Enter your travel dates and see which flowers will be out in the Netherlands during your trip: tulips, daffodils, hyacinths and six more, where to find them, and how long the fields have left before they are cut. Keukenhof and the open bulb fields run on different clocks, so both are covered.
Enter the dates you are in the Netherlands and we will show which flowers will be out while you are here, where to see them, and which tours fit.
Tulips bloom in the Netherlands from early April to the start of May, and the open fields are at their most colourful from mid-April until they are topped, usually around 1 May. The wider flower season runs from mid-March to mid-May, and tulips share it with two others: daffodils lead from mid-March, hyacinths follow in late March, and tulips take over through April. Those three are the season most people travel for, with snowdrops, crocuses, cherry blossom, freesias, roses and dahlias filling in the quieter months either side. Timing shifts a little each year with the weather, and by a few days between regions.
Three regions grow at scale. The Bollenstreek, the bulb belt between Haarlem and Leiden, has the best-known fields and Keukenhof itself at Lisse, roughly forty minutes from Amsterdam by car. West-Friesland, north of Hoorn, is a similar drive and much quieter. The Noordoostpolder in Flevoland has the largest fields in the country, about ninety minutes out, and runs roughly a week behind the Bollenstreek, which makes it a useful fallback if you arrive late in the season. Compare all three in the calendar below, or read our guide to the tulip fields near Amsterdam for routes and travel times.
Tap a region to switch the calendar below.
Solid bands are each flower’s typical bloom window in the open fields. The dashed extension on tulips shows how much longer Keukenhof and other show gardens keep blooming after the commercial fields are cut. Dashed vertical lines mark your travel dates. Switch region above and the whole calendar shifts with it.
West-Friesland and the Noordoostpolder run roughly a week behind the Bollenstreek, so their bloom windows are shown seven days later. Every season is a little different, so treat these dates as a well-informed guide rather than a guarantee.
This is the answer for the dates you entered above: which flowers are realistically in bloom during your visit, from the earliest snowdrops to the famous tulip fields and Keukenhof’s show gardens. Change the dates and it updates straight away.
The season moves a little every year, but not by much. Here is what a typical year looks like month by month, and what to do if your dates fall either side of the peak.
Early March belongs to the crocuses, and the first daffodils open around the middle of the month. Keukenhof opens on 18 March in 2027, planted in sequence so that something is always in flower, which makes the gardens worth it from day one. The open bulb fields are a different story. Tulips are still green in March, and the sea of colour most people picture does not usually arrive until April. If your dates fall in March, plan around Keukenhof, the daffodil fields and the first hyacinths, and treat any early tulips as a bonus.
April is the month. Hyacinths peak through the first half, tulips take over from the middle, and around the second and third weeks all three of the main season flowers can overlap. Mid-April is the single most reliable week to book, which also makes it the busiest, so secure Keukenhof entry and accommodation well ahead. Cherry blossom adds to it in the first days of the month.
How Are Dutch Tulips So Colourful? A short from the fields, 46 seconds.
Cutting it fine. In the Bollenstreek the commercial fields are usually topped by around 1 May, and in a warm spring earlier still, so the first days of May are already too late for the open colour there. Further north, in West-Friesland and the Noordoostpolder, the fields run about a week behind and can still be worth the drive in the first week of May. Keukenhof keeps flowering to 9 May in 2027 because it is never harvested, so if your dates fall in May, plan around the show gardens first and treat any field colour as a bonus.
February brings snowdrops. From June the freesias and roses start, and dahlias take over from late July until the first night frost, usually late October, across the show gardens around Lisse and Hillegom. It is a quieter, more local season than spring, and far less crowded. Enter your own dates above and the calendar places them against all nine flowers.
Curious what is happening underground the rest of the year? Every flower here spends most of its life as a dormant bulb before pushing up, blooming and, for commercially grown tulips, being cut back so the bulb can recover for next season. Pick a flower below to follow its full year.
Whether you are planning around peak tulip season or the quieter dahlia months later in the year, here are private tours built around exactly what is in bloom when you visit. If your dates fall in spring, the private tulips and windmills tour is the one most guests book, eight hours taking in both Keukenhof and Zaanse Schans; the year round flowers and windmills tour works whatever the season.
A few things worth knowing before you go, including why some of the most photogenic tulip fields get cut down mid-season, and where it is actually fine to walk in among the flowers.
Most of the Bollenstreek is commercial farmland, grown to sell the bulb rather than the flower. Once a field passes its peak, growers top the heads within about two weeks so the energy goes back into the bulb, which is why a field can be green stubble a week later. Show gardens are not harvested, so they keep flowering.
