Amsterdam’s Binnenring is complete: 7 km bike street after 10 years
Published 21 September 2026
Amsterdam has completed the more-than-7 km Binnenring from Czaar Peterstraat to Haarlemmerplein. Cars are guests at 30 km/h, while cycling space, crossings, tram stops and footpaths have been upgraded. Our full guide explains the route, what the new bike-street design means and the nearby works that are still separate.
Sources: City of Amsterdam and Vervoerregio Amsterdam.
Yayoi Kusama at Stedelijk Amsterdam: timed tickets, dates & visitor guide
Published 12 September 2026
A major Yayoi Kusama retrospective opened at the Stedelijk Museum on 11 September and runs through 17 January 2027. It spans more than 70 years of painting, sculpture, installation, drawing, fashion, collage and happenings. The practical booking catch: City Card holders still need a time slot plus a €10 exhibition surcharge. Our visitor guide explains the ticket rule, Museumplein planning and how much time to leave around a timed entry.
Source: I amsterdam — Yayoi Kusama and the Stedelijk visitor listing.
Open Monumentendag Amsterdam 2026: 50 free buildings open this weekend
Published 12 September 2026
Amsterdam becomes one giant open house on 12–13 September for the 40th Open Monumentendag. Fifty monuments open free, with hidden interiors, industrial heritage, canal houses and a Saturday evening programme. Our visitor guide explains the hours, highlights and the easiest way to build the event into a normal Amsterdam weekend without racing between all 50 locations.
Sources: City of Amsterdam and I amsterdam.
9 September public transport strike: Amsterdam's city network largely stops
Published 7 September 2026
A nationwide 24-hour public-transport strike on Wednesday 9 September will stop GVB trams, metro, buses and ferries in Amsterdam and almost all NS trains across the Netherlands. The crucial Schiphol exception is a four-times-per-hour Airportsprinter between Amsterdam Centraal, Schiphol and Hoofddorp. International rail is also disrupted. Our full visitor strike guide explains what still runs, what to postpone, the Amsterdam-Noord ferry problem and how to rebuild an airport-transfer plan.
Hotel taxes jumped sharply on January 1, 2026
Updated August 2026
Amsterdam's municipal tourist tax (toeristenbelasting) stays at 12.5% of the room price through 2026 — already the highest rate of any European city — but the total tax burden on a hotel stay has grown much larger regardless. On January 1, 2026, the Dutch national VAT rate on hotel accommodation rose from 9% to 21%. Combined with the municipal tax, the effective tax load on a room now sits around 33.5%, a jump that's already pushing room rates up and is expected to soften demand somewhat over the year. Budget accordingly if you're comparing prices against an older trip or a guide written before 2026 — a headline room rate you find online is very likely quoted before tax.
Source: City of Amsterdam — official tourist tax page.
Cruise day-visitor tax rises to €15
Updated August 2026
Passengers arriving by sea or river cruise as day visitors — not staying overnight — now pay a €15 per-person day tax when the ship calls at Amsterdam, up from €14.50 in 2025. Crew are exempt, and the tax is handled by the cruise operator rather than collected from individual passengers directly, but it's worth knowing about if you're planning a cruise stopover here rather than a standard overnight visit, since it's a separate charge from the standard overnight tourist tax described above.
A city-wide freeze on new hotel construction
Updated August 2026
Amsterdam's municipal government has adopted a "preparatory decision" (voorbereidingsbesluit) that effectively freezes new hotel development city-wide while updated planning rules are drafted — commentators have taken to calling it a "hotel bed stop" (hotelbeddenstop). This builds on rules already in place restricting overnight-stay growth. Practically, this doesn't affect existing hotels or your ability to book a room, but it does mean the supply of hotel rooms in the city isn't likely to expand meaningfully in the near term, which is part of why the tax increases above are landing on a fairly fixed room supply. The city recorded 23.7 million tourist overnight stays in 2025, well above its own target of keeping annual stays under 20 million, which is the underlying reason for both this freeze and the tax changes.
ETIAS entry authorization: still not live — don't believe sites claiming otherwise
Updated August 2026
If you've read that visa-exempt travelers (including from the US, UK, Canada and Australia) now need to register for ETIAS before flying to the Netherlands — that's not yet true, and the launch date has genuinely become uncertain again. EU officials had been targeting the last quarter of 2026, but as of mid-2026 there are credible reports that the EU agency building the system (eu-LISA) has concluded a 2026 launch isn't realistic, and the official EU travel authorization site has quietly dropped its "last quarter of 2026" language. No confirmed new date has been published. Given how often this date has already slipped, we'd treat any "book now before ETIAS starts" pressure from third-party sites with real skepticism — the only way to know the actual current status is the official EU page, which we link below and which we'll keep checking.
Source: European Union — official ETIAS status page.
Rijksmuseum: a century of menswear, through mid-March
Updated August 2026
The Rijksmuseum's "Suit Yourself" exhibition explores 100 years of menswear history and is worth planning around if you're a fashion-history visitor — it's a genuinely different angle than the museum's usual Golden Age painting focus. If your trip lands before it closes, it's worth checking current dates directly with the museum before finalizing an itinerary, since special exhibitions occasionally get extended or close early. See our Rijksmuseum guide for how to fit a special exhibition into a first visit without derailing the Gallery of Honour route.
New restaurant openings worth knowing about
Updated August 2026
A handful of genuinely interesting restaurant openings have landed in 2026: a second location for the well-regarded Broth has opened in Amsterdam-Zuid, several central-city kitchens have added sister locations nearby, and a handful of new bars and small kitchens have opened in West and around De Pijp. None of this changes our core neighborhood guides' recommendations dramatically, but if you're the kind of visitor who tracks the city's food scene closely, 2026 has been an active year for new openings rather than a quiet one.
This Journal covers things that actually affect a visitor's trip planning — tax and entry rules, museum exhibition windows, and genuinely notable openings. It isn't a general Amsterdam lifestyle blog, and we don't publish filler here just to keep the page moving. If nothing meaningful has changed, we don't add an entry just to have one.