Dutch Asylum Reception Is Filling Up Again and Fines Are Now Looming
Asylum seekers are staying in reception longer than intended, new locations are not opening fast enough, and municipalities that hosted emergency shelters are now imposing daily fines on the national reception agency as deadlines pass without solutions.
The Dutch asylum reception system is under severe strain again, with the national reception organisation, the COA, facing daily fines from municipalities that agreed to host temporary shelters years ago and are now refusing to extend those arrangements further.
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Residents of the asylum seeker centre in Hardenberg were supposed to have left by 8 March, but the COA was unable to find alternative locations for the 700 people housed there. The COA acknowledged the national capacity shortage meant it had nowhere else to send the residents, and that keeping the centre open was the only way to prevent people ending up on the street.
Because the COA failed to meet the deadline, the municipality of Hardenberg imposed daily fines. The COA must now pay 55,000 euros per day for the asylum seeker centre and 7,500 euros per day for a smaller emergency shelter near the village of Loozen. The original agreement was that the locations would operate for a maximum of ten years and would close by 8 March.
The municipality of Epe also threatened fines after the COA informed them that the 276 asylum seekers housed in a Fletcher hotel in the town could not be moved. The hotel had been providing emergency shelter for two years. The municipality's permit expired on 20 March and it refused to extend it again. "An agreement is an agreement," said mayor Tom Horn. He added that the COA's way of handling the situation had damaged the trust between the municipality and the national organisation.
Why the system is blocking up
The COA has been clear about the root cause. Relocating asylum seekers is "currently impossible" due to the failure of sufficient new locations to open in other municipalities, the COA said, describing the situation as "undesirable for the municipality, residents, the occupants and staff."
According to the COA's own multi-year projections, the number of required reception places is expected to grow to nearly 88,000 in 2026. A key reason is that people are staying in asylum reception far longer than intended. The number of permit holders, people who have already been granted asylum but remain in COA facilities because they cannot find housing in a municipality, is expected to reach 33,400, which would amount to more than a third of the total population in reception.
The IND, the immigration service responsible for processing asylum applications, has also been unable to keep up with its legal decision deadlines. In 2025, the IND paid 79 million euros in fines to asylum seekers whose cases were not decided within the legally required timeframe. That was double the 36.8 million euros paid in 2024.
A pattern that keeps repeating
The municipality of Westerwolde in Groningen has been imposing daily fines on the COA for several years because the national registration centre in Ter Apel has remained structurally overcrowded. The COA has already paid a total of 6.5 million euros in fines to Westerwolde alone.
Hardenberg's mayor said the municipality had been providing reception for ten years, far more than most other municipalities in the Netherlands. "Hardenberg is essentially the victim of too few places elsewhere in the country," Minister Van den Brink acknowledged. He added that many locations are currently closing while too few new ones are opening, and that he is in discussions with new municipalities about creating temporary emergency reception.
What needs to change
The COA says that developing a permanent location takes an average of two and a half years due to decision-making processes, permit procedures and construction. As the number of permanent locations gradually grows, the dependence on emergency shelter is expected to decrease over time. But for now, the capacity shortage remains acute.
The situation places municipalities in an uncomfortable position: they agreed to temporary arrangements in good faith, are now being asked to extend them indefinitely with no guarantee of an end date, and have few legal tools other than fines to force a resolution.
