure increased by 34,7 percent in the same period, this is not enough to compensate for inflation. This means that the total income of the cultural sector did not grow between 2015 and 2023, but even decreased by one percent. This shows that the sector has been under financial pressure for years. While costs continue to rise, there is extremely
Government spending
The Dutch government has a
The Dutch government's expenditure on culture amounts to approximately 0,4 percent of the gross domestic product (GDP). When expenditure on broadcasting and written media is also included, this amounts to a total of 0,6 percent of GDP. This is lower than the EU average of 0,7 percent for culture, broadcasting and media. This puts the Netherlands in 20th place out of 27 EU countries (Polivtseva 2024).
The division of tasks between the central government, the provinces and municipalities is discussed
Municipalities
From research of
Average municipal expenditure increased from 108 euros per inhabitant in 2017 to 127 euros per inhabitant in 2023: an increase of 18 percent. However, this increase is lower than inflation in the same period (24 percent). In the same period, expenditure on culture compared to total municipal expenditure also decreased from 3,6 percent to 3,2 percent. On balance, municipalities have therefore spent less on culture.
Municipalities finance their tasks with their own tax revenues supplemented with resources from
In the coming years, municipalities will receive substantially less resources from the central government via the municipal fund. This will have an effect on the budgets of municipalities from 2026, also referred to as the 'ravine year'. Municipalities are therefore expected to have considerably less money left over for carrying out non-statutory tasks, including culture.
Differences between municipalities
Per capita expenditure on culture is generally relatively high in larger municipalities compared to smaller municipalities. For example, expenditure on culture in Amsterdam, Rotterdam, The Hague and Utrecht averages 255 euros per inhabitant, while in municipalities with 10 to 20 thousand inhabitants it is 52 euros.
In the dashboard of the Culture Monitor Municipal expenditure on culture is also included per spending target.
Provinces
Provinces also spend resources on culture. Like municipalities, they are free to set their own ambitions and determine the level of expenditure. 2023 the provinces jointly gave 368 million on culture. Per capita, the average expenditure of provinces increased from 18 euros in 2017 to 21 euros in 2023 (CBS 2024b). As with municipalities, this increase of 17 percent is lower than inflation (28 percent), which means that provinces will also spend relatively less on culture in 2023 than seven years earlier.
The provinces of Friesland and Zeeland spend relatively the most on culture, while South Holland and North Holland spend relatively little on culture per capita. The extent to which provinces spend resources on culture depends on the role that provinces see for themselves within the cultural system (Wijn et al. 2022). As a rule, the expenditure of a province is related to the expenditure of the municipalities within that province: if the municipalities within the province spend relatively little on culture, the expenditure of the provinces is relatively high and vice versa. If the municipal and provincial expenditure are added together, the local authorities in Groningen and Limburg will spend the most money on culture per inhabitant in 2023.
For provinces too, the contribution from the national government will be lower in the coming years. This will also have an effect on the financing of culture from provinces from 2026.
In the dashboard of the Culture Monitor provincial expenditure on culture is also included per spending target.
National government
The financing of the cultural policy of the central government can largely be found in the budget of the Ministry of Education, Culture and Science (OCW) under policy article 14Expenditures within this article rose from 713 million euros in 2015 to
In the financing of culture from the government, much attention is paid in the sector to the Cultural Basic Infrastructure (BIS) and the financing of museums from the Heritage Act. In addition to these components, Article 14 also regulates the financing for, among other things, monument care, cultural education and library facilities. The figure below shows this.
In the dashboard of the Culture Monitor the expenditure of the central government on culture is included.
Basic infrastructure
Within the BIS, subsidies are awarded to cultural organisations, both directly and indirectly via the six National Cultural Funds. 2023 the total expenditure on the BIS amounted to 518 million euros, 40 percent of the total cultural budget of OCW. Of this, 242 million (47 percent) was granted directly to institutions and 276 million (53 percent) was spent via the National Cultural Funds.
