Coffeeshops in Rotterdam: rules, opening hours and policy

Rotterdam counted 39 tolerated coffeeshops at the end of 2024, a figure unchanged since 2019, and has tolerated no new ones since 1997. This page sets out the rules that apply in the city and where each of them comes from.

Tolerated, not licensed

No licence to sell cannabis exists in the Netherlands. The Opiumwet prohibits sale and possession outright; what a coffeeshop holds is a gedoogverklaring, a municipal declaration that sale will not be prosecuted while the AHOJGI criteria are met: no advertising, no hard drugs, no nuisance, no minors, no more than 5 grams per buyer per day, and a stock of at most 500 grams. The 5 grams is per buyer per day per shop, not per visit. Coffeeshops may not sell alcohol — in Rotterdam that has been the rule since 1997.

The standstill policy

Rotterdam tolerates no new coffeeshop, no enlargement and no relocation; a closed shop's premises may be taken over for at most two years. The count fell from 62 in 2007 to 41 in 2013 and stands at 39. This directory lists 32 — only businesses that call themselves a coffeeshop in their own public listing.

Opening hours

The standard is 10:00 to 22:00. A designated area in the centre closes at 24:00 instead, and only for as long as there is no nuisance. Rotterdam coffeeshops get a deliberately bare permit: no events, no noise or late-closing exemption, no seating against the facade.

Distance to schools — and what happens when a school arrives later

A coffeeshop may not sit within 200 metres in a straight line and 250 metres walking distance of a secondary or vocational school, nor close to a school for special primary education. If such a school settles nearby afterwards, the city inverts the rule: the shop is given flexible hours, the rule of thumb being that it is closed while the school is open, and outside those hours it may not be recognisable as a coffeeshop.

The residency criterion

The I-criterion — no access and no sale to anyone who is not a resident of the Netherlands — has applied nationally since 1 January 2013 and is written into the Rotterdam declaration. Enforcement is a local decision, and Rotterdam's local triangle has decided not to prioritise it for now, noting that this changes if sale to non-residents causes nuisance. That is an enforcement choice, not a right: the rule is in the declaration either way. Nationally the picture is the same — of 103 coffeeshop municipalities, the WODC found exactly two enforcing it with high priority at the end of 2024.

Using cannabis in public is banned across the whole city

APV article 2:74a bans using List I and List II substances on or along the road, in other public places and in buildings open to the public. Unlike Amsterdam's, this is not a designated zone but the entire municipality. The text carries no coffeeshop exception, while the city's coffeeshop policy assumes use on the premises. Neither document says which prevails, so we assert nothing about it.

Rotterdam is not in the closed-chain experiment

The experiment runs in ten municipalities: Almere, Arnhem, Breda, Groningen, Heerlen, Maastricht, Nijmegen, Tilburg, Voorne aan Zee and Zaanstad. Voorne aan Zee lies in the Rotterdam region but is a separate municipality. For Rotterdam shops the ordinary contradiction stands: the front door is tolerated, the back door is not, and supplying a coffeeshop remains a criminal offence.

See all 32 coffeeshops in Rotterdam →

Sources

This is not legal advice. ZazaMap sells nothing, brokers nothing and advertises no individual business.