Three in ten households do not have a car

On 1 January 2011, there were more than 7.7 million cars in the Netherlands. Nearly 6.9 million were privately owned or leased. Approximately three in ten households did not own a car in 2010. About one in eight children are growing up in families without a car.

One quarter of households have more than one car

Half of Dutch households have one car and nearly one quarter own two or more cars. Nearly half of couples with children living at home have more than one car.

More than 2 million households, mainly households living on relatively low disposable incomes, did not have a car or a leased car in 2010. Yet, four in ten households in the lowest income brackets have one or more cars at their disposal. The annual incomes of households with two or more cars are on average nearly 8 thousand euro higher than the incomes of one-car households.

Car ownership households by income level, 2010

Higher incomes often have leased car

Approximately 8 percent of households have a leased car, which they also use for private purposes. These households are usually in the higher income brackets. Households driving leased cars have an average disposable income of nearly 37 thousand euro versus an average annual income of 23 thousand euro for households without a leased car.

Privately owned and leased cars, 2010

Half of one-person households have no car

Nearly half of one-person households do not have a car. Students and single benefit claimants often do not have a car. More than one in six two-person households are carless. For larger households it is rarer to be carless.

One in eight children grow up households without a car

More than 400 thousand children under the age of 18 live in carless households, i.e. 12 percent of children in this age category. Nearly half of children from carless households are living in one-parent families.

Jacqueline van Beuningen and Hermine Molnár-in ’t Veld