The BIS subsidy is awarded every four years
Each of the six national cultural funds supports a specific domain: Film Fund (film), Cultural Participation Fund (cultural participation and education), Performing Arts Fund (performing arts), Dutch Literature Fund (literature), Mondriaan Fund (visual arts and heritage) and the Creative Industries Stimulation Fund (architecture, digital culture and design). In addition to multi-year subsidies to institutions, the national cultural funds also provide project subsidies. The ratio between multi-year support for institutions and project-based subsidy provision differs greatly from
At this moment we have no insight into the precise spending of the project subsidies from the National Cultural Funds in terms of the number of awards, precise amounts or geographical distribution. More insight into these figures can contribute to a better informed debate on the regional distribution of government funds for culture.
Heritage Act
Since 2014, the Heritage Act has been in place, which regulates the management of the Dutch heritage collection. There are 30 museum institutions that have the task of managing the National Collection. Until 2020, the subsidies for these museums came partly from resources that fell under the Heritage Act (maintenance of the buildings) and partly from the BIS (the management and maintenance of the National Collection and public activities). From 2021, the financing of museums that manage the National Collection falls entirely under the Heritage Act. However, since 2021, space has been made in the BIS for a regional museum in each province.
The budget of the museums within the Heritage Act came in 2023 to a total of 249,5 million euros. In addition, the Heritage Act also includes the care of monuments, for which 146,5 million euros were reserved. Together this amounts to 396 million.
The subsidies within the Heritage Act are re-established annually, but generally go to the same organisations and institutions. It is possible that monuments or institutions will be added, such as Erfgoedpark Batavialand in 2024. Expenditure within the Heritage Act is therefore expected to increase based on annual price and inflation adjustments and slight fluctuations in the number of monuments.
Other government expenditure
In addition to the direct funding of institutions and funds via the BIS (518 million euros) and the expenditure within the Heritage Act (397 million euros), there are other expenditures on the cultural budget of the Ministry of Education, Culture and Science. In total, this amounts to 371 million in 2023.
These expenses include costs for library facilities (70 million euros), regional archives (31 million euros) and a number of additional subsidy schemes (128 million euros). An example is the Cultural Participation Programme, which aims to stimulate cultural participation for people for whom this is not self-evident. Among other things, the pilot of the Cultural Youth Passport (CJP) for a culture card with a budget for secondary vocational education has received a subsidy from this programme.
The budget also includes room for a contribution to the National Archives (61 million euros), international organisations (UNESCO and Eurimages; 1,8 million euros) and to fellow authorities (47 million euros), such as the establishment of the slavery museum or the preservation of heritage in earthquake zones. Finally, there are a number of other items such as assignments (24 million euros) for policy research, knowledge and research programmes and other subjects.
In addition to the expenditure by the Ministry of Education, Culture and Science, money is spent on culture by other ministries. For example, the Ministry of Health, Welfare and Sport (VWS) is responsible for financing cultural expressions for war victims and the commemoration of the Second World War (Rijksoverheid 2024b). The Ministry of the Interior (BZK) spends money on cultural initiatives around Kingdom relations. And the Ministry of Defence makes a financial contribution to the Defence Museums in the Netherlands. Additional research is needed to determine how much money is spent in total by these and other ministries. These amounts have therefore not been included in this analysis of total government expenditure.
International subsidy schemes
There are not many international subsidy schemes that the Dutch cultural sector can use. The most important international organisation in this respect is the European Union (EU), which makes subsidy funds available to member states.
The EU makes subsidies available for cultural projects every year through the Creative Europe programme. The programme consists of the two sub-programmes Culture and MEDIA, supplemented by a programme for cross-sectoral projects. Every seven years, the EU determines how much money can be distributed in subsidies. The 2021-2027 cycle is currently underway, in which a total of 2,7 billion euros is available, no less than 65 percent more than in the previous cycle. Contributions to Dutch projects also show a clear increase. In 2007, this amounted to 1,3 million euros, in 2022 went there 16,5 million to applicants from the Netherlands (
Dutch cultural institutions and makers can also apply for subsidies from other EU funds that are not specifically aimed at culture (European Commission 2021). For example, filmmakers can apply for EU programmes such as Digital Europe and Horizon Europe. In 2022, the Netherlands received 31,9 million euros and 147,9 million euros from these two subsidy schemes respectively (Dams 2024). However, it is unknown how much of these and other EU subsidies end up in the cultural sector in the Netherlands. The amounts involved are probably limited, as these other funds are often very specific and have little to no connection with the cultural sector.
