Netherlands vs Bali: Living with a Family of 5

Dit artikel bevat affiliate links. Boek je via zo'n link, dan krijgen wij een kleine commissie. Jij betaalt niets extra.This post contains affiliate links. If you book through one, we get a small commission. You don't pay anything extra.

The netherlands vs bali family comparison is one we have actually lived, not researched from the outside.

It was a Thursday morning in Canggu. I was at the warung two minutes from our villa, the one with the handwritten menu on a board and two plastic fans pointed at the plastic chairs. Risa Mia, three years old, had climbed onto the counter without permission and was helping herself to the container of crackers that lives next to the register. The woman behind the counter, was not annoyed. She was laughing. She handed Risa Mia another cracker and said that it was ok, Risa Mia nodded as she completely agreed with her.

In the Netherlands, Risa Mia would not have climbed a shop counter without someone looking sideways at us. Not because the Dutch are unfriendly. But there are rules about children in public spaces, understood without being written down. Here, she is not a child requiring management. She is a small person who belongs, immediately and completely, wherever she happens to be.

That moment is not why we went to Bali. But it is probably why we always wind up staying here.

I want to be clear about something before this post goes any further. We loved our life in the Netherlands. We are not people who escaped something bad. Our apartment was good. The schools were excellent. The system worked. We miss specific things about it, and I will tell you exactly what those things are. This is not a post about Bali being better. It is a post about two different lives we have actually lived, with real numbers, so that if you are sitting in the Netherlands right now and asking yourself a version of this question, you have something real to read.

Netherlands vs Bali Family Life: What the Comparison Looks Like

Before getting into detail, here is the fast version. These numbers are from 2025, based on what we actually spent and what friends back home are paying now.

Total realistic monthly spend for a family of five: €7,000 to 10,000 in Amsterdam. $4,800 to 8,100 in Canggu.

Cost of living: the real numbers

We pay around $1,000 to $1,200 a month for our villa in Canggu. It is smaller than most family villas here, because we don’t need that much space, but it has a pool and a garden. In Amsterdam that money does not get you a one-bedroom apartment, let alone outdoor space. That is not an exaggeration. That is the market.

Groceries depend heavily on how you shop. We buy local vegetables, local fish, local fruit at the pasar. We also buy European cheese because Dian makes a pasta the kids are attached to and Dutch people have opinions about cheese. Our grocery bill runs $500 to 600 a month. In Amsterdam, shopping carefully for five people, we were over €1,000 most months.

We don’t own a car. I bring the kids to school myself. For short trips we rent a Yamaha XMAX scooter for around 0 a month: the four of us ride it and Rico Jr takes a Grab. For errands and longer trips we take a Grab, Gojek or a taxi. Renting a car would cost about 5 a month, which is why we don’t. In Amsterdam we had a car: parking, insurance, fuel, and still someone had to rearrange their morning to get to school pickup.

We also have a helper who comes daily. This is not something we had in the Netherlands and it took adjustment. It is normal here, it is part of the local economy, and if you approach it correctly it functions well. $200 to $400 a month is typical.

Eating out in Canggu with five people, eating well, runs $800 to 1,500 a month. We eat out a lot. Warungs at every corner. The food is good.

The total is real. Not the $2,000 a month figure some people on expat forums like to claim, but comfortably below what we were spending in the Netherlands, for more space and a pace that works better for our family.

Schools and education

The Dutch school system is genuinely excellent. State-funded, small classes in most areas, good teachers, and an approach to child development I think the rest of the world underestimates. Rico Jr went through primary school in the Netherlands and it was good for him. Not tolerable, actually good. His school took his pace seriously. He had room to be curious. That system is free and it worked.

In Bali, international schools exist and some are very good. Canggu Community School has a solid reputation. Bali Island School is another option that families we know speak well of. But they are not cheap. You are paying, in some cases significantly, for an education that was free in the Netherlands. Quality varies. There is no state-level guarantee. You have to do your homework.

Rico Jr is twelve now. He handles the shift well, partly because he is that kind of kid and partly because the transition happened young enough for him to adapt without losing himself. Rosalia, who is six, is in school here and doing well. I don’t think we’d feel as confident if we were starting fresh with an older child who had deeper roots in a Dutch school.

There is also the language question. The Netherlands gives you Dutch education in Dutch. Here you are in English-language schools and your kids’ Dutch drifts unless you work at it deliberately. We work at it deliberately. Rico Jr reads Dutch books. We speak Dutch at home. But it takes effort that didn’t used to be required.

Healthcare

This is the part of the Netherlands I miss most in practical terms.

