If you take a stroll through a graveyard in the Netherlands, you may see a sign that reads “Bent of kent u de erfgenaam van dit graf?” or, “Are you, or do you know, the heirs of this grave?”

The cemetery owner is looking for someone to pay the rent. 

The Netherlands, a country of 18 million, is about a third larger than Maryland, with nearly three times the people. About one-sixth of its land has been reclaimed from the sea, which means, in many areas, groundwater levels are too high to be used for cemeteries. 

With such a densely populated, low-lying country, the Dutch have gotten creative about making enough space for everyone, including their dead. One solution: recycling grave plots. 

When you bury a loved one in the United States, common practice is to buy a plot where they’ll remain in perpetuity. It’s called “eternal rest” for a reason. In the Netherlands, however, short leases of 10-50 years are the norm.

Once a lease is up, the deceased might be cremated, “shaken” farther down in the grave to make space for another body above, or transferred to a verzamelgraf, an unmarked collective grave referred to informally as a knekelput, or “bone pit.” 

“I couldn’t believe it. I thought these people were crazy,” says Jake Barett, an American expat who learned that his Dutch father-in-law’s final resting place in the Netherlands would not be so final. His partner, meanwhile, “was surprised it worked differently in America.” 

Many Dutch people share this sentiment toward their country’s centuries-long practice.

“I don’t find it strange,” says Joost van Egmond, a Dutch journalist who shares responsibility for several family graves with relatives. “Eternity is a long time.” 

But as cremation and newer options such as natural burial gain ground, paving the way for longer-lasting places of rest, the Dutch are left to wrestle with whether the ground belongs to the living or the dead.

The Dutch began draining water to reveal livable and airable land more than 1,000 years ago. By the early 19th century, many Dutch cities were struggling to find space for the dead, a consequence of two forces: Consecrated burials had proliferated as Christianity spread throughout Europe during the Middle Ages, and cities were booming amid the Industrial Revolution. 

In 1829, King Willem I banned churches from using churchyards as cemeteries, and many graves in urban areas were cleared. Concerns over space only grew, and by the 1970s, the number of “eternal” graves had substantially diminished. 

Today, most Dutch people skip burial altogether. In 2025, nearly 70% of people who died in the Netherlands were cremated, according to the National Association of Crematoria.  

That still leaves around 60,000 people to be buried every year. 

Some are buried in general graves, which belong to the cemetery. Families can’t extend their lease, and cemetery managers may clear them after the 10-year legal minimum.

Most people, however, are buried in private graves, which are typically rented for longer.

For comparison, the price for a burial plot in the United States in 2023 ranged from $1,000 to $4,500, according to the National Funeral Directors Association, meaning Dutch families who opt for traditional burial are paying as much or more than Americans without the promise of eternal rest.

Dutch cemeteries are typically owned by the municipalities, though they can also be owned by other institutions like churches. Lease fees go toward upkeep and maintenance of the cemetery, though relatives are still responsible for tending the grave itself, planting flowers and clearing weeds. 

Even with the income from rentals, cemetery owners say maintaining the properties is expensive. In Het Hogeland, a rural municipality in the northern province of Groningen, city officials are planning to close four historic graveyards to make way for a new field hockey club. The cemeteries are currently run by a Protestant church, which says it can no longer afford to maintain the gravesites whose markers date back hundreds of years. Their removal would be like “teeth being pulled out,” says historian Redmer Alma. 

Once an initial lease period is up, an extension is usually possible, though the duration varies by cemetery. Ten years is the norm, but some locations offer five years. The city of The Hague allows year-by-year extensions.

Before a lease expires, the cemetery must try to contact local relatives, including using contact information on file and placing a sign on the grave, to discuss what they would like to happen with their loved one’s remains. 

Some descendants choose to extend the lease, even passing the responsibility down in their wills to their children. Van Egmond’s family, for example, has been buried in the same cemetery near the Dutch coast going back at least five generations, though only the gravestones of his grandparents’ generation and younger now remain. The rest have been cleared after relatives decided enough time had passed. 

Other families opt to have the remains cremated, and many cemeteries have an area where a nameplate can be placed in remembrance. By law, a cemetery cannot cremate remains that were first buried without the permission of next of kin. 

When relatives choose to do nothing, or no family member can be found, the dead are often moved to unmarked collective graves (verzamelgraven) placed at the edge of the cemetery.

Once a lease expires, cemeteries can begin the process of removing the grave or shaking the space, which requires a permit that can take years to acquire. “This may sound somewhat unpleasant, but grave clearing is carried out with care and respect,” the Dutch Funeral Association’s website says. 

According to the Dutch cultural ministry, of the country’s roughly 4,500 cemeteries, about 200 sites, or portions of sites, are considered to be of such historical value that they are designated as monuments and left undisturbed. The Zorgvlied cemetery in Amsterdam is among those granted this historical protection. Many famous Dutch people are laid to rest there, including Gerard Adriaan Heineken, the founder of the Heineken brewery, and Annie M.G. Schmidt, who authored the beloved children’s books Jip and Janneke. 

Individual graves can also be exempt for historical reasons, but the local government typically determines which graves qualify as monuments, which can lead to legal challenges. The granddaughter of Katalin van der Goot-Kis, who played a prominent role in the resistance in the eastern town of Giethoorn during the Second World War, won a court case with the city in July to prevent her grandmother’s grave from being cleared. Similarly, an uproar in 2020 kept the grave of four-time Olympic gold medalist Fanny Blankers-Koen intact. 

Religious tradition can also conflict with the Dutch approach. Many Jews and Muslims believe that a body should remain in an eternal resting place. According to Jewish doctrine, trees may not be placed in cemeteries, while Islam requires its adherents to be buried facing Mecca. Both faiths have special cemeteries in the Netherlands that are exempted from grave clearing regulations. 

The Dutch have also increasingly turned to natural burials in lieu of traditional embalming and lined coffins. The first natural burial cemetery opened in 2003. In 2024, around 3,500 people were buried in green graves, according to the Dutch Association of Natural Burial Grounds.  Part of the growing appeal may be that natural graves, unlike their traditional counterparts, are for eternity. 

Alma wishes his country’s cemeteries had the same longevity. “We need to see this as a cultural heritage, not a collection of ATMs,” he says.