The United Nations also offers support for world heritage, via UNESCO. However, UNESCO has limited funds and the Netherlands has not made use of them since 1991 (UNESCO n.d.).
Finally, there are semi-governmental organizations that provide cultural subsidies. An example is the Council of Europe, which independently of the EU also supports culture with subsidies. As a human rights organisation, the Council of Europe is also committed to protecting the culture and cultural heritage of its
Private contributions
Every year many citizens and companies support the Dutch cultural sector directly or indirectly
*This is a minimum amount
From the biennial reports of Giving in the Netherlands it appears that the total private contributions to culture have been around 2015 million euros since 400. At the same time, the value of these donations is decreasing, because they do not increase with inflation. The equivalent of 400 million euros in 2015 is 2023 million euros in 512 after inflation correction. In fact, the real value of private contributions to culture has gradually and significantly decreased in recent years.
All forms of giving by citizens and companies can be captured in the so-called giving pyramid. The idea behind this pyramid is that people first become connected to an institution in an accessible way. The more connected someone feels to an institution, the more inclined he or she is to give higher amounts (
Citizens also volunteer in all kinds of cultural areas. In 2022, according to
Funds and foundations
Private funds and foundations donate to a range of cultural organisations and creators. Sometimes such an organisation is committed to culture in a broader sense, such as the Cultural Fund. Others focus on a specific region (such as the Droom en Daad foundation for the municipality of Rotterdam) or a specific form of culture (such as the Groninger Kerken foundation). Most of these funds and foundations, like many cultural institutions themselves, have been designated by the Tax and Customs Administration as
From research by Arjen Ribbens from 2023 for NRC it turns out that there are around 700 private funds and foundations in the Netherlands that actively donate to culture. The 50 largest donors of these 700 have been mapped out by him. In 2022, they are good for 281 million euros to donations to culture (Ribbens 2023).
Nearly two-thirds of these donations come from the six largest funds: the VriendenLoterij, the Cultuurfonds, Hendrick de Keyser Monumenten,
The report Giving in the Netherlands amounts to a total of 244 million euros that fundraising, hybrid and asset funds will donate to the cultural sector in 2022. The difference between Ribbens and Giving in the Netherlands is in slightly different methods of calculation and counting. Giving in the Netherlands for example, counts the investments of the VriendenLoterij as lotteries and not as funds.
Of those 244 million euros, 59 million from income from assets. The other expenditures come from contributions from lotteries and sponsorship and gifts from companies and citizens. That is why we count, following the example of Giving in the Netherlands, only these returns from assets. In total, Dutch funds gave almost 5,4 billion euros to charities in the Netherlands and abroad. Just over five percent of this ends up in the cultural sector. In general, locally active funds relatively often focus on culture (Bekkers et al. 2024).
Named funds
Within private funds and cultural institutions, there are also so-called named funds (FON). Individual donors set these up with a larger fund or a cultural institution, whereby they determine the spending purpose themselves. These are usually people who have already retired and often do not have children to leave a legacy to. This donation structure has become increasingly popular over the years. There are now many hundreds of named funds. It is not known how much FON give to culture and how high their contributions are. At the Cultural Fund – which introduced the donation structure in the Netherlands – FON made up 2022 percent of the spending budget at the end of 40. At the beginning of this century, this was only 8 percent (Struijke 2024). Because these FON fall under private funds, they are not counted separately in this overview. Individual patrons, or patrons of artists or institutions, are also not counted separately in this overview.
Friends associations
Friends of culture come in many forms, but in this context it concerns friends who are united in a formal association and pay a membership fee. These types of friends' associations come in all shapes and sizes, with modest contributions to high amounts for exclusive circles of friends. In 2022, there were 630 active friends' associations that were designated as so-called cultural ANBI. These friends' associations all support a cultural institution, museum or monument for 90 percent or more (Tax Authorities n.d.). No separate figures are known for the contributions of friends' associations to culture. The contributions form part of what citizens donate to culture and general data are known about this (Johnson 2014).
It is striking that the cuts in culture in 2010 by then State Secretary Halbe Zijlstra led to a growth in private funds and new FON in the years that followed, but not to an increase in donations from private individuals and companies. In practice, this means that more funds and foundations have started to compete for roughly the same amounts. The ageing population in the Netherlands plays a role in this growth in funds and FON: the relatively wealthy post-war generation, compared to older generations, was and is able and willing to donate to culture via FON and private funds. In the coming years, this generation is expected to leave hundreds of billions in inheritances, partly via FON or private funds (Dekker 2024).