The Dutch GP system is one of the better primary care systems in the world. You register with a GP and you can see them quickly, it costs you almost nothing at the point of contact, and the system is organized. Off course you are paying for basic health insurance where the GP is included in. If something goes wrong, the process is clear.

In Bali, private clinics handle most day-to-day things fine. We have been lucky and have not needed one ourselves, but friends with kids use the clinics in Canggu and recommend them. From what they tell us, the doctors speak English, wait times are short and costs are manageable with good travel insurance.

But BIMC and Siloam, the better hospitals in Bali, are not equipped for everything. If something serious happened, a real emergency or a complicated surgery, you would want to be in Singapore or back in the Netherlands. Not a scare tactic. Just what the expat doctors we know will tell you plainly. You need comprehensive travel insurance that covers evacuation. That adds cost and a background-level of logistical awareness you simply do not carry in the Netherlands.

We haven’t had to test this seriously. I hope we never do. But I think about it sometimes, especially with three kids.

Outdoor life and space

Our kids are outside most of the day. That sentence would not have been possible in Amsterdam in January.

Rico Jr surfs. He started when we got here and goes out most mornings. Something has shifted in him that I cannot fully describe, and I’m not going to try too hard. He knows something now about patience and water and reading conditions that cannot be taught in a classroom and also cannot happen in the Netherlands, where the North Sea exists but is a different thing entirely.

Rosalia and Risa Mia are outdoor kids in a way that fits here. The garden, the pool, the neighbourhood paths. The fact that kids run between houses in this area the way they used to in Dutch villages in the eighties. There is a looseness to it.

In the Netherlands, we cycled everywhere. I mean that sincerely and I will get to it because I miss it. But cycling in Amsterdam with three kids and a rainy winter and dark at four in the afternoon is a different proposition than this. The outdoor life here is year-round, and that changes your default state as a family.

What we miss about the Netherlands

The cycling. Not just the infrastructure, though the infrastructure is genuinely world-class. The independence it gives children. Rico Jr used to cycle to his friend’s house alone at ten, in Amsterdam. That freedom is real and it matters. In Canggu he cannot. The roads are not built for that and the traffic is not predictable enough. That is a genuine loss.

The GP. As I said above. The ease of seeing a doctor, the fact that the system holds you, the way everything is organized. I did not appreciate it until it was gone.

The Dutch school system. We made a choice to leave a very good thing. What we found here is workable. I would not pretend they are equivalent.

The winter. Specifically the Dutch version of it. Candles in the afternoon. Stamppot. The specific cosiness of a grey November day when you have nowhere to be. You can romanticise it from Canggu and I do, probably more than is warranted. But it is a real thing.

Stroopwafels. Fresh ones, from a bakery, not from a sealed packet in the expat grocery store in Seminyak. Specific and irrational and absolutely true.

Speaking Dutch. Being surrounded by your language, your culture, your references. Walking down a street and understanding every conversation you accidentally overhear. The Netherlands gives you that effortlessly. You do not notice it until you do not have it. My Dutch has gotten softer. I hear it when I call my parents.

The safety net. This one matters more as a parent than it ever did when I was younger. In the Netherlands, if something went economically wrong, the system would catch us. Unemployment benefits. Social housing. A floor. In Bali, on a Dutch passport, if our income dropped sharply tomorrow, there is no floor. We manage well, but knowing you are fully responsible for your own situation, with nothing underneath you, is different from how I grew up. I did not know how much that mattered until I was outside of it.

What we would never trade back

The space. Our villa has a pool. Our kids have a garden. We have a rice field out the back window that is slowly becoming a warung and that is still beautiful. In Amsterdam, a comfortable apartment for us meant three children sharing two rooms and a balcony for outdoor space. I love Amsterdam, but I would not trade this space.

Risa Mia at the warung. She belongs there. The people there know her name, her cracker preference, the difference between her tired face and her stubborn face. She is three years old and she has a relationship with adults outside our family that is real and completely her own. That does not happen in the same way in a city apartment building.

Rico Jr surfing. That belongs to him now. Whatever he becomes, he will always have known how to read a wave.

Dian’s connection to this place. This is the one that matters most and is the hardest to explain.

Dian is half Indonesian. Her family is from Yogyakarta, on Java. Indonesia is not a destination for us. It is part of who she is, which means it is part of who our children are growing up to be. When Rosalia or Risa Mia ask about the ceremony they watched, or the offering they helped fold, or why the women at the temple wear certain colours, they are not asking about a foreign culture. They are asking about themselves.

We didn’t come here as tourists who liked the weather and decided to stay. We came because Dian wanted her children to know this side of their story while they were young enough for it to settle into them without effort. That is happening. I can see it happening. Rosalia knows things about Balinese life that I, as a Dutch adult, am still learning. Risa Mia doesn’t know she’s learning anything. She just knows the people and her crackers and the sound of the gamelan that drifts over the wall on ceremony days.

