Sixteen councils still without a coalition, four months on
July 23, 2026
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Sixteen Dutch councils still have not formed a government coalition 126 days after the local elections on March 18 – the highest number ever recorded, according to local government news site Binnenlands Bestuur.
The summer recess will add another 30 days, meaning coalition talks in those councils will have run for more than 150 days. The average formation now stands at 87 days, up from 83 in 2022, and may rise to 90. By comparison, only four councils were still negotiating after the summer in 2022, and in 2018 just one was.
Binnenlands Bestuur points to three reasons. Coalition-building has become more formal, with councils now holding public debates on the election result and appointing scouts and informateurs, where the process was once settled by senior figures behind closed doors.
Councils have also become more fragmented, so a majority often requires four parties or more. And the shift towards right-wing and far-right parties has made it harder to assemble a stable majority, the site said, while vetting the background of candidates for alderman takes longer than it used to.
The outgoing executive stays in place until a new one is appointed, so no council is left without an administration. But caretaker administrations tend to avoid major or politically contested decisions, so new policy largely waits.
Leiden is the only large city still without a coalition, after talks collapsed last month over a lack of trust between PRO and D66. Of the 324 councils that have completed the process, 182 took longer than in 2022, while 115 were quicker – among them The Hague, which did not have a coalition until late September last time. The record is held by Vlieland, which needed 229 days in 2022.
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