Netherlands document photos online

In the winter of 1574, the Dutch city of Leiden was starving under a Spanish siege and had run out of every scrap of silver and copper to pay its soldiers and merchants. So the city council did something unprecedented: they shredded confiscated church and library books, pressed the pulp into hardened discs, and struck them with coin dies to create emergency money worth one-and-a-quarter guilders. Those improvised cardboard coins are widely cited as the first paper currency ever used in Europe — a desperate wartime hack that, centuries later, helped a small trading nation pioneer banknotes, the world's first stock exchange, and one of the planet's most powerful passports.

• Passport power In the 2025 Henley Passport Index, the Dutch passport ranked joint 4th in the world, granting visa-free or visa-on-arrival access to 188 destinations.
• First paper money During the 1574 Spanish siege of Leiden, the city ran out of metal and struck emergency 'coins' from hardened book paper — widely regarded as Europe's first use of paper money.
• Currency origin The Dutch guilder, used from 1434 until the euro arrived in 2002, took its name from the Middle Dutch word 'gulden' (golden), because it began life as a gold coin modeled on Florence's florin — which is why its old symbol was 'fl.'
• First IPO In 1602 the Dutch East India Company raised 6.5 million guilders from 1,143 ordinary investors in the world's first true public stock offering, and the Amsterdam exchange built to trade those shares is the oldest stock exchange on Earth.
• Dual nationality The Netherlands generally forces new citizens to renounce their old passport, yet it cannot accept a renunciation of Dutch citizenship if doing so would leave you stateless — holding another nationality first is mandatory.
• Passport security The 2024 Dutch passport carries a tiny laser-etched colour portrait made with LASINK Helios technology, alongside watermarks, fluorescent fibres and a holder's national service number hidden in a QR code rather than the chip.
• EU founder The Netherlands was one of just six countries that signed the 1957 Treaty of Rome, founding the European Economic Community that became the EU.
• Lowest in EU The Zuidplaspolder near Rotterdam sits 6.76 metres below sea level — tied with Denmark's Lammefjord as the lowest dry-land point in the entire European Union.
• Banknote portraits The Netherlands' final guilder notes were tiny portrait galleries, honouring philosopher Baruch de Spinoza on the 1000-guilder bill and admiral Michiel de Ruyter on the 100.