More people are registered as ‘having no objection to organ donation’

© ANP / Peter Hilz
On 1 January 2026, 8.2 million people aged 18 years or older were registered as organ donor in the national Donor Register. That is an increase of over 90 thousand, year on year. These are people who gave their active consent to organ donation, and people who have not registered their preference in the Donor Register, and are therefore registered as having ‘no objection to organ donation’. Young people aged between 18 and 25, in particular, are more likely not to make a choice and are therefore automatically registered as donors. This is according to new figures from Statistics Netherlands (CBS) taken from the national Donor register.

In total, 58 percent of adults are registered as donors in the Donor Register: 4.8 million people aged 18 and over (34 percent) gave their active consent to organ donation. 3.4 million people (25 percent) were registered as ‘having no objection’ to organ donation, because they had not registered their preference. Nearly 1.5 million adults (11 percent) had named a family member or another person to decide on this on their behalf, and 4.4 million people (31 percent) actively withheld their consent.

The number of people registered as having ‘no objection to organ donation’ has increased over the last few years. However, the number of people giving their active consent has been declining for some time.

Young people are less likely to register their choice

Young people are less likely than older people to register their preference. They are therefore more likely to be registered as ‘having no objection to organ donation’ in the Donor register. This share has increased among all age groups up to 75 years compared with 2024. The share increased by the most among people aged between 18 and 25, by 1.9 percent. Among young people, the share of having ‘no objection’ has been rising since 2022.

Children aged between 12 and 18 can also register their choice with the Donor register. On 1 January 2026, 5.0 thousand children had registered their preference. Just over a thousand of them gave their active consent, 3.6 thousand actively withheld their consent and nearly 0.4 thousand left the decision to a family member or another person. In 2022, three times as many children (15 thousand) had registered their choice. If children do not make a choice, they are not automatically registered as ‘having no objection ot organ donation’, unlike with adults.

Amsterdam and Urk have the lowest number of donor registrations

Residents of Amsterdam and Urk – municipalities with a relatively high proportion of young people – were the least likely to make a choice (at around one-third), and are therefore registered as having ‘no objection to organ donation’.

Residents of the municipality of Groningen and Rozendaal were the most likely to be registered as organ donors (68 percent), followed by Wageningen (67 percent). Residents of Neder-Betuwe were the least likely to be registered as organ donors, at 43 percent.

Sources

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