Private individuals
Households
Uit Giving in the Netherlands (2024) shows that Dutch households in 2022 donated a total of 2,2 billion euros to charities. Of this, households collectively donated 58 million to culture. Of all households, 15 percent give to culture, an average of 86 euros per household. On average, they give to local cultural institutions
The Dutch most often donate via a charity's website (44 percent), but they also regularly donate via crowdfunding platforms (28 percent) and via collections (28 percent) (Bekkers et al. 2024). It is striking that 40 percent of all crowdfunding donations go to culture. The largest part of this is donated via the platform Fordekunst (Bekkers et al.
Households have given significantly less to culture in 2022 than in previous years: in 2018 and 2020, this was 78 and 75 million euros respectively. However, it is still too early to speak of a downward trend in household donations to culture (Bekkers et al. 2024).
Estates
Giving in the Netherlands (2024) states that Dutch people in 2022 a total of at least 368 million euros left to charities, of which
If the aforementioned expectation comes true that the relatively wealthy post-war generation will leave hundreds of billions of euros to FON in the coming years, this will undoubtedly contribute to an increase in legacies. An organization such as Bequest to culture plays into this. Giving in the Netherlands expects that between 2059 and 67 billion euros will go to charities by 186 and that annual donations will increase to between 2048 and 2,1 billion euros per year by 6,6. This increase has already been visible in recent years: since 2016, people have left significantly more to culture than in the previous twenty years (Bekkers et al. 2024).
Business
Dutch companies frequently support charities through sponsorship or donations. According to Giving in the Netherlands (2024) 39 percent of companies contributed 2022 to charities, for an estimated total amount of 1,8 billion euros. These figures are based on
Of this total amount, only 9 percent went, in total 150 million, to cultural charities, of which 115 million euros through sponsorship and 35 million euros through direct donations. In addition to money (58 percent), companies also contributed time (39 percent) and goods (3 percent). Of all companies, 5 percent sponsor cultural charities and 3 percent support them through monetary donations.
Over the past twenty years, there seems to be a slow decline in corporate contributions to culture. The value of donations fluctuates during this period, but sponsorship, by far the largest part of corporate contributions, is clearly declining. This is also evident from the annual Sponsor Monitor of Respons. Before the corona crisis, an average of 100 million euros per year went to arts and culture, according to Respons, but since 2020 this has fallen to around 60 million euros per year (Respons 2024).
Companies often donate relatively high amounts, but the number of companies doing so has clearly decreased since 2018. In 2022, for the first time, a majority (61 percent) will no longer support charities. In previous years, this was always a minority of between 29 and 47 percent. This development, combined with a more critical attitude among companies towards the way in which charities operate and the fact that 85 percent of corporate donations were the decision of the owner, director or CEO, could together lead to an even further decline in the willingness to give and the amounts of donations (Bekkers et al. 2024). Because companies represent a large part of private contributions to culture, almost 40 percent in 2022 (and historically even more), this is a potentially worrying trend for the cultural sector. A bright spot is that a proposed plan by the Schoof cabinet to abolish the deduction for corporate donations as of 1 January 2025 did not ultimately go ahead. The arrangement that made it possible to finance donations from the company has been terminated as of January 1, 2025 (PwC 2024).
Lotteries
In the Netherlands, charity lotteries are required to donate a portion of their income to charity. According to Giving in the Netherlands (2024) wore
No less than 82 percent of the contributions came from the National Postcode Lottery and the Friends Lottery, which together form the National Charity Lotteries NV. Of these two, it is the Friends Lottery, which after a merger in 2021 became the BankGiro Lottery, that donates to cultural charities. The Friends Lottery is the largest private investor in culture. In 2022, the organization donated 87 million to culture and in 2023 more than 100 million euros (
Over the past 15 years, contributions to cultural charities from lotteries have steadily increased, from 11 percent (51 million euros) in 2009 to 16 percent (93 million euros) in 2022. The Cultural Fund is the only cultural charity in the top 10 of charities that benefits from lottery contributions (Bekkers et al. 2024).
