Number of museum visitors in the Netherlands 2020, by collection type

In 2020, approximately 13.22 million people visited museums in the Netherlands. History museums recorded the highest number of visitors, reporting 5.6 million museumgoers during the year. Art museums placed second in terms of attendance, having attracted about 5.3 million individuals that year. Overall, seven out of 10 of the most visited museums in the Netherlands in 2020 were located in the country’s capital, Amsterdam.

Most visited museums in Amsterdam

In 2020, a majority of the most popular museums in the Netherlands were located in Amsterdam. For instance, the Rijksmuseum, which focuses on art and history and exhibits some of the most renowned paints in the world, was among the leading museums in Europe based on attendance rates in 2020. Similarly, the number of visitors to the Van Gogh Museum, which placed second nationally in terms of the number of visitors during 2020, amounted to half a million that year. The third most visited museum in the country that year, Anne Frank Huis, welcomed close to 400 thousand attendees.

Income of Dutch museums

In 2020, a significant majority of the total revenue of museums in the Netherlands came from government subsidies. From the 977 million euros in revenue generated by the industry in 2020, more than half was attributed to subsidies. Despite lower visitor turnouts than usual due to the coronavirus (COVID-19) pandemic, entry fees were still the second largest source of income for the sector, with a little more than 100 million euros being generated through this channel in 2020.