Counting in Dutch starts out easy and then throws one famous curveball: from 21 onwards, Dutch says the units before the tens — eenentwintig is literally "one-and-twenty". And the whole thing is written as a single solid word, no spaces. This page walks the complete system from nul to miljard, with the spelling rules nailed down, because in Dutch a number written with a space or in the wrong order is simply wrong.
0 to 20: learn these by heart
These are the building blocks. Most have no internal logic — you memorise them.
| 0 | 1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | 6 | 7 | 8 | 9 | 10 |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| nul | een | twee | drie | vier | vijf | zes | zeven | acht | negen | tien |
| 11 | 12 | 13 | 14 | 15 | 16 | 17 | 18 | 19 | 20 |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| elf | twaalf | dertien | veertien | vijftien | zestien | zeventien | achttien | negentien | twintig |
Ik heb twee broers en één zus.
I have two brothers and one sister. (the accents on 'één' stress the count — see the een vs één page)
Er staan twaalf flessen in de kelder.
There are twelve bottles in the cellar.
Watch dertien (13) and veertien (14): they are not drietien or viertien. The teens page covers these irregulars in detail; for now, just register that 13 and 14 bend the stem.
21 to 99: the units-before-tens reversal
Here is the curveball. To say a number like 21, Dutch puts the unit first, then en ("and"), then the ten: een + en + twintig → eenentwintig, literally "one-and-twenty". English speakers read this backwards at first; you have to retrain your ear.
| Number | Dutch | Literally |
|---|---|---|
| 21 | eenentwintig | one-and-twenty |
| 22 | tweeëntwintig | two-and-twenty |
| 25 | vijfentwintig | five-and-twenty |
| 34 | vierendertig | four-and-thirty |
| 48 | achtenveertig | eight-and-forty |
| 76 | zesenzeventig | six-and-seventy |
| 99 | negenennegentig | nine-and-ninety |
Three things to lock in:
One solid word. The unit, en, and the ten fuse into a single word with no spaces and no hyphens: vijfentwintig, never vijf en twintig and never vijf-en-twintig.
The linking -en-. The "and" piece is en, and it glues directly onto both sides. When the unit ends in a vowel that would clash, Dutch adds a trema (diaeresis) to keep the pronunciation clear: twee + en → tweeëntachtig, tweeëntwintig, tweeëndertig; drie + en → drieënveertig. The trema appears on the second e so you don't read ee as a long vowel running into the next syllable.
It's still backwards even with hundreds. In 123 the tens-and-units chunk keeps its reversal: honderddrieëntwintig (a hundred-three-and-twenty).
Mijn opa wordt volgende week vijfentachtig.
My grandfather turns eighty-five next week.
Er deden tweeëntwintig landen mee aan het toernooi.
Twenty-two countries took part in the tournament.
De rekening was negenennegentig euro.
The bill was ninety-nine euros.
100 to 999: honderd, and often without "een"
A hundred is honderd. Crucially, Dutch usually says honderd on its own for 100 — you don't normally put een in front of it the way English says "a hundred" or "one hundred".
| Number | Dutch |
|---|---|
| 100 | honderd |
| 200 | tweehonderd |
| 300 | driehonderd |
| 101 | honderdeen |
| 250 | tweehonderdvijftig |
| 999 | negenhonderdnegenennegentig |
Everything up to 999 is still written as one word: tweehonderdvijftig, negenhonderdnegenennegentig. The multiples of a hundred prefix the unit directly (twee + honderd = tweehonderd), with no space and no en.
Het stadion telt tweehonderd vrijwilligers.
The stadium has two hundred volunteers.
Ze woont op nummer honderdtwaalf.
She lives at number a hundred and twelve.
You can say éénhonderd for emphasis or clarity (for example reading out a bank figure), but plain honderd is the everyday default. The same goes for duizend below.
