Where Dutch filing activity actually lands
Using the WIPO Statistical Database's origin-to-destination filing matrix for 2014 to 2024, this analysis looks at:
How Dutch-origin applicants split their filing between home and abroad
How that balance has shifted over the decade
Where their outbound filings actually go
Who files into the Benelux system from abroad
It's part of a wider look at this same question across a dozen major filing nationalities, covered in full here, if you'd like the broader comparison alongside the Dutch-specific detail below.
In 2024, Dutch-origin applicants filed 32,263 trademark applications worldwide. Of those, 13,270 (41.1%) were filed only through the Benelux Office for Intellectual Property, and 18,993 (58.9%) were filed abroad.
Put another way: for roughly every domestic application a Dutch applicant files, about one and a half are filed abroad, a ratio of 1.43 international filings for every domestic one, among the most internationally oriented balances of any origin in this dataset.
Has outbound volume grown, shrunk, or held steady?
The Netherlands has stayed more internationally weighted than almost any other origin covered in this series, and that hasn't changed much over the decade.
Dutch applicants have filed more abroad than at home every single year for a decade, with no single year that reshaped the pattern. The closest it's come to domestic parity was 42.2% in 2020; the furthest it's drifted the other way was 2022, when Dutch applicants filed almost 1.8 applications abroad for every one filed at home. Across the full decade, the Netherlands has consistently sent more of its filing activity abroad than it keeps at home, year in and year out.
Where Dutch applicants actually file abroad
Looking at 2024, Dutch outbound filings are led by one destination well ahead of the rest:
Rank | Destination | Dutch-Origin Applications (2024) |
|---|---|---|
1 | European Union (EUIPO) | 5,965 |
2 | United States | 1,398 |
3 | United Kingdom | 1,340 |
4 | Canada | 488 |
5 | Switzerland | 444 |
6 | Japan | 401 |
7 | Australia | 391 |
8 | Brazil | 353 |
9 | China | 349 |
10 | Norway | 347 |
The EU trademark office alone accounts for roughly a third of all Dutch outbound filings, more than the next four destinations combined. The US and UK follow at a much smaller scale, and the remainder of the top ten spreads thinly across a wide mix of markets with no other single destination standing out.
Who files into the Benelux system from abroad
Because the Netherlands shares its home office with Belgium and Luxembourg, the "foreign filing" picture here needs an extra step. Of the 22,029 total applications filed with the Benelux office in 2024, 8,759 (39.8%) came from outside the Netherlands, but well over half of that figure, 5,510 applications, came from Belgium and Luxembourg, the two countries that share the same joint registration system rather than genuinely external filers. Stripping those out, applications from countries outside the Benelux system totaled roughly 3,249, or 14.7% of all Benelux filing activity.
The largest of those genuinely foreign nationalities were:
Rank | Origin | Applications Filed with Benelux (2024) |
|---|---|---|
1 | France | 574 |
2 | China | 427 |
3 | United States | 400 |
4 | Germany | 271 |
5 | Switzerland | 204 |
6 | Türkiye | 163 |
7 | United Kingdom | 143 |
8 | Italy | 68 |
9 | Spain | 68 |
10 | Japan | 47 |
France leads genuinely foreign filing into the Benelux system, narrowly ahead of China and the United States. Geographic and trade proximity within continental Europe appears to matter more here than it does for more distant markets.
How that outbound volume is actually being filed
A large pool of outbound filing is only half the picture; the other half is how it's getting filed. Our earlier analysis of Madrid System adoption rates found that the share of total Benelux filing activity arriving via Madrid fell over the same period, from 11.5% in 2014 to 7.9% in 2024, among the higher Madrid adoption rates in this series but still a clear decline. Direct filing remains the dominant route into and out of the Benelux system, and its lead has grown rather than narrowed.
What this means in practice
The Netherlands is a market where outbound filing has consistently outweighed domestic filing for the entire decade, with no sign of converging the way some neighboring markets have, foreign filing into the joint Benelux office is real but smaller than it first appears once Belgian and Luxembourgish filers are set aside, and Madrid's role, while more prominent here than in most other markets covered, keeps shrinking rather than growing.
For firms handling outbound work for Dutch clients, the EU trademark office covers by far the largest single share of that work, and direct filing is the strong, strengthening default. Trama's WIPO cost and risk calculator can help size up the Madrid versus direct filing decision for any specific Netherlands-outbound combination.
For how the Netherlands compares to other major filing nationalities, and the aggregate trend across all of them, see the full WIPO trademark filing analysis.
