Amsterdam, Rotterdam, Eindhoven or The Hague: where should a foreign company land?

There is no national ranking, and the Dutch government does not publish one. The four cities differ by sector rather than by quality: Amsterdam for finance and tech, Rotterdam for the port and energy, Eindhoven for chips and high-tech systems, The Hague for law, policy and cybersecurity. Your customers, your staff and your lab decide it.

Founders often ask which Dutch city is best. Nobody official answers that, and the reason is structural: the national agency routes enquiries to regional partners rather than ranking them, and each region publishes its own strengths, not its neighbours' weaknesses.

This page compares the four cities foreign companies ask about most, using what each region's own agency publishes. It does not rank them. The regional agency you end up dealing with follows from the choice, and what they do with money is in which Dutch regional development fund fits your company.

Amsterdam

Amsterdam names tech and AI, fintech and finance, life sciences and health, food, renewable energy, mobility and logistics as its key sectors. On finance the city agency is direct: it calls Amsterdam the centre of the Dutch banking sector and a force in fintech.

The practical consequences are ordinary ones. Investors, banks, law firms and the people who have done a cross-border round before are concentrated here, which matters when the reason for the move is capital rather than production. So is the airport: according to CBS, the Dutch statistics office, Amsterdam Airport Schiphol handled 68.8 million passengers in 2025, which was 88% of all air passengers to and from the Netherlands.

The inward-investment partner is Amsterdam Trade and Invest, which says it works on two fronts, helping Amsterdam companies expand internationally and attracting international investment to the city. The regional development company for the province is ROM InWest.

Sources:
I amsterdam, Key sectors for business
CBS, Over 78 million air passengers in 2025

Rotterdam

Rotterdam names maritime and offshore, energy, IT and tech, agri and food, urban planning and healthtech. The city agency calls Rotterdam the gateway to Europe and says the port is at the heart of Europe's largest maritime cluster.

The port is the thing that cannot be copied elsewhere. The Port of Rotterdam Authority publishes a port area of 12,500 hectares, cargo throughput of approximately 428 million tonnes a year, and approximately 182,000 jobs directly and indirectly in the Rotterdam-Rijnmond region. If your company makes something physical, moves something physical, or works on hydrogen, fuels or industrial decarbonisation, that concentration is the argument.

The regional development company is InnovationQuarter, which calls itself the regional economic development agency for South Holland and counts Rotterdam, The Hague, Leiden, Delft, Westland and Dordrecht among its municipal shareholders. It publishes its own ticket range: typically between EUR 250,000 and EUR 5,000,000.

Sources:
Port of Rotterdam, Facts and figures
InnovationQuarter, Funding

Eindhoven

Eindhoven is the answer when the company is hardware. The regional agency calls Brainport Eindhoven a leading technology region and publishes its innovation areas: micro and nano electronics, integrated photonics, systems engineering, artificial intelligence, energy, mobility, medtech, additive manufacturing, food technology, and defence and space. On chips it claims a global leading position in micro and nano electronics.

The region is small and dense: the agency describes it as 21 municipalities and 800,000 inhabitants. It lists the campuses a landing company would use, including High Tech Campus Eindhoven, Brainport Industries Campus, the TU Eindhoven campus and Strijp District.

The Invest in Holland partner here is the Brabant Development Agency, BOM, which publishes financing up to EUR 5 million and organises itself around developing, investing and internationalising. Eindhoven Airport calls itself the second largest airport in the Netherlands after Schiphol, and CBS puts it at over seven million passengers in 2025.

Sources:
Brainport Eindhoven, Facts and figures
Brabant Development Agency (BOM)
CBS, Over 78 million air passengers in 2025

The Hague

The Hague names cybersecurity, legal and policy, rule of law, impact, humanity and new energy. It calls itself the international city of peace and justice and the legal capital of the world.

The municipality publishes the scale of that cluster: more than 500 international organisations, among them the International Court of Justice, the International Criminal Court, the Permanent Court of Arbitration and Europol, together accounting for nearly 30,000 jobs in the city. If your company sells to governments or works on security, this is where that conversation happens.

Its regional development company is the same as Rotterdam's, InnovationQuarter, so a company choosing between the two cities is not choosing between two funding routes.

Sources:
Gemeente Den Haag, International city of peace and justice (in Dutch)
The Hague and Partners, Key sectors

What does not decide it

Several things founders weigh are national, not local, and moving city will not change them. The corporate tax rules are national. So is the expat scheme, usually called the 30% ruling: business.gov.nl describes it as a tax advantage administered by the Dutch tax office, for a maximum period of five years, with the maximum reimbursement dropping from 30% to 27% on 1 January 2027. No city gives a better version of it.

The same goes for the national R&D credit, WBSO, which follows your payroll rather than your postcode: see WBSO for foreign-owned companies. What does change by region is the development company you can talk to, its sector focus, and the campuses and labs around you.

Source: Business.gov.nl, The expat scheme (30% ruling)

How founders usually decide

Three questions settle it more often than any comparison. Where are your first ten customers, or the partner whose equipment you need. Where will your engineers actually agree to live. And whether your work needs a lab, a cleanroom or a quay, because that narrows the map faster than anything else. Why a hardware company faces a different problem here is set out in the deep-tech landing gap.

Once the city is chosen, the sequence that follows is the same everywhere: see the first ninety days in the Netherlands, and start from what the NFIA does for foreign companies.

Sources

1. I amsterdam, Key sectors for business, checked 22 September 2026
2. Rotterdam Partners, Key sectors, checked 22 September 2026
3. Port of Rotterdam Authority, Facts and figures, checked 22 September 2026
4. Brainport Eindhoven, Facts and figures, checked 22 September 2026
5. Gemeente Den Haag, International city of peace and justice (in Dutch), checked 22 September 2026
6. CBS, Over 78 million air passengers in 2025, checked 22 September 2026
7. Business.gov.nl, Regional Development Agencies (ROMs), checked 22 September 2026
8. Business.gov.nl, The expat scheme (30% ruling), checked 22 September 2026

Checked on 22 September 2026. This page is general information, not legal, tax or investment advice. Rules change: check the official source, or ask an adviser, before you act on it.