If you are aged 18 or older, you pay a deductible for the first part of healthcare you receive under the general insurance. This is the compulsory deductible.
The amount of the compulsory deductible is set each year by the Dutch government. In 2025 is this €385. The deductible applies to one calendar year (1 January to 31 December). You pay this amount in addition to your premium. Once you have paid the full amount of your compulsory deductible, we will reimburse any costs subsequently incurred.
You pay a deductible for healthcare covered under the general insurance, like hospital care, blood tests and medicine for example. If you’d like to see whether you need to pay a deductible, check our reimbursement guide.
You do not have to pay a deductible for things like GP visits, obstetric care and healthcare covered under the additional insurance package. See all the exceptions.
You can opt to pay the compulsory deductible in instalments so that you don’t have to pay the entire €385 in one go. Your deductible will then be split up into 10 monthly payments of €38.50. If you do not ‘use up’ all of your deductible, we will reimburse you for the excess amount you paid. If you want to pay the deductible in instalments next year, please notify us before 1 February.
The deductible applies to healthcare costs that fall under the basic health insurance. This insurance covers essential medical care. And the first part of these costs must be paid by you. That's what we call the deductible. However, there are some exceptions, such as visits to your general practitioner.
You do not pay a deductible for healthcare costs like:
See all the exceptions
You pay the deductible for a calendar year, meaning from 1 January to 31 December. You only pay a deductible for healthcare covered under the general insurance. If you have not incurred any healthcare costs (or hardly any), you also pay little or no deductible. Your deductible will be recalculated on 1 January of the following year.
If you pay your deductible in 10 advance instalments and do not use the full amount of the deductible by 31 December, the surplus amount will be repaid to you by no later than 1 April of the following year.
We send the invoice for the deductible once every three months, meaning you may need to wait a while before you receive it.
The year for which you are charged a deductible is determined by the start date of your treatment. If the first appointment for your treatment is in 2025, you will be charged the deductible for 2025.
Do you visit the hospital for treatment? The hospital groups together all your treatments in a sort of package, called the Diagnosis-Treatment-Combination, or DBC. The DBC will stop as soon as your treatment has finished, or it will stop after a certain number of days as stipulated by the NZa:
If the treatment takes longer than that, a new (follow-up) DBC will start. If you had not yet paid all of your deductible or this new follow-up DBC is opened in a new year, you will be charged a deductible again. Your healthcare provider can tell you when a new DBC will be opened for you.
If you seldom incur medical costs and if you have saved enough to pay the full deductible in the event that you do need healthcare or medicine, you might consider paying a higher deductible, that’s to say a ‘voluntary deductible’.
It is not wise to increase your deductible if you often need medicine or if you need to visit the hospital regularly. We also do not recommend opting for a voluntary deductible if you have not put money aside for when something does go wrong.
Are you 18 years or older? Then you pay a part of your health costs from the general insurance yourself. This is called the compulsory deductible. Every year the Dutch government sets this amount. In 2025 this is €385. This means that the first €385 of your health costs you pay yourself. If you have more costs, we will pay these for you. Not if you have a voluntary deductible.
Do you want to save on your premium? You can choose for a voluntary extra deductible of €100, €200, €300, €400 or €500. This adds up to the compulsory deductible. The maximum deductible is €500.