The fields are private farmland, not a park. Walking in spreads disease between bulbs, costs the grower real money and can mean a fine. A few places exist specifically for walking among the flowers: Tulip Experience Amsterdam, The Tulip Barn, and pick-your-own gardens like De Tulperij and Hanneke’s Pluktuin. Head for one of those instead.
The Bollenstreek runs between Haarlem and Leiden, roughly forty minutes from Amsterdam by car. Keukenhof runs its own shuttle buses through the season, from Leiden, Haarlem and Amsterdam RAI, sold as a combination ticket with entry. The flat lanes between the fields are made for cycling. If you would rather not drive or work to a timetable, our six hour private Keukenhof and flower fields tour goes where the fields are open that week.
Early morning is the quiet hour: soft light, empty verges and room to park. Late afternoon backlights the petals and gives the strongest colour. Midday in April is when the coaches arrive, so that is the stretch to avoid. The rows read best from slightly above, so look for a bridge, a dyke or a raised path.
Tulips reached the Netherlands from the Ottoman Empire in the late 1500s, when the botanist Carolus Clusius planted the first bulbs at Leiden’s Hortus Botanicus. Within decades rare varieties traded for the price of a canal house, and tulip mania collapsed in February 1637. The country now grows around 80% of the world’s tulip bulbs. Read the longer story.
When the tulip fields are cut the region does not close down. Freesias flower outdoors from June, and dahlias take over from late July until the first night frost, usually late October, across show gardens around Lisse and Hillegom, with the Dahlia Festival and Keukenhof Dahlia Days as the highlights. Several gardens let you cut your own bouquet, and our private windmills and dahlias tour is built around that season.
Flowers are only part of what makes a date work. The other trip planning tools cover Anne Frank House ticket releases, festivals and parades, and the museums worth building a day around.
The questions we hear most often about visiting the Netherlands during tulip season, from Keukenhof opening dates to when to buy your own bulbs.
As a general rule, the third week of March through mid-May is the safest window for tulip season overall, with the open fields at their most colourful from mid-April until the fields are topped, usually around the end of April. If you can only pick one week, most guides point to mid-April, when tulips, hyacinths and the last daffodils tend to overlap. The exact peak still shifts by a week or so each year depending on the weather, so it is worth checking closer to your travel dates rather than booking around a fixed date alone.
Keukenhof is open from 18 March to 9 May 2027, daily from 08:00 to 19:00, with last entry at 18:15. That is the full eight-week season, and it lands in roughly the same window every year give or take a few days. Tickets are timed entry and the April weekends do sell out, so book online rather than turning up on the day. Our private Keukenhof tour includes entry, so your date is held even once public tickets have gone.
Three regions grow at scale. The Bollenstreek, the bulb belt between Haarlem and Leiden, has the best-known fields and Keukenhof itself at Lisse, roughly forty minutes from Amsterdam by car. West-Friesland, north of Hoorn, is a similar drive and much quieter. The Noordoostpolder in Flevoland has the largest fields in the country, about ninety minutes out, and runs about a week behind the Bollenstreek. There is no single fixed field to visit, because growers rotate their plots every year, so what was a sea of red last April may be onions this time. Our guide to the tulip fields near Amsterdam goes region by region with travel times.
This is the single most-asked question about the region, and the answer depends on the weather each year, but there is a reliable pattern. Daffodils lead from mid-March, hyacinths from late March, tulips take over from mid-April, and most commercial fields are already cut by about 1 May, a few days later in the north. That is exactly what the calendar above is built to answer for your specific travel dates.
Daffodils open first, from around mid-March, and hold through early April. Hyacinths follow from late March into mid-April, and they are the ones you smell before you see them. Tulips then take over from mid-April to around the end of the month, when the fields are topped. Mid-April is the week when all three can overlap, which is why it is the most popular time to come. The calendar above shows all three against your own dates, along with six other flowers.
Keukenhof is a curated 32-hectare display garden with around 7 million bulbs across 800 tulip varieties, planted in sequence so something is always in flower across its 8-week season. The open fields nearby are working farmland growing bulbs to sell, colourful for a shorter window before being cut. Most visitors do both, which is how our private Keukenhof tour is built: the fields for the big open-sky sea-of-colour photograph, Keukenhof for guaranteed flowers and variety even outside peak week. There is more on the gardens and the surrounding villages on our Keukenhof region page.
For most first-time visitors, yes, with one caveat. Keukenhof is the only place that guarantees colour across the whole eight-week season, because its 7 million bulbs are planted in sequence and are never harvested, and 800 tulip varieties in one garden is not something you will find anywhere else. The caveat is that it is a garden, not a field. If the picture in your head is an open horizon of stripes running towards a windmill, that is the working farmland outside Keukenhof rather than the gardens themselves, which is why most visitors do both. It is genuinely busy on April weekends, so go early on a weekday if you can and book timed entry ahead. If you have one spring day near Amsterdam and want the safest bet on colour, Keukenhof is it.
