The Hague overtakes Amsterdam as Dutch city with worst car traffic
Martin Bergsma / Shutterstock.com
By Simone Jacobs
According to the TomTom Traffic Index for 2025, The Hague has overtaken Amsterdam as the city with the most traffic jams in the Netherlands.
TomTom Traffic Index 2025
Every year, TomTom looks at traffic jams in 500 cities across 62 countries from around the world. For each city, researchers calculated the average travel time over 10 kilometres, how much traffic congestion is reported and the average amount of time that drivers lose as a result of time spent in traffic jams every year.
In 2025, the study found that Barranquilla in Colombia remained the world’s city with the longest average travel time, taking 3 minutes 40 seconds to travel just 1 kilometre. Mexico City had the worst congestion with a level of 75,9 percent, losing drivers a total of 184 hours while sitting in traffic every year.
The congestion level represents the increase in travel time due to excess traffic, which means that on average, journey times in Mexico City were 75,9 percent greater than when traffic was free-flowing.
London took the number one spot for the worst travel time in Europe at around 3 minutes and 38 seconds to travel 1 kilometre in the city centre. Dublin was the European city with the worst congestion at 72,9 percent and drivers losing a total of 191 hours stuck in traffic jams.
The Hague named traffic jam capital of the Netherlands
TomTom ranked The Hague as the Dutch city with the worst congestion, replacing Amsterdam as the traffic jam capital. With a congestion level of 51 percent, drivers lose 95 hours sitting in traffic in The Hague.
Road closures related to the NATO summit which was held in The Hague, as well as roadworks, are behind the increased traffic in the city, reports NOS. Arnhem saw the largest traffic disruption in the Netherlands for 2025 on October 23, where travel times were 97 percent longer than normal, due to a sinkhole on the A12.
While Amsterdam is no longer the city with the most traffic jams, congestion levels are still high (46 percent) and drivers still spend the most time behind the wheel in the Dutch capital. It takes an average of 26 minutes to travel 10 kilometres, the longest travel time in the country and 3 minutes longer than in 2024. The Hague has the second-longest travel time at 23 minutes to travel 10 kilometres.
Most congested Dutch cities in 2025
In all, these were the cities in the Netherlands with the highest congestion levels last year (percent):
- The Hague (51)
- Amsterdam (46)
- Eindhoven (44)
- Apeldoorn (43)
- Rotterdam (43)
- Haarlem (42)
- Utrecht (40)
- Nijmegen (38)
- Breda (37)
- Arnhem (37)
For more information and to see the full ranking, visit the TomTom website.
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Editor for the Netherlands at IamExpat Media. Simone studied Genetics and Zoology at the University of Pretoria in South Africa before moving to the Netherlands, where she has been working as a writer and editor since 2022. One thing she loves more than creating content is consuming it, mainly by reading books by the dozen. Other than being a book dragon, she is also a nature lover and enjoys hiking and animal training. Read more