Almost half of all households participate in one or more of these lotteries and most people participate for the cash prizes and to support charities. The number of households that participate in these lotteries has been fairly stable for years. In the future, it will be interesting to see what the opening of the online gambling market from 1 October 2021 will bring about. If many people switch to other games of chance that do not oblige them to contribute money to charities, this will have an effect on the contributions to cultural charities in the coming years.
The effect of the increase in the gambling tax from 30,5 percent to 37,8 percent is also not yet known. According to an analysis by Atlas research, a plausible scenario is that contributions to charities will decrease by around 15,5 million, within a range of a minimum of 2,9 million euros to a maximum of 30,6 million euros (Halbersma et al. 2024). As of January 1, 2025, the gambling tax has already been increased to 34,2 percent, in 2026 it will increase to 37,8 percent (Rijksoverheid 2025).
Own income
In addition to contributions from governments, individuals and companies, cultural organisations also generate their own income. Where subsidised sectors, such as performing arts, museums and libraries, were concerned, this amounted to Berenschot's custom work in 2023 at least 1,97 billion (Berenschot 2025). That is slightly less than a third of all cash flows that go to the subsidized sector. However, there are large income differences between cultural sectors and also in the possibilities for institutions and makers to generate their own income. For example, within the performing arts, there are more possibilities to generate substantial additional income through hall rental and catering than there are within the literary sector, for example. These are important caveats to this total amount and these percentage ratios.
While own income still increased with inflation between 2015 and 2019, this has no longer been the case in recent years due to the impact of the corona pandemic and then the rising wage and energy costs and the sharp increase in inflation. Compared to eight years ago, inflation rose twice as fast as own income until 2023. This means that the real value of own income has decreased since 2015.
When the own income from the private sectors, including architecture, games, cinemas, festivals, musicals and bookstores, is also included, the combined own income in 2023 amounted to at least 3,85 billion euros. This total amount is based on data on own income within
Below we will separately discuss the eight domains from the Culture Monitor and what is known about their own income within them.
Architecture
In the architecture sector, no total figures are known for its own income in 2023. In 2022, the combined turnover of the architecture sector amounted to 1,05 billion euros and the average operating results were 10,7 percent. The average size of an assignment was 164.410 euros. The vast majority of this turnover was achieved domestically, 5,9 percent came from abroad. In recent years, the sector's turnover has been stable (BNA 2024, BNA 2023).
Read more about the domain here Architecture on the Culture Monitor.
Audiovisual
In the audiovisual sector there are various sources of income that together give us an idea of the size of the sector, but the own income cannot be determined exactly. In 2023 was the total turnover of cinemas and movie theaters in the Netherlands 333,3 million, of which 42,1 million euros came from Dutch films. DVD and Blu-ray sales have been declining for years and amounted to 17 million. The revenues of video-on-demand platforms have actually increased very strongly in recent years and together amount to 1,14 billion euros.
However, it is not known how much of the income from these streaming services, which are largely in foreign hands, flows back to the Dutch sector. This source of income has therefore not been included in this overview. It is possible that more insight will be gained into the level of their income in the Netherlands in the future. Streaming services with an annual turnover of more than 10 million euros are required to spend five percent of their annual turnover on Dutch audiovisual productions as of 1 January 2024.
Read more about the domain here Audiovisual on the Culture Monitor.
Visual arts
Within the visual arts sector, in 2023 at least 256,1 million earned from own income. First of all, this is income from image rights: in 2023 this amounted to an amount of 13,1 million (Pictoright 2024). Visual art museums achieved that same year 243 million of their own income, of which 140 million euros from audience income and 103 million euros from other income. They raised another 14 million euros through sponsorship. This last amount is not included here as own income, because it is already included above in the private contributions (
Read more about the domain here Visual arts on the Culture Monitor.
Design
In the design sector, no figures are available on own income in 2023. In 2022, the average turnover of design agencies was 113.185 euros and of independent designers 91.793 euros, based on a study by the BNO industry monitor in which 67 design agencies and 145 independent designers participated (Hattum and Legerstee 2024).
Read more about the domain here Design on the Culture Monitor.
