Noordeinde Palace: what you can see and when it opens
Noordeinde Palace is the working palace of King Willem-Alexander, so plan on seeing it from the street rather than touring state rooms. The palace on Noordeinde in central The Hague opens to the public for several days every summer, and the rest of the year it is a facade, a garden and a street. This page covers what you can see, when the Wednesday ceremony happens, how to reach it and what to pair with it.
What Noordeinde Palace is: an office, not a royal residence to tour
The palace is where the King and Queen Máxima have their offices, and most of the Royal Household staff work here too. Receptions, audiences and the presentation of credentials by foreign ambassadors all take place inside, which is why the building is in daily use. That working role is exactly what limits visitor access.
Noordeinde is state property, placed at the King's disposal by Act of Parliament, and it has been tied to the House of Orange since 1591. It was the workplace of Queen Beatrix before Willem-Alexander took it on at his investiture in 2013. Treat it as a live government building with a royal history rather than a museum with a ticket desk.
Where the palace is and how to reach it
The address is Noordeinde 68, on the elegant shopping street of the same name in The Hague's city centre. From The Hague Central Station the walk to Het Noordeinde takes about 15 minutes.
Several trams stop at Kneuterdijk, a short walk from the palace gates, and cyclists can use the free Biesieklette bike parking nearby. Drivers have parking at Noordeinde in Heulstraat, Parkstraat garage in Oranjestraat and the Hilton hotel car park. The centre of The Hague is compact enough that the palace fits naturally into a walking day.
What you can see from the street
The facade on Noordeinde and the landscaped garden behind it are the two set pieces for a passer-by. When the King is in the country, the royal standard flies above the palace, so a flag-free visit tells you he is away. The balcony above the entrance is the one the royal party uses on Prinsjesdag, the day of the State Opening of Parliament, when the procession departs from here and returns for the wave.
On an ordinary day there is no balcony moment to wait for, so give the exterior ten minutes and let the street do the rest. The 1948 fire that destroyed the central part of the palace explains why the building reads as a patchwork of periods rather than a single unbroken front.
The Wednesday morning credentials ceremony
On Wednesday mornings the King regularly receives new ambassadors presenting their letters of credence. The ambassador arrives by state coach early in the morning, escorted by horsemen of the Royal Netherlands Mounted Police. Outside the palace you can watch the coach arrive, hear the visiting country's national anthem and follow the inspection of the guard.
It is a street spectacle you watch from the pavement rather than a ticketed event, which makes it the best reason to time a walk down Noordeinde for a midweek morning. The word to hold on to is regularly: this is a recurring royal duty, not a guarantee for any given Wednesday. Arrive early if you want a clear view of the coach and the horsemen.
The summer opening: several days each summer
For several days every summer the palace and the Royal Stables open to the public together. The limited space and the building's daily use as a reception area and office make it unsuitable for receiving visitors the rest of the year, so this short window is the only chance to see inside.
Outside that window the palace is not normally open for personal viewing, so do not build a Hague itinerary around an interior visit. The summer opening is announced with its own dates and excursion arrangements on the city's official visitor site, and that announcement is where to confirm the year's details before you book travel.
The Palace Garden behind the palace
The Palace Garden sits behind Noordeinde Palace, next to the Royal Stables, and is open to the public daily. Frederik Hendrik laid out the original gardens for his mother in the early seventeenth century, when it was known as the Princesses' Garden and filled with ponds, fountains, flowerbeds and marble statues.
The municipality took the garden on in the twentieth century and it now works as an ordinary Dutch park, open to the public daily, so you can walk through it and picnic in summer between the stables, the archives and the working palace. It is the one part of the complex that does not depend on a summer opening or a Wednesday ceremony.
Noordeinde street: boutiques, galleries and antiques
Noordeinde is one of The Hague's most elegant shopping streets, known for fashion boutiques, galleries, jewellers and art and antique dealers in art nouveau buildings. Coffee cafés and restaurants are mixed in among them, so the street works for a browse and a pause rather than a single destination.
The shopping is the reason to linger here after the palace facade, and it also supplies the lunch stop. If you want a museum with a collection instead, the Mauritshuis and its Girl with a Pearl Earring are a short walk away in the same central cluster.
How long to allow and how to pair it with central The Hague
Budget about half an hour for the palace facade, a wander down Noordeinde and a loop through the Palace Garden. Add the credentials ceremony on a Wednesday morning and give it a further half hour. That leaves the rest of the day for the city's bigger draws, which are gathered in the same compact centre.
The wider set of sights is mapped out in our guide to The Hague Attractions: 12 Visitor Guides, which helps you slot the palace into a one or two day plan. Keep the palace as a walk-past stop and put your longer visits into the collections and the Peace Palace instead.
What is nearby in the royal complex
The Royal Stables, the Royal Archives and Fagel's Garden Pavilion form part of the same palace complex. The stables are the piece you can see inside during the summer opening, when they open alongside the palace. The garden pavilion and archives are best treated as landmarks to spot from the garden rather than separate attractions.
A short walk from Noordeinde brings you to the Binnenhof, the parliament buildings that host the State Opening each Prinsjesdag, when the royal procession sets off from Noordeinde Palace. The Peace Palace, the city's other headline building, sits further out and is visited from the outside or on scheduled tours.
Should you build your day around Noordeinde Palace?
Make Noordeinde Palace a deliberate stop only if you are in The Hague on a Wednesday morning for the credentials ceremony, or if your trip falls in the summer opening window. Otherwise fold it into a walk down Noordeinde and through the Palace Garden, which is open daily and needs no planning.
The honest trade-off is that this is an office first: the exterior and the street repay 30 minutes, and the interior is a bonus rather than the point. Put the Mauritshuis, the Kunstmuseum Den Haag or the Peace Palace at the centre of your day and let the King's workplace be the walk between them.
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Frequently Asked Questions
Can you go inside Noordeinde Palace?
Only during the summer opening, when the palace and the Royal Stables open to the public for several days. For the rest of the year it is not normally open for personal viewing because it is the King's working palace.
Where does the Dutch royal family actually live?
Noordeinde Palace is the King's place of work, not the family home, and the Royal House's own pages describe it in those terms. Where the family lives privately is a separate matter this guide does not cover.
Is Noordeinde Palace the same as the Peace Palace?
No. Noordeinde Palace is the King's working palace on the shopping street of Noordeinde in the city centre. The Peace Palace is a separate building that houses international courts and is visited from outside.
When is the best time to see the credentials ceremony?
On Wednesday mornings the King regularly receives new ambassadors presenting their letters of credence at the palace, and you can watch the coach arrive and the inspection of the guard from the street.