Provincial elections were held in the Netherlands on 15 March 2023, on the same day as the water board elections, as well as island council elections in the Caribbean Netherlands.

The elections resulted in sweeping victory for the Farmer–Citizen Movement (BBB), which had been formed three years earlier; it won the national popular vote, and alone won the most seats in nine of the twelve provinces. (It tied for most seats with the People's Party for Freedom and Democracy in North Holland and in South Holland, and with GroenLinks in Utrecht.) This is the first time in Dutch history that a political party won the popular vote in all twelve provinces.

These elections also indirectly determined the composition of the Senate, for the members of the twelve provincial states, alongside electoral colleges elected on the same day, elected the Senate's 75 members in the Senate election on 30 May, two months after the provincial elections.

Electoral system

Elections for the provincial councils of the twelve provinces of the Netherlands are held every four years in March using the D'Hondt method. Voters also have the option to cast a preferential vote. The seats won by a list are first allocated to the candidates who, in preferential votes, have received at least 25% of the number of votes needed for one seat, regardless of their placement on the electoral list. If multiple candidates from a list pass this threshold, their ordering is determined based on the number of votes received. Any remaining seats are allocated to candidates according to their placement on the electoral list. The size of the provincial councils ranges from 39 members for a province with fewer than 400,000 inhabitants to 55 members for a province with more than 2,000,000 inhabitants. As of 2023 there are a total of 572 seats in the provincial councils.

Participating parties As of 21 December 2022, 49 parties have been registered with the Electoral Council for participation in general elections, a registration that carries over to provincial elections. A party can also participate in a province by registering its party name in that province instead of nationally. Which parties participate differs per province, with most large parties represented in the House of Representatives participating in all provinces, and some local and smaller national parties also participating.

Opinion polling

Seats summary

+Legislatures and governments of the Provinces of the Netherlands, 2023–2027 Provincial councils Province BBBVVD GL PvdACDA PVVD66 PvdD SP CU SGP JA21 FVD Volt 50+ Provincial parties Total Drenthe 17 4 2 4 3 2 1 2 2 2 1 1 1 43 Overijssel 17 4 4 3 4 2 2 1 1 3 2 2 1 1 47 Friesland 14 3 3 5 4 2 1 1 1 2 - 1 1 - 43 Gelderland 14 6 5 5 4 2 3 2 2 3 3 2 1 2 1 55 Groningen 12 2 5 5 2 2 2 2 2 3 1 1 43 North Brabant 11 9 5 4 4 4 4 2 4 1 2 1 1 1 55 Flevoland 10 4 3 3 2 3 2 2 2 2 2 2 2 - 1 41 Limburg 10 5 4 3 5 6 3 2 3 - 2 1 - 1 47 South Holland 8 8 6 4 4 4 4 3 2 2 2 4 2 1 1 55 Zeeland 9 4 6 5 2 1 1 1 1 5 1 1 - 39 North Holland 8 8 7 7 2 3 4 4 2 1 - 3 2 2 2 55 Utrecht 7 6 7 3 4 2 5 3 1 3 2 2 1 2 1 49 Total 137 63 51 46 43 34 32 25 23 22 16 22 15 11 8 17 572 6 1 A “-” in the table means that the party in question has not submitted a list of candidates for the 2023 election in that province.

Detailed results

National

By province

Drenthe

Flevoland

Friesland

Gelderland

Groningen

Limburg

North Brabant

North Holland

Overijssel

South Holland

Utrecht

Zeeland

References