Netherlands
Health & Medical Emergencies
Last verified August 15, 2026
Written for U.S. passport holders
Emergency Numbers
- Dial 112 for ambulance, police, or fire, a single unified number, the same EU-wide standard used across most of this list.
- Dispatchers are available around the clock and can communicate in multiple languages.
- For U.S. consular emergency assistance (a detained or hospitalized American, coordinating care, notifying family), call the State Department's Overseas Citizens Services from anywhere in the world: +1-888-407-4747 (from the U.S. or Canada) or +1-202-501-4444 (from overseas). This is separate from the local emergency number and won't dispatch an ambulance itself, but it's the number that gets the U.S. government involved.
Getting Treated as a Foreigner
- As with the rest of the EU, the reciprocal free-care system covering EU nationals doesn't extend to U.S. citizens. Expect a bill for hospital treatment and plan to handle it through your own travel insurance.
The Gotcha
There's no real trap in the Netherlands' emergency number itself, 112 is as simple as it gets, but the same reciprocal-coverage gap that applies across the rest of the EU on this site applies here too: being a U.S. citizen means you're outside that system entirely, regardless of how straightforward the phone call is.
Sources
This page was drafted from the primary sources below. Rules change, so check the linked page directly before relying on any of this.
- Emergency number 112 (Government of the Netherlands (Rijksoverheid))
- Help Abroad (Overseas Citizens Services) (U.S. Department of State, Bureau of Consular Affairs)