Financing SMEs and Entrepreneurs 2026: Netherlands
Table of contents
After the shocks caused by the COVID-19 crisis and the large-scale aggression of Russia against Ukraine and the ensuing high energy prices and inflation, the Dutch economy grew slightly in 2024 following a contraction in 2023. Inflation remains higher than the Eurozone average. Dutch companies reported a higher operating profit in the first quarter of 2025 compared to the first quarter of 2023 and 2024. At the same time, the debt ratio has also decreased. The need for external finance increased slightly from 13% in 2023 to 14% in 2024, but remains relatively low compared to earlier years.
New lending by the three major banks to SMEs stood at approximately EUR 13.7 billion in 2024, with these three banks providing the vast majority of SME loans. As new lending in 2023 stood at EUR 10.8 billion, this represents an increase after several years of decline. The total outstanding business loans to SMEs decreased slightly, from EUR 113.6 billion in 2023 to EUR 113 billion in 2024 (DNB, 5.14).1
Bank loans continue to be the main source of external financing for SMEs in the Netherlands, although alternative sources of finance are gaining more importance among SMEs. According to the latest Financing Monitor, 49% of financing applications in 2024 were made at an alternative financier2 and 5% was a finance application made at both an alternative and a bank financier. Only 46% of the applications were made solely at a bank. Financing needs smaller than EUR 1 million are more often made at an alternative financier. Alternative financiers provide debt, equity or asset-based finance, for example, leasing or crowdfunding.
Total venture and growth capital investments in the Netherlands continued to decrease in 2024 after an all-time high of EUR 4.4 billion in 2021. In 2024, a total of EUR 1.9 billion was invested compared to EUR 2.2 billion in 2023. The total number of investments also decreased in 2024 (743) and 2023 (866) compared to 2022 (1019) (NVP).
The total government investments in start-ups and scale-ups also decreased from 539 direct investments in 2022 to 341 in 2023 and 269 in 2024. Although the total capital invested by government institutions is much smaller, they account for almost half of the total number of investments. In total, they invested EUR 219 million in 2024 compared to EUR 334 million in 2023 and EUR 330 million in 2022. This could partially be explained by the fact that most investments by government institutions require private co-investments. The regional development agencies and Invest-NL are the main government investors.
The number of SME bankruptcies increased in 2024, with a year-on-year increase of 32%. This amounted to 3494 bankruptcies, which is in line with pre-COVID-19 pandemic numbers. 2021 saw the lowest number of bankruptcies in two decades, with 1440 bankruptcies filed. The number of voluntary business terminations increased after the COVID-19 pandemic and remained high. This is an increase in voluntary business terminations only seen with businesses with one or fewer employees (CBS, Statline).
In 2023 the Dutch economy contracted slightly with -0.6% and grew slightly again in 2024 with 1.1%. Unemployment remained stable, being 3.5% in 2023 Q4 and 3.7% in 2024 Q4. Simultaneously in 2023 inflation subsided to 3.8% YTD from 10% YTD in 2022. In 2024 inflation further decreased to 3.3% YTD (CBS, Statline) but still remained higher than the Eurozone inflation. The Dutch National Bank explains this difference by pointing to a variety of factors, including increases in indirect tax rates, wages, profits and housing rents (DNB).
SMEs comprised 99.9 % of all Dutch enterprises and employed 66.0 % of the labour force in 2024 which is almost equal to the EU average. The added value of SMEs is estimated at EUR 385.1 billion which accounts for 62.7 % of the total added value by enterprises. This is above the EU average where SMEs account for 53.6 % of total added value.
The Dutch Central Bank uses loan size,rather than the size of the borrower, to proxy SME loans. Furthermore, each bank uses its own reporting system, which makes the aggregation of loan data challenging. It is therefore an underestimation of the total SME lending.
New lending to SMEs in 2024 stood at EUR 13.7 billion, which represents a 26.9% increase in comparison to 2023, when the indicator stood at EUR 110.7 billion. However, it should be noted that this figure only includes loans of up to EUR 1 million. It also includes lending to Dutch banks outside of the Netherlands and includes renegotiations of existing contracts. Total outstanding business loans increased from EUR 311.6 billion in 2021 to EUR 353.4 billion in 2024 (DNB, 5.2.7.4.).
While the interest rates for both SME firms (2-250 employees) and large firms increased with 130 and 190 basis points respectively, the spread narrowed in 2023. The interest spread was 0.3 percentage points in 2023. They stand respectively at 5.1% for SMEs and 4.8% for large firms. In 2024 interest rate increased especially for SMEs, resulting in a spread of 0.9%. Collateral requirements for SMEs have generally increased since 2015, but figures have fluctuated over the years. The companies requiring collateral stood at 40% in 2024 compared to 52% in 2023.
As a result of the rise in inflation, economic uncertainty and the interest rates hikes by the European Central Bank, financing conditions for SMEs have deteriorated. There has been a steep increase in the interest rates for SMEs, peaking at around April 2024 after which the average SME interest rate began to decline (DNB). In 2023 Dutch banks continuously report lower demands for bank loans by SME’s, this trend reversed in 2024. The share of companies reporting a demand for external finance increased slightly from 15% in 2023 to 16% in 2024 (CBS).
