Writing Numbers, Dates and Amounts | Dutch Grammar

Numbers look like they should be the easy part of a language — surely a number is a number. But Dutch writes them with three conventions that quietly trip up every English speaker: a spelled-out number below a thousand is one solid word (honderdvijfentwintig), the units come before the tens (vijfentwintig = literally "five-and-twenty"), and when two vowels collide at the seam you get a trema (tweeëntwintig). On top of that, dates run day-month-year, times use a period or the word uur, and money uses a comma for the decimal and a period for the thousands — the exact mirror image of English. This page is the spelling-and-formatting companion to cardinal numbers and tens and teens; read those for how the number system is built, and this one for how to put it on paper correctly.

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The single biggest written-number error English speakers make is spacing: twee en twintig (three words) is wrong. Below a thousand, a spelled-out number is one unbroken word: tweeëntwintig. Treat the whole thing as a single lexical item, like "twenty-two" fused into one piece.

Spelled-out numbers under a thousand are one word

When you write a number in letters, everything below 1000 is written solid, with no spaces and no hyphens. The components — units, en, tens, honderd — all fuse together.

Er stonden eenentwintig mensen in de rij.

'There were twenty-one people in the queue.' eenentwintig — one solid word, never 'een en twintig'.

Mijn oma wordt volgende week tweeëndertig... grapje, tweeëntachtig.

'My grandma turns thirty-two next week... just kidding, eighty-two.' Both tweeëndertig and tweeëntachtig are single words.

Het boek heeft honderdvijfentwintig bladzijden.

'The book has a hundred and twenty-five pages.' honderdvijfentwintig — hundred + five + en + twenty, all fused.

The fusing stops at a thousand: from duizend upward, the big units stand as separate words. So you write duizend, tweeduizend, honderdduizend — but the hundreds-and-below chunk inside still fuses.

De zaal bood plaats aan tweeduizend driehonderdvijftig bezoekers.

'The hall seated two thousand three hundred and fifty visitors.' tweeduizend is two words from driehonderdvijftig, but driehonderdvijftig itself is one solid word.

Numeral	Written out	Note
21	eenentwintig	één + en + twintig, solid
32	tweeëndertig	trema on the seam: twee‑ën
125	honderdvijfentwintig	under 1000 → one word
999	negenhonderdnegenennegentig	still one word
1.000	duizend	thousand: no leading "een" needed
2.350	tweeduizend driehonderdvijftig	space after duizend

The inversion: units before tens (vijfentwintig)

This is the structural surprise. Dutch says the units first, then the tens, joined by en ("and") — exactly the archaic English "four-and-twenty blackbirds." So 25 is vijfentwintig: vijf (five) + en (and) + twintig (twenty). It is both a spelling fact and a speaking fact — you also say the number in this order, which means you have to hold the small digit in your head while waiting for the big one. This is the same inversion covered phonetically in tens and teens; here the point is that the written word preserves it literally.

Ik woon op nummer vierenveertig.

'I live at number forty-four.' vier‑en‑veertig: four-and-forty — the four comes first.

Hij is zesendertig en zij is achtenveertig.

'He's thirty-six and she's forty-eight.' zesendertig (six-and-thirty), achtenveertig (eight-and-forty).

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The inversion is why a Dutch phone number or year read aloud can feel scrambled to an English ear: vijfennegentig is "five-and-ninety" = 95, not 59. When taking down a number, write the second element in the tens column. This is a real comprehension hazard, not just a curiosity.

The trema at the seam: tweeëntwintig, drieënveertig

When the unit ends in a vowel that would merge with the e of en, Dutch inserts a trema (the two dots) to keep the syllables apart — exactly the syllable-splitting job described in the trema page. This happens with twee and drie, whose final -ee / -ie would otherwise blur into the following en:

twee
- en
  - … → tweeën… (the ë says: new syllable, don't read eeen as one blob)
drie
- en
  - … → drieën…

Numeral	Written out	Why the trema
22	tweeëntwintig	twee + ën: stops "tweeen"
23	drieëntwintig	drie + ën
43	drieënveertig	drie + ën
72	tweeënzeventig	twee + ën
73	drieënzeventig	drie + ën
82	tweeëntachtig	twee + ën

Mijn vader is drieënzeventig geworden.

'My father turned seventy-three.' drieënzeventig — trema on drie‑ën, then zeventig.

Er deden tweeëntwintig landen mee aan het toernooi.

'Twenty-two countries took part in the tournament.' tweeëntwintig: twee + ën + twintig, all one word.

Note the contrast with units that end in a consonant: eenentwintig, vierenveertig, vijfentwintig, zesendertig take no trema, because there is no vowel collision — the consonant already separates the syllables. The trema is purely a fix for twee- and drie-.

