Young adults are struggling with high bills, and taking out a loan is easily done. Various studies show that they have started borrowing more and are more likely to run into financial problems.
The entire Netherlands is dealing with more expensive groceries and sky-high housing prices. Young people without assets and a low income are therefore more likely to run out of money.
Taking out a loan is also becoming easier. Young people are doing this more and more often. Online, paying afterwards is arranged in a few clicks. Buy Now, Pay Later is even possible in shopping streets. This often involves short-term loans of small amounts.
For young people up to about 25 years old, it is difficult to oversee the consequences of a loan, warns the Netherlands Youth Institute (NJi). Their brains are still developing. Collection and bailiff organization Flanderijn sees the consequences. “The number of young people in our files with payment problems is growing,” says director Michel van Leeuwen.
Thousands of Young People at Collection Agency
If a bill is not paid, the seller can call in a collection agency. “We now have about 45,000 young people in our files who are between 18 and 25 years old,” says Van Leeuwen. “That number has grown by 50 percent in five years.”
This group has outstanding bills of “several hundred to thousands of euros”. It mainly concerns unpaid health insurance premiums and deductibles. There are also many unpaid traffic fines, as well as payment arrears at Dienst Uitvoering Onderwijs (DUO). Students can take out a loan from DUO that must be repaid after graduation.
“We see that paying afterwards is an important cause of payment problems,” says Van Leeuwen. “Parties that offer this have strict collection methods. Because it often involves small amounts, a young person is more likely to choose to pay the bill at Klarna (a company that offers to pay afterwards, ed.) than at the health insurer.”
Borrowing to Pay Other Bills
Almost all young people buy online, where they can often pay afterwards, market researcher Ipsos concluded earlier this month. One in three respondents between the ages of 16 and 21 sometimes pays afterwards. Almost one in ten uses the option to pay afterwards more often than not. Some of them do so precisely out of fear of incurring debts.
Comparison site Independer studied ten thousand loan applications between January and April and compared them with a year earlier. This shows that young people have started borrowing more money in 2025. Middle age groups have actually started borrowing less.
In the first four months of this year, young adults borrowed an average of 9,651 euros. That is more than 1,200 euros more than in the same period last year. This includes loans for extra financial space due to overdue bills.
Help is free
While the average financial health of Dutch people is improving, that of young adults is “significantly deteriorating,” according to research by Deloitte, which was published in March. Almost one in ten incurred debts in 2024 to make ends meet. That was almost one in twenty a year earlier.
“It seems that young adults have benefited less from wage increases, while their costs of living and any housing costs have increased,” explains Deloitte. For example, part-timers with a lower income are likely to be worse off this year.
Young adults therefore experience more financial stress. As a result, according to the NJi, they can concentrate less well and plan less well. This can affect their work, study, health or social life.
“If you have money problems or are threatening to get into trouble: talk to your parents about it or consider getting help,” says loan expert Marga Lankreijer-Kos from Independer. “Many municipalities offer this for free.” She calls a loan “a last resort” and “not a standard solution for increasing costs.”