Basisschool Enrollment in Amsterdam: The Stedelijk Toelatingsbeleid Explained

The Official Rule

Amsterdam doesn’t leave primary school admission to each school individually. According to BBO Amsterdam, the collaborative body of the city’s school boards, over 200 primary schools operate under one shared system, the Stedelijk Toelatingsbeleid (Municipal Admission Policy), covering four stages: registreren, aanmelden, inschrijven, and toewijzen (registering, applying, enrolling, and assigning places).

The starting point is fundamentally different from an Einschulungsbereich or fixed-September-intake model. According to Dutch Wikipedia’s overview of leerplicht, citing the Leerplichtwet 1969 (Compulsory Education Act), a child’s legal compulsory education only begins on the first day of the month following their fifth birthday. In practice, almost every family enrolls well before that: Dutch children can start basisschool the day they turn four, and school groups mix children who joined the class at different points across the year, since there’s no single citywide “school year cutoff” moment the way an October or September intake system works.

The Timeline, in Practice

According to BBO Amsterdam’s own explainer, the municipality mails a brochure, “Naar de basisschool,” along with the preference form, around your child’s third birthday. Submission deadlines aren’t a single citywide date, they’re staggered by birth-quarter cohort.

These specific dates apply to the 2026-2027 round covered by BBO Amsterdam’s current published guidance and shift every year by cohort, so treat the pattern (deadlines tied to birth quarter, not one fixed citywide date) as the reliable takeaway, and confirm the exact current dates directly with BBO Amsterdam for your child’s specific birth window.

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Ranking Schools and the Loting en Matching Process

You don’t just apply to one school and wait. You rank schools in order of preference on the form, and placement runs through a centralized process BBO Amsterdam calls loting en matching (lottery and matching), documented in the organization’s own Plaatsingsmethodiek (placement methodology). According to BBO Amsterdam, when a school receives more registrations than it has spots for, priority rules apply, and the matching process, not a simple first-come-first-served queue, decides who gets placed where.

Neither BBO Amsterdam’s public pages nor OCO’s advisory content publish one fixed minimum number of schools you must rank, but the underlying logic of any lottery-and-matching system makes the practical advice clear: ranking only one or two schools is a real risk. If your top choice is oversubscribed and your list doesn’t give the algorithm other genuine options, you can end up unmatched in the first round and need to sort things out afterward. A longer, honestly ranked list, schools you’d actually be willing to send your child to, not just ones you’d tolerate, gives the system something real to work with.

Step by Step

1. Wait for the municipality’s brochure and preference form, arriving by post around your child’s third birthday.
2. Research your realistic options well before the deadline: visit open days, read OCO’s independent guidance if you want a neutral second opinion, and talk to other parents in your neighborhood.
3. Confirm your child’s exact submission deadline with BBO Amsterdam, since it’s set by birth-quarter cohort, not a single citywide date.
4. Rank multiple schools on your preference form, in genuine order of preference, rather than listing only your top choice.
5. Submit before the deadline. Late submissions are handled differently and generally put you at a disadvantage in the matching process.
6. Wait for the placement decision. If your child isn’t matched to a preferred school, contact BBO Amsterdam’s helpdesk or OCO for guidance on next steps, rather than assuming nothing can be done.

What You’ll Need

• Your child’s BSN and confirmed address registration (BRP), since these tie your child’s file to the correct municipality process.
• The preference form itself, once it arrives by post.
• A realistic, ranked list of schools you’re genuinely willing to accept, built from your own research rather than a single top pick.

Compliance Note

This page describes the general structure and 2026-2027 example deadlines of Amsterdam’s Stedelijk Toelatingsbeleid as published by BBO Amsterdam. Exact deadlines shift annually by birth-quarter cohort, and specific priority and matching rules are set out in BBO Amsterdam’s own policy documents, which can change. Confirm current details directly with BBO Amsterdam or the OCO advisory service before relying on any date or rule in this guide for your own submission.