Heritage
Within the heritage sector, museums in 2023 a total of 499 million euros in own income: 298 million euros in public income and 201 million euros in other income such as rental and catering. They received 21 million euros through sponsorship. For museums, excluding visual art museums, this was 256 million of their own income, of which 158 million euros in audience income and 98 million euros in other income. They raised another 7 million euros through sponsorship (CBS 2025a).
Read more about the domain here Heritage on the Culture Monitor.
Games
According to the most recent Games Monitor, the total turnover in the Dutch games industry in 2021 was 420-440 million euros by 630 companies that employed 4.560 people. Exact figures on their own income are not known. There are no figures for 2023. A new Games Monitor will be published in 2025 after a few years (Grinsven and Manshanden 2024).
Read more about the domain here Games on the Culture Monitor.
Literature
In the literary sector it is possible to look at a number of sources of income. Taken together, there was 2023 at least 812,7 million First, that year came through copyright income 25,5 million within. The own income of public libraries amounted to 2023 102,2 million. Finally, the turnover of the general book market in 2023 was 685 million.(Lira 2024, CBS 2024a, KVB Bookwork 2024).
Read more about the domain here Literature on the Culture Monitor.
Performing arts
The performing arts sector earned a total of at least 1,13 billion to own income in 2023From copyrights for music was 303,6 million earned. The export value of Dutch music, the revenues from the exploitation of Dutch music from rights, recordings and performances abroad after deduction of costs incurred, was 198,1 millionThe own income of theatres and concert halls amounted to 402,3 million. Pop stages earned a total of 170,6 million of own income. The turnover of the physical music market amounted to
Read more about the domain here Performing arts on the Culture Monitor.
What else do we want to know?
Government spending on culture has recently come under great pressure. In addition to plans by the Schoof cabinet, which will take office in 2024, to increase VAT on culture and to indirectly increase it through various measures,
In addition, after the summer of 2025, the Cultural Council will present advice on how the coordination between public and private funding can be better organised and what barriers governments, financiers and cultural institutions experience when attracting private money. Minister Bruins had asked the Council to advice requested on how public and private financiers can better collaborate to increase accessibility of financing and thus contribute to the financial stability of the sector.
Certain cash flows and amounts have now been mapped out precisely, others are only approximate or are reasoned estimates. For other cash flows, we have only been able to gain a partial picture and there are still gaps. For example, we do have insight into the multi-year subsidies of the National Cultural Funds, but much less into the project subsidies. The ambition is to further fill these gaps in the future and to deepen the analyses of the various categories.
We also want to gain more insight into the own income of more domains, both inside and outside the subsidized sectors. And we want to further map the financing mix within domains, in order to gain more insight into the relationships within different cultural sectors between government subsidies, private support and own income.
It is also important to see whether we can make a similar analysis of the origin of the financial flows for the Caribbean part of the Kingdom.
Want to know more about the theme of Culture and money flows?
View more data on the Culture and money flows theme in the Dashboard of the Culture Monitor.
More literature on the topic of Culture and money flows can be found in the Knowledge center of the Boekman Foundation.
Sources
Characters
Bekkers, R., S. Koolen-Maas and T. Schuyt (2024) Giving in the Netherlands 2024. Utrecht: De Graaff Publishers.
Berenschot (2025) Customisation: Financing mix for subsidised cultural sector 2005-2023. Utrecht: Berenschot.
BNA (2023) BNA Annual Report 2023. On: bna.foleon.com.
Buma (2024) Annual report of the Buma association 2023. Hoofddorp: Buma Association.
CBS (2024a) Statline. Public libraries. On: opendata.cbs.nl, September 12nd.
CBS (2024b) Detailing of cultural costs for municipalities and provinces, 2023. On: www.cbs.nl, November 11.
CBS (2025a) Museums, by province, registration, type of collection and size 2015-2023. On: www.cbs.nl, 14 January.
CBS (2025c) Consumer prices; price index 2015=100. On: www.cbs.nl, 11 March.
Dee, A. and B. Schans (2024) Music venues and festivals in figures 2023. Amsterdam: VNPF.
European Commission (2023) EU spending and revenue – Data 2000-2022. On: commission.europa.eu.
Johnson, E. (2014) Friends in good times and bad: the revival of cultural institutions' circles of friends. Nijmegen: Radboud University.
Kroeske, S. (2024) Export value of Dutch popular music 2023. Hilversum: Perfect & More.
