The Griepprik: Flu Vaccination in the Netherlands Explained

The Dutch approach to winter vaccination works the opposite way round from the British and Irish one. In the UK you book your flu jab. In the Netherlands, your huisarts writes to you with a date and a time already set, and your job is to turn up. Which is fine, unless the letter arrives in Dutch and goes in the pile with the insurance post. 💚

Here is how the griepprik works, who gets invited, and what to do if no letter comes.

1. You are invited, you do not book

Each autumn your huisarts sends an invitation to everyone on their list who qualifies. The letter states the date, the time and the place.

This matters more than it sounds. Practices plan around it, hiring extra staff or renting a larger venue for the day, so the appointment on your letter is a real slot held for you rather than a suggestion.

The vaccine is already at the practice. You do not collect anything from the apotheek first.

If the time does not suit, or you are ill that week, ring the practice and arrange another. If you have lost the letter, ring them and they will sort it out.

Simple action: Watch your post from early October, and open anything from your huisarts rather than setting it aside. This is the single most common reason people miss it.

2. Who gets the invitation

You are in the programme if you are 60 or over. That includes anyone who will turn 60 before 1 May of the following year, so being 59 now does not necessarily put you out.

You also qualify at any age with a medical indication. The list covers lung disease including asthma treated with anti-inflammatories, COPD, and severe long-term lung damage after COVID; heart problems including after a heart attack, arrhythmia or heart failure; diabetes type 1 and 2; kidney disease; low immunity from illness, treatment or medication; neurological and neuromuscular conditions including Parkinson's, ALS, epilepsy, and after a stroke or brain haemorrhage; a BMI of 40 or above; dementia; a cochlear implant; and intellectual disability.

Everyone living in a verpleeghuis is included, whether or not they fall into one of those groups.

💡 Tip: Dementia and cochlear implants are on the Dutch list and are not always on equivalent lists elsewhere. If you are caring for someone with dementia who is under 60, they qualify in their own right, which families frequently do not realise.

3. The pneumococcal jab runs by birth year

Alongside the griepprik there is a separate vaccination against pneumococcal disease, and the Dutch system rolls it out by year of birth rather than by age band. This confuses almost everyone.

This autumn, invitations go to:

• People born in 1966, who turn 60 this year
• People born in 1948, 1949, 1950, 1951 and 1952, who are between 74 and 78 this year

About 1.1 million invitations go out in October and November, from your huisarts or your institution's doctor. If you fall outside those birth years, you have a designated year of your own and will be invited then. RIVM publishes a lookup so you can find yours.

Pneumococcal disease matters at this age: around 8,500 people aged 60 and over are admitted to hospital with it each year in the Netherlands, and about 900 die.

Since autumn 2025 the vaccine used is PCV20, which covers 20 types of the bacterium and protects for longer than the previous one. It cuts the risk of pneumococcal pneumonia by around 30% and roughly halves the chance of the bacterium reaching your bloodstream or nervous system. One injection gives long-lasting protection, so unlike flu it is not an annual event.

Simple action: If you were born in 1966, or between 1948 and 1952, expect two letters this autumn rather than one.

4. When to go

The flu vaccine is given between mid-October and the end of November.

That window is deliberate. Flu circulates most between December and March, the vaccine takes about two weeks to take effect, and the antibodies last roughly six months. Going in October means protection through the whole season. Going in September would mean it fading before March.

You get the injection in your upper arm, so wear something that lets you bare it easily. If you live in a care institution, you are vaccinated there rather than travelling to the practice.

You need it every year, because protection fades and the circulating strains change.

5. If you winter abroad

This is worth planning if you spend part of the winter in Spain, Portugal or anywhere else in the sun.

The vaccine given in the Netherlands works throughout the northern hemisphere, so it protects you wherever you are north of the equator.

What decides your options is your departure date. If you leave before the vaccination window opens, ask your huisarts in advance whether the vaccine has arrived yet, because sometimes it has and you can go early.

If it has not, you have two choices. You can buy the vaccine at a pharmacy in the country you are wintering in and have a doctor there administer it, at your own cost. Or you can ask your huisarts to keep a dose for you until you return.

💡 Tip: Have this conversation in September, not the week before you fly. Whether the practice already holds stock is the thing that decides which option is open to you, and it takes one phone call to find out.

6. If you are under 60, or no letter arrives

If you are under 60 with no medical indication, you can still have the griepprik after discussing it with your huisarts, for instance to protect people you live with. You pay for it yourself in that case. The vaccine is prescription-only in the Netherlands, available through a doctor, the GGD or a vaccination centre, so it is not something you can pick up over the counter.

If you are 60 or over and no invitation has arrived by the end of October, ring your practice. The usual causes are dull ones: a recent house move, a change of huisarts, or an old address on file.

For anyone who has moved to the Netherlands later in life, one detail is worth holding on to. Being invited is not a judgement about your health or a sign that anyone thinks you are frail. It is the age at which the Dutch system starts writing to everybody, and the great majority of people who receive it feel entirely well. 💛

You can read the full details, including the pneumococcal birth-year lookup, at RIVM.

For the wider picture of how Dutch healthcare works and what you pay, our guide to Dutch health insurance explains the basic policy and the excess, and our guide to zorgtoeslag covers the allowance that pays a large part of the premium for most people. On the pension side, our guide to the Dutch AOW pension explains how entitlement builds up. If you are in the UK or Ireland instead, our guides to the flu jab for over-60s and winter vaccinations in Ireland cover those systems. Browse more Una guides for plain English help with living well in the Netherlands.