Commercial growers top the flowers about ten days to two weeks after peak bloom, which in the Bollenstreek usually means the last days of April, so the plant’s energy goes back into the bulb, because the bulb is what they are actually selling, not the flower. Show gardens such as Keukenhof, Tulip Experience Amsterdam, De Tulperij and The Tulip Barn do not harvest their bulbs for sale, so they keep blooming for the full season.
No, they are private working farmland rather than a park. Walking in can spread disease between bulbs and cause real financial loss for the grower, which is why some fields are fenced. A handful of places are built for walking among the flowers instead: Tulip Experience Amsterdam, The Tulip Barn, and pick-your-own gardens like De Tulperij or Hanneke’s Pluktuin.
Bulbs are harvested in summer and go on sale from the end of September, for planting in October and November before the first frost. Never buy “fresh” bulbs in spring, as those are old stock that will not have had the cold period they need to flower. International travellers should also check their home country’s import rules, since bulbs often need a phytosanitary inspection certificate to cross customs. Keukenhof tickets are timed entry and do sell out on peak weekends in April, so it is worth booking online a few days ahead rather than turning up on the day.
Keukenhof’s roughly 7 million bulbs are planted in sequence, so there is something in flower across the whole 8-week season, which in 2027 runs from 18 March to 9 May. The second and third weeks of April are usually the most colourful all round, when tulips, hyacinths and daffodils overlap. We cover the gardens themselves in our guide to Keukenhof.
Yes. Dahlias take over as a genuine second flower season, blooming from around late July until the first night frost, usually late October, well after the tulip fields are long gone. Freesias flower outdoors just ahead of them, from June to late August. Most Dutch freesias are cut under glass, but the corms are raised outdoors, so there are real fields in the Kop van Noord-Holland: around Callantsoog, and among the bulb farms near Breezand and Anna Paulowna. Worth finding for the scent alone. It is a quieter, less-visited season than spring, but the colour and variety rival it. The Dahlia Festival runs across several show gardens in the Bollenstreek, with a signature weekend event, Keukenhof Dahlia Days, in late August, featuring dahlia sculptures. Our windmills and dahlias tour is built around that season.
Unlike spring tulips, most dahlias in the region grow in dedicated show gardens built for visitors rather than commercial production fields. The main ones are Keukenhof Castle Gardens (around 100 varieties, free entry), the CNB show garden at De Tulperij (600 varieties), and I Love Dahlia, FBT Tuinbouw and CS Weijers. De Tulperij and I Love Dahlia both let you pick or cut your own bouquet, and a signposted 35km cycle route links the gardens together.
| Flower | Bollenstreek | West-Friesland | Noordoostpolder |
|---|---|---|---|
| Snowdrop Sneeuwklokje | 20 January to 10 Marchbest around 10 February | 27 January to 17 Marchbest around 17 February | 27 January to 17 Marchbest around 17 February |
| Crocus Krokus | 10 February to 25 Marchbest around 1 March | 17 February to 1 Aprilbest around 8 March | 17 February to 1 Aprilbest around 8 March |
| Daffodil Narcis | 5 March to 15 Aprilbest around 25 March | 12 March to 22 Aprilbest around 1 April | 12 March to 22 Aprilbest around 1 April |
| Cherry Blossom Kersenbloesem | 18 March to 12 Aprilbest around 3 April | 18 March to 12 Aprilbest around 3 April | 18 March to 12 Aprilbest around 3 April |
| Hyacinth Hyacint | 22 March to 20 Aprilbest around 5 April | 29 March to 27 Aprilbest around 12 April | 29 March to 27 Aprilbest around 12 April |
| Tulip Tulp | 2 April to 1 Maybest around 20 April | 9 April to 8 Maybest around 27 April | 9 April to 8 Maybest around 27 April |
| Freesia Fresia | 1 June to 20 Augustbest around 1 July | 1 June to 20 Augustbest around 1 July | 1 June to 20 Augustbest around 1 July |
| Rose Roos | 5 June to 25 Octoberbest around 20 June | 5 June to 25 Octoberbest around 20 June | 5 June to 25 Octoberbest around 20 June |
| Dahlia Dahlia | 25 July to 31 Octoberbest around 20 August | 25 July to 31 Octoberbest around 20 August | 25 July to 31 Octoberbest around 20 August |
Read these as a well-informed guide rather than a guarantee: the whole season moves by up to a week either way with the winter and spring weather. West-Friesland and the Noordoostpolder run about seven days behind the Bollenstreek, which is why their columns are shifted. Tulips are the exception to the last date given: those are the open commercial fields, which are topped once the bulb has had what it needs. Keukenhof and the other show gardens are never harvested and keep flowering until 9 May 2027.