KVB Boekwerk (2024) 'Sales figures 2023'. On: www.kvbboekwerk.nl, 7 March.
Lira (2024) 2023 annual report. Hoofddorp: Lira Foundation.
Dutch Film Fund (2024) Film facts & figures of the Netherlands: Summer 2024. Amsterdam: Netherlands Film Fund.
NVBF (2024) NVBF Annual Report 2023. Amsterdam: NVBF.
Pictoright (2024) Transparency Report 2023. Amsterdam: Pictoright Foundation.
Central government (2024a) Annual report on government finances 2023: VIII Education, Culture and Science. On: www.rijksfinancien.nl.
Sena (2024) Sena annual report 2023. Hilversum: Foundation for the Exploitation of Neighbouring Rights.
Stemra (2024) Stemra Foundation Annual Report 2023. Hoofddorp: Stemra Foundation.
Weide, S., P. Kleinlooh, G. Mesters (2024) Stages 2023. Annual figures for theatres and concert halls in the Netherlands. Amsterdam: VSCD.
Sources
Bekkers, R., S. Koolen-Maas and T. Schuyt (2024) Giving in the Netherlands 2024. Utrecht: De Graaff Publishers.
Bekkers, R., B. Gouwenberg, S. Koolen-Maas and T. Schuyt (2022) Giving in the Netherlands 2022. Amsterdam: Amsterdam University Press.
Tax Authorities (zj) Open data – Public Benefit Organizations (ANBI). On: www.belastingdienst.nl.
Berenschot (2025) Customisation: Financing mix for subsidised cultural sector 2005-2023. Utrecht: Berenschot.
Berkers, P., J. Schaap, F., Vandenberg, R. Everts, B. Swartjes, D. Goossens, M. Berghman and F. Kimenai (2021) 'Music as a medicine against social ills?'. In: Sociology Magazine, 29 (1), 6-9.
BNA (2023) BNA Annual Report 2023. On: bna.foleon.com.
BNA (2024) BNA Annual Report 2024. On: bna.foleon.com.
Buma (2024) Annual report of the Buma association 2023. Hoofddorp: Buma Association.
Burggraaff, J. et al. (n.d.) Creative Europe in the Netherlands. Facts, figures & successful projects supported by Creative Europe Culture, MEDIA & Cross-Sectoral 2022. Amsterdam: DutchCulture.
Bruins, E. (2024) Cultural subsidies 2025-2028. The Hague: Ministry of Education, Culture and Science.
Council of Europe (2023) Council of Europe program and budget 2024-2027. Strasbourg: Council of Europe.
CBS (2024a) Statline. Public libraries. On: opendata.cbs.nl, September 12nd.
CBS (2024b) Detailing of cultural costs for municipalities and provinces, 2023. On: www.cbs.nl, November 11.
CBS (2025a) Museums, by province, registration, type of collection and size 2015-2023. On: www.cbs.nl, 14 January.
CBS (2025b) Macro totals culture and media, 2015, 2018 and 2022. On: wwww.cbs.nl, January 17
CBS (2025c) Consumer prices; price index 2015=100. On: www.cbs.nl, 11 March.
CBS (2025d) Satellite account culture and media 2022. On: www.cbs.nl, 1th of April.
Dams, T. (2024) 'Is Creative Europe Media “drifting away” from its core cultural objectives?'. On: www.screendaily.com, 27 August.
Dee, A. and B. Schans (2024) Music venues and festivals in figures 2023. Amsterdam: VNPF.
Dekker, W. (2024) 'Baby boomers are leaving hundreds of billions in inheritances – and inequality is already so great'. In: Volkskrant, 10 August.
European Commission (2021) The CulturEU funding guide: EU Funding Opportunities for the Cultural and Creative Sectors 2021-2027. Luxembourg: European Commission.
European Commission (2023) EU spending and revenue – Data 2000-2022. On: commission.europa.eu.
European Commission (2024) Creative Europe – Culture and Creativity. On: culture.ec.europa.eu.
Gielen, P., Elkhuizen, S., van den Hoogen, Q., Lijster, T. & Otte, H. (2020) The value of culture. Groningen: Arts in Society Research Center, University of Groningen.
