Written by RuinMyTrip Editorial from published research and official sources, not from a personal trip. It is not a traveler review and is never counted in the community rating. How we research.
destination · Amsterdam
Amsterdam charges Europe's highest tourist tax and is telling rowdy tourists to stay away, literally
Review of Amsterdam
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A first-hand review outranks desk research every time, and yours will sit above this one.
Share your experienceAmsterdam is a city that has decided it has had enough of being loved too hard. In 2025 the city logged 23.7 million overnight stays, about 800,000 more than the year before, despite years of campaigns designed to make the city less appealing to certain visitors. The most visible of these is the Stay Away campaign, which specifically targets young British men searching terms like stag party Amsterdam or cheap hotel Amsterdam with video ads warning them about the legal and financial consequences of drunken or drug fueled bad behavior. It has not reduced visitor numbers, but it tells you exactly how the city government feels about a certain type of tourism. The money side has gotten sharply worse for anyone booking a room. Amsterdam's tourist tax sits at 12.5 percent of the net room price, already the highest rate in Europe, and on top of that the Dutch national VAT on hotel accommodation jumped from 9 percent to 21 percent on January 1, 2026. Combined, travelers are looking at a total tax load of roughly 33.5 percent stacked on top of the room rate before you even see the bill for dinner. The city's new coalition government has already signaled it wants to push the tourist tax itself up further, from 12.5 to 16 percent in 2027, with talk of eventually reaching 20 percent. Amsterdam has also gone after the physical footprint of tourism. Since November 2024 the city has enforced a beddenstop, a citywide freeze on adding new hotel beds, and any new hotel can only open under a one in, one out rule tied to an existing hotel closing. Starting April 1, 2026, short term holiday rental nights are being cut to 15 per year in the city centre and De Pijp neighborhood. Cruise ships are being squeezed too: ocean going cruise ships are capped at 100 dockings per year starting in 2026, down from roughly 190 a few years earlier, river cruise operators are being handed annual reduction quotas, and the city plans to phase out its central cruise terminal entirely by 2035. The Red Light District, still one of the most visited parts of the city, has its own rulebook. Since April 2020 group tours have been barred from stopping at or walking tourists past the brothel windows, and since May 2023 smoking cannabis on the streets there carries a 100 euro fine, since consumption is now restricted to inside coffeeshops or their terraces. Photographing the women in the windows is strictly forbidden and can get a phone or camera confiscated on the spot. A proposal to ban tourists from coffeeshops entirely and restrict cannabis sales to Dutch residents was floated and then formally dropped by the new coalition on June 3, 2026, so visitors 18 and over can still legally buy at any of the city's roughly 166 coffeeshops for now.
What was great
The city itself still delivers. The canal ring, the gabled houses, and the flat, dense, endlessly bikeable street grid make Amsterdam one of the easiest major European cities to explore without a car, and museums like the Anne Frank House and the Rijksmuseum remain genuinely world class rather than tourist-trap filler. Public transit is straightforward too, with GVB's 24 hour tram, metro, and bus ticket priced at 10 euros and a contactless daily fare cap of 10.50 euros through OVpay if you would rather tap in and out than buy a pass. The city has also been unusually transparent about its own overtourism problem rather than pretending it does not exist, which lines up with the kind of honesty we look for. Policies like the hotel bed freeze, the cruise ship caps, and the short term rental limits are real, dated, legislated measures, not vague promises, and they show a government actually trying to protect the place that makes people want to visit in the first place.
What nearly ruined the trip
The cost math has shifted hard against travelers. Stacking the 12.5 percent tourist tax on top of a VAT hike from 9 to 21 percent means hotel bills now carry something like a third of the room rate in tax alone, and that is before the tourist tax itself climbs toward 16 and eventually 20 percent in the next couple of years. Anne Frank House tickets go on sale every Tuesday at 10am local time, six weeks ahead of each date, and popular midday slots have been reported to sell out within two to three minutes, so anyone who shows up without a plan risks missing it entirely. Petty crime around bikes is a real, quantifiable hassle rather than a rumor. Amsterdam police and the Cyclists Union estimate somewhere between 50,000 and 80,000 bikes are stolen citywide each year, with the city itself estimating around 28,500 actual thefts annually, roughly 77 a day, and rental bikes locked casually to canal railings are an easy, fast target. The Red Light District comes with its own friction too: cannabis smoking on the street there now draws a 100 euro fine, tour groups can no longer stop at the windows, and taking a photo of a working woman can get your phone confiscated on the spot, rules that catch out visitors who assume the area is a photo op rather than someone's workplace.
Safety
★★★★☆ Mostly fineValue for money
★★☆☆☆ OverpricedMore from Amsterdam
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