Dates: day-month-year

Dutch writes dates day first, then month, then year — the European order, and the reverse of American month/day/year. The month is lowercase (Dutch does not capitalise month names) and there is no comma before the year.

Ze trouwen op 12 mei 2026.

'They're getting married on 12 May 2026.' Day-month-year; mei is lowercase; no comma.

De vergadering is verzet naar 3 juni.

'The meeting has been moved to 3 June.' 3 juni — number, space, lowercase month.

In all-figures form, the separators are usually hyphens or sometimes slashes, still day-month-year: 12-05-2026 or 12/05/2026. The day and month take a leading zero in the strict numeric form (05 for May).

Geboortedatum: 09-08-1994.

'Date of birth: 09-08-1994.' = 9 August 1994 — the 08 is the month, not the day.

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For an English speaker this is the most dangerous ambiguity on the page: 09-08-1994 is the 9th of August in Dutch, but reads as "September 8th" to an American eye. When a date could be misread, spell the month out (9 augustus 1994) — Dutch readers do this too on forms and invitations.

Times: 14.30 uur and half drie

Dutch writes clock times with a period (not a colon) between hours and minutes, and the 24-hour clock is normal in writing and schedules. The word uur ("o'clock / hour") often follows.

De trein vertrekt om 14.30 uur.

'The train leaves at 14.30 (2:30 PM).' Period between hour and minute, plus uur.

Het café gaat om 9.00 uur open.

'The café opens at 9:00.' 9.00 uur — note the period, not a colon.

In speech and informal writing, Dutch uses a half-counting system that catches everyone out: half drie means half-past two, i.e. "half toward three," not half past three. So half points to the coming hour. Kwart over (quarter past) and kwart voor (quarter to) work as in English.

Zullen we om half drie afspreken?

'Shall we meet at half past two?' half drie = 2:30 — half WAY to three, not 3:30.

Ik bel je rond kwart over drie.

'I'll call you around quarter past three.' kwart over drie = 3:15.

Money: the decimal comma and the thousands period

Dutch (like most of continental Europe) swaps the English roles of comma and period: a comma marks the decimal, a period groups the thousands. The euro sign normally comes before the amount, with a space.

De bank schreef € 1.250,00 over.

'The bank transferred €1,250.00.' The period groups thousands (1.250), the comma is the decimal (,00).

Dat shirt kost € 19,95.

'That shirt costs €19.95.' Comma before the cents: 19,95.

De begroting bedraagt € 3.400.000,50.

'The budget amounts to €3,400,000.50.' Periods for each thousands group, comma for the half-cent.

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The comma/period swap is a genuine money hazard, not just a style choice: an English speaker reading 1.250 as "one point two five" instead of "one thousand two hundred fifty" will be off by a factor of a thousand. In Dutch, comma = decimal point, period = thousands separator. Burn that in.

Common Mistakes

❌ twee en twintig / vijf en twintig (spaced)

Incorrect — below a thousand, spelled-out numbers are one solid word.

✅ tweeëntwintig / vijfentwintig

'twenty-two / twenty-five' — no spaces, units before tens.

❌ tweeentwintig (no trema)

Incorrect — twee + en collide on the e; you need the trema to split the syllables.

✅ tweeëntwintig

'twenty-two' — trema on twee‑ën; same for drieën‑.

❌ mei 12, 2026 (American order)

Incorrect — Dutch dates are day-month-year with no comma, and the month is lowercase.

✅ 12 mei 2026

'12 May 2026' — day, lowercase month, year.

❌ € 1,250.00 (English-style separators)

Incorrect — Dutch reverses them: period for thousands, comma for the decimal.

✅ € 1.250,00

'€1,250.00' — comma = decimal, period = thousands.

❌ half drie understood as 3:30

Incorrect — half points to the coming hour, so half drie is 2:30.

✅ half drie = 14.30 / 2:30

'half past two' — half WAY to three.

Key Takeaways

One word under a thousand: eenentwintig, honderdvijfentwintig; words split only from duizend up.
Units before tens, joined by en: vijfentwintig = five-and-twenty — a spelling and a listening hazard.
Trema at the seam for twee- and drie- only: tweeëntwintig, drieënveertig, drieënzeventig; consonant-final units (vier-, vijf-, zes-) take none.
Dates are day-month-year with a lowercase month and no comma: 12 mei 2026, 12-05-2026.
Times use a period and often uur (14.30 uur); half drie is 2:30, not 3:30.
Money flips the separators: comma for the decimal, period for thousands — € 1.250,00.

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