Grinsven, van C., and W. Manshanden (2024) The Netherlands Games Monitor 2022. Utrecht: Dutch Games Garden.
Halbersma, R., J. Poort and F. Burema (2024) Raise or fold? Increasing gambling tax and the impact on public interests. Amsterdam: Atlas Research.
Hattum, by R. and F. Legerstee (2024) BNO Industry Monitor 2024. The Dutch design sector in figures for 2022. Amsterdam: BNO.
Johnson, E. (2014) Friends in good times and bad: the revival of cultural institutions' circles of friends. Nijmegen: Radboud University.
Kroeske, S. (2024) Export value of Dutch popular music 2023. Hilversum: Perfect & More.
Arts '92 (2024) 'Budget Memorandum 2025: dark clouds for art and culture'. On: www.kunsten92.nl, September 19nd.
KVB Boekwerk (2024) 'Sales figures 2023'. On: www.kvbboekwerk.nl, 7 March.
Lira (2024) 2023 annual report. Hoofddorp: Lira Foundation.
Maltha, S., J. Veldman, P. Verhagen, S. Stone, B. van der Lugt, M. Senftleben, E. Valk (2024) Exploratory research into bottlenecks and possible incentive measures for Dutch music productions in the online market. Utrecht: Dialogic and Institute for Information Law.
Dutch Film Fund (2024) Film facts & figures of the Netherlands: Summer 2024. Amsterdam: Netherlands Film Fund.
NGA (2021) Art Market Research 2021. Oegstgeest: Dutch Gallery Association.
NVBF (2024) NVBF Annual Report 2023. Amsterdam: NVBF.
NVPI (2024) Dutch music industry turnover almost 300 million euros in 2023. On: www.nvpi.nl, February 29.
Pictoright (2024) Transparency Report 2023. Amsterdam: Pictoright Foundation.
Polivtseva, E. (2024) 'The state of culture in Europe: 'weak portfolio' or basis for a better future?; Expenditure on culture in Europe'. In: Boekman, no. 141, 16-21.
PwC (2024) 'Adjustments to gift deductions as of January 1, 2025'. On: www.pwc.nl, December 18.
Raad voor Cultuur (2024) Access to culture: towards a new order in 2029. The Hague: Raad voor Cultuur.
Response (2024)'Sponsorship spending 2023 up sharply, Jumbo the largest'. On: respons.nl, 9th of July.
Ribbens, A. (2023) 'These are the fifty largest private donors to culture'. In: NRC Handelsblad, November 29.
Central government (2024a) Annual report on government finances 2023: VIII Education, Culture and Science. On: www.rijksfinancien.nl.
Central government (2024b) Annual report on government finances 2023: VVI Public Health, Welfare and Sport. On: www.rijksfinancien.nl.
National Government (2025) 'Tax Plan 2025: changes in taxes for citizens'. On: www.rijksoverheid.nl.
Sena (2024) Sena annual report 2023. Hilversum: Foundation for the Exploitation of Neighbouring Rights.
Stemra (2024) Stemra Foundation Annual Report 2023. Hoofddorp: Stemra Foundation.
Struijke, S. (2024) 'Named funds. Sustainable, but goal-oriented'. In: Boekman, no. 138, 30-33.
UNESCO (zj) 'Funding'. On: whc.unesco.org.
Uslu, G. (2023) Basic principles of cultural subsidies 2025-2028. The Hague: Ministry of Education, Culture and Science.
Vinkenburg, B. and S. Branten (2023) In the spotlight: Growth potential for the cultural sector through contributions to social challenges. Utrecht: Berenschot.
Vinkenburg, B. (2024) Impact of government policy on cultural financing. Utrecht: Berenschot.
Weide, S., P. Kleinlooh, G. Mesters (2024) Stages 2023. Annual figures for theatres and concert halls in the Netherlands. Amsterdam: VSCD.
Wine, C., Vinkenburg, B., Wierenga, W., Heerwaarden, A. van, Terwisscha, M. (2022) Towards repositioning: Berenschot's vision on the role of the provinces in the cultural system. Utrecht: Berenschot.
Justification text and image
Editorial note: The current version of this page was edited by Bastiaan Vinkenburg (Berenschot) and René Bekkers (VU, Giving in the Netherlands).
Graphics and design: Mathieu Stern (via Unsplash).