The percentage of SMEs with a demand for financing has fluctuated over the last couple of years between 15% and 24% although the need for external finance seems to become smaller. In 2024 this long-term demand decrease for external finance may have stabilised, being 16% in 2024 in comparison of 15% in 2023. Micro firms especially have a lower need of external finance (CBS). The percentage of requested financing authorised has increased by fourteen percentage points in 2024, reaching 90%.
Alternative sources of SME financing keep becoming more important. In 2024 the amount of financing provided by alternative financiers increased with 16% to EUR 5.8 billion. Factoring and lease remain the most important form of alternative finance with 58% of the total market share. The total number of the market is probably an underestimation since only a small part of the alternative financiers report their figures. This number also excludes venture capital and private equity, which have also gained a prominent role in SME financing (SMF).
Crowdfunding has become a prominent source of financing with a y-o-y increase of 16%. Direct lending is also becoming more important as a source of financing. In 2024 direct lenders provided EUR 850 million of financing, in 2022 this figure rose to EUR 1.081 billion. Lately, several tech companies have also announced the ambition to become more active in the field of SME financing via embedded financing.
In 2024, payment delays increased slightly in the Netherlands. The average number of days before receiving a B2B payment was 62 days in 2022, with the average contractual term being 45 days. The average number of days of delay to receive a B2B payment therefore in 2024 is 17 days, which is an increase from 2023 by two days. This is still lower than 2019 when the B2B payment delay period averaged around twenty-two days (Intrum).
In 2024 a government drafted report was released about the access to finance for companies (IBO). The report concluded that in general Dutch companies have a good access to finance, however, there are 2 groups for which the government should take additional steps. The first group are SME’s in search for financing < EUR 1 million and the second group are capital intensive scale-ups in search for larger funding rounds (generally > EUR 50 million). Additionally, the Dutch Ministry of Defence and Economic affairs announced an increased focus on the access to finance for defence related companies.
In recent years many new providers of SME financing have entered the market, as well as new forms of financing. While this expanded the range of options available to entrepreneurs, it has also made it more challenging to identify the most suitable financier or type of financing. Therefore, the Ministry of Economic Affair commissioned the Dutch Chamber of Commerce to, together with public organisation and financiers. develop the FinancieringsGids. The platform aims to improve the access to finance for SMEs by providing entrepreneurs with independent information and guidance on relevant public and private financing solutions. The FinancieringsGids was launched in November 2024 and is still in development.
In 2024 a Financieringsconvenant between the private sector and public financiers was established. The goal is to enhance Dutch SME financing, especially for smaller SMEs with a financing need < EUR 1 million. Under the convenant the participating parties committed to several actions in order to enhance SME financing. Examples of these actions are to improve the main government guarantee scheme (BMKB), to increase the access to data sources relevant for financiers in order to mitigate information asymmetry and to improve the data quality over SME financing. For example, data reporting of bank SME finance is currently limited to only the three major banks and data of subsidiaries of banks are not included. For some banks < EUR 1 million is handled via subsidiaries.
In the recent Interdepartmental Policy Review (IBO) for business finance, a bottleneck was identified for later phase financing of innovative scale-up companies. In order to resolve this and support the further growth of these companies, the Dutch government allocated an additional 900 million euros to the National Promotional Institute Invest-NL. Improving the growth of start-ups to scale-ups is partly achieved by increasing the core capital of Invest-NL (€600 million) and partly via a Blended Finance facility (€250 million). The Blended Finance facility is currently being developed.
In 2024 the Ministry of Defence announced the SecFund (Security Fund), a fund focused on startups with dual-use focused technology. In general SMEs active in the field of defence have some additional barriers in their access to finance due to the different dynamics of the defence market. The total fund capital is EUR 100 million and has an investment focus of tickets between EUR 150,000 and EUR 5 million. Dual use focused startups can apply for funding via regional development agencies and the fund is managed via the BOM, the regional development agency of the province of Brabant.
Source: See Table 2
References
Centraal Bureau voor de Statistiek (CBS): Statline
Centraal Burea voor de Statistiek (CBS): Financieringsmonitor
Centraal Plan Bureau (CPB): Een analyse van Nederlandse bedrijfsschulden
Dutch National Bank (DNB): Statistics Division, Tabel 5.14: Kredietverlening Nederlandse grootbanken aan Nederlands midden- en kleinbedrijf (kwartaal)
Dutch National Bank (DNB): Statistics Division, Tabel 5.2.7.4.: Deposito's en leningen van MFI's aan niet-financiële bedrijven, volumes (Maand)
European Commission: SME Performance Review
Interdepartementaal Beleidsonderzoek (IBO) Bedrijfsfinanciering: Kies voor Baten
Intrum: European Payment Report 2024
Nederlandse Vereniging voor Participatiemaatschappijen (NVP)
Stichting MKB Financiering (SMF): Onderzoek non-bancaire financiering 2025
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