1000 and up: duizend, miljoen, miljard
| Number | Dutch | Note |
|---|---|---|
| 1000 | duizend | usually no 'een' — just 'duizend' |
| 2000 | tweeduizend | one word |
| 10 000 | tienduizend | one word |
| 100 000 | honderdduizend | one word |
| 1 000 000 | (een) miljoen | SEPARATE word; takes 'een' |
| 1 000 000 000 | (een) miljard | SEPARATE word; 'miljard' = a billion (10⁹) |
The key break is at a million. Honderd and duizend attach to the number in front of them as one solid word (tweeduizend, honderdduizend). But miljoen and miljard are separate words and they take een: een miljoen, twee miljoen, drie miljard.
Two false friends for English speakers:
- Dutch miljard = English billion (a thousand million, 10⁹).
- Dutch biljoen = English trillion (a million million, 10¹²). Do not translate miljard as "milliard" or biljoen as "billion".
De brug heeft ruim tweehonderd miljoen euro gekost.
The bridge cost well over two hundred million euros.
Nederland telt ongeveer achttien miljoen inwoners.
The Netherlands has about eighteen million inhabitants.
De staatsschuld liep op tot vierhonderd miljard.
The national debt rose to four hundred billion. (miljard = billion, 10⁹)
For really large round figures, miljoen and miljard stay invariable (no plural -en when counting: twee miljoen, not twee miljoenen, in counting contexts). The plural miljoenen exists only in the loose sense "millions of…": miljoenen mensen (millions of people).
Common Mistakes
❌ twintig-een / twintig een
Incorrect — Dutch reverses units and tens: the unit comes first.
✅ eenentwintig
twenty-one (one-and-twenty, one solid word)
❌ vijf en twintig
Incorrect — the whole compound is written solid, with no spaces.
✅ vijfentwintig
twenty-five
❌ een honderd mensen
Unidiomatic — Dutch normally says plain 'honderd', not 'een honderd'.
✅ honderd mensen
a hundred people
❌ tweeentwintig
Incorrect — 'twee' before '-en-' needs a trema to break the vowel clash.
✅ tweeëntwintig
twenty-two
❌ Het kostte twee miljard, dus twee biljoen dollar.
Incorrect — Dutch miljard = English billion; biljoen = trillion. Don't equate them.
✅ Het kostte twee miljard, oftewel twee miljard dollar.
It cost two billion, i.e. two billion dollars.
Key Takeaways
- Memorise 0–20; dertien and veertien are irregular (not drietien/viertien).
- From 21–99, Dutch says units before tens (eenentwintig = one-and-twenty) and writes the whole thing as one solid word.
- The linking piece is -en-; add a trema after twee/drie (tweeëntwintig, drieëndertig).
- honderd and duizend usually drop een and attach as one word (tweehonderd, honderdduizend).
- miljoen and miljard are separate words and take een; remember miljard = billion (10⁹), biljoen = trillion.
Now practice Dutch
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Start learning Dutch→Related Topics
- Teens and Tens: Dertien, Veertig, TachtigA1 — The -tien teens and -tig tens in Dutch, with the must-memorise irregulars dertien/dertig, veertien/veertig and the trap of tachtig (not 'achttig'), plus the 13/30, 14/40 contrast.
- Ordinal Numbers: Eerste, Tweede, DerdeA2 — How Dutch builds ordinals — the -de ending up to nineteen, the -ste ending from twenty up, the irregulars eerste, derde and achtste, and how ordinals inflect like adjectives in dates and lists.
- Een vs Één: The Article and the Number OneA2 — Why Dutch writes the same three letters two ways — unstressed 'een' (the article a/an) versus stressed 'één' (the number one) — and when the two acute accents are obligatory.
- Telling Time and DatesA2 — How Dutch tells the clock — the half-hour trap (half drie = 2:30, not 3:30), kwart over/voor, the 'over/voor half' system, the 24-hour clock — and how to say and write dates.
- Numbers in Questions: Hoeveel, Hoe laat, Hoe oudA1 — The Dutch question words that ask for numbers — hoeveel, hoe laat, hoe oud, hoe lang, hoe vaak — and the small habits (like hoeveel + a singular noun) that make them sound native.