The Balinese build their world around family. Kids are welcome everywhere. At ceremonies, at temples, at the smallest warung on a side street that has no sign and four plastic chairs. That changes something in you as a parent. The low-level hum of anxiety you carry in public with small kids, the waiting to be judged, the apologising in advance. It is quieter here. Some days it disappears entirely.

Who should make this move, and who shouldn’t

This works for us because we have location-independent income. If your work is tied to a Dutch office or employer, this conversation is different, or it requires a different kind of planning.

It works because Dian has a genuine connection to Indonesia. That is not something you can manufacture. If Indonesia is purely a cost-of-living decision, you will eventually feel the absence of roots. The expat bubble in Canggu is real and it can become suffocating. We are not fully in it, because this place is not transactional for us.

It works because we tolerate uncertainty. The visa situation in Indonesia has changed multiple times in the years we have been here. The regulations shift. The admin is not Dutch in its efficiency. If you need systems to work predictably, Bali will frustrate you in ways that accumulate.

It does not work well if you have a family member with complex healthcare needs. The infrastructure is not there, and I would not bring a child with a serious chronic condition here without a very clear plan for what happens when the Bali clinics reach the limit of what they can do.

It does not work well if you haven’t tested a long stay first. One month is not enough. Three months starts to tell you something real. Renting a villa for a year on the basis of a two-week holiday is how you end up on a flight back to Schiphol six months later with expensive regrets.

How to start if you’re considering it

Come for three months on a tourist visa. Put the kids in a local activity or sports programme. Figure out where you’d shop, which clinic you’d use, whether the internet in the area you’re considering is actually fast enough to work remotely. Fall in love with the reality, not the idea.

Sort the visa situation before anything else. Indonesia has a range of options, including the Second Home Visa for a five-year stay, but the rules have specifics and they change. Talk to a Bali-based immigration consultant, not a forum thread.

International schools fill up. If you have school-age children, contact Canggu Community School or Bali Island School months before you intend to arrive.

Get health insurance that covers medical evacuation to Singapore.

Dian said something to me recently that I keep thinking about. We were watching Risa Mia at the end of a ceremony in the neighbourhood, sitting on the ground, both of them completely absorbed in a small pile of flower petals. Dian said, quietly, that her own mother had told stories about growing up surrounded by exactly this. The ceremonies. The offerings. The way children were folded into it, not supervised through it.

Her mother grew up in Yogyakarta. Dian grew up in the Netherlands. Risa Mia is sitting in Bali with a pile of flower petals, learning something that skipped a generation.

I know what we left. I know exactly what we left. But I also know what that looks like.

For more information, see the I Amsterdam official guide to living in Amsterdam.

Read next: what it is like living in Bali with kids.

Plan your trip: villas in Canggu for a test stay · Indonesia eSIM

Planning a family trip? Our complete guide to Bali with kids covers the best areas, activities by age, food, safety and getting around.

FAQ

Is Bali cheaper than the Netherlands for a family?
For us, yes. A family of five realistically spends €7,000 to 10,000 a month in Amsterdam and $4,800 to 8,100 in Canggu, based on our own 2025 spending. Not the $2,000 a month some expat forums claim, but clearly less, for more space.

What does a family villa cost in Canggu?
Plan on $2,000 to 3,500 a month for three bedrooms with a pool. We don’t need that much space, so we rent a smaller villa with a pool and garden for around $1,000 to $1,200.

Are international schools in Bali as good as Dutch schools?
Some are very good. Canggu Community School and Bali Island School both have solid reputations. But you pay $800 to 2,000 a month for what is free in the Netherlands, and quality varies. Contact schools months before you arrive, because they fill up.

How does healthcare in Bali compare to the Netherlands?
Friends with kids say the clinics in Canggu handle everyday things well. We have been lucky and have not needed one. BIMC and Siloam are not equipped for everything, so a serious emergency means Singapore or flying home. Get insurance that covers medical evacuation.

Will our kids lose their Dutch in Bali?
It drifts unless you work at it. International schools teach in English, so we speak Dutch at home and Rico Jr reads Dutch books. It works, but it takes effort the Netherlands never asked of us.

What do you miss most about the Netherlands?
The cycling and the freedom it gives kids, the GP system, the free schools and the safety net. Also grey November afternoons with candles, and fresh stroopwafels from a real bakery.

How should a Dutch family test a move to Bali?
Come for three months first. One month is not enough. Put the kids in a local activity, find your clinic and shop, and test the internet where you want to live. Sort the visa with a Bali-based immigration consultant, not a forum thread.