Sinterklaas
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Sinterklaas is the St Nicholas feast of the Netherlands and Flanders, and families in the Netherlands or Belgium in the second half of November can watch him arrive by boat and follow the run-up to 5 December. His helper Zwarte Piet has been the centre of a long debate about blackface, and since 2019 the national arrival and many local ones have used Petes with only smudges of soot on their faces.
Visiting with care
- The debate is about racism and the history of slavery, and Black Dutch campaigners pushed the change for decades. Treat it as a serious question when you talk about it with locals, whichever side they take.
- Keep images of blackface out of anything you post or share, including photos of a local arrival that still uses fully blackened Petes.
Related places
The season opens with the national arrival by steamboat on the first Saturday after 11 November, broadcast on television, and each town holds its own arrival, or intocht, on a date it picks. Children put out a shoe in the weeks before, often with a carrot or a lump of sugar for his horse, and find a small gift in it the next morning. In the Netherlands the presents come on pakjesavond, the evening of 5 December. Flemish families find theirs on the morning of 6 December, after the saint has done his rounds in the night.
Zwarte Piet first appears as Sinterklaas's servant in Jan Schenkman's picture book of 1850, Sint Nikolaas en zijn knecht. Herman Salomonson wrote against the figure in De Groene Amsterdammer as early as 1930. Surinamese groups called for a feast without him in 1981 and 1986, and in 1994 Lulu Helder and Jaffar Forster founded the action committee Zwarte Piet = Zwart Verdriet. The debate went national after 12 November 2011, when Quinsy Gario, Jerry Afriyie and two others were arrested at the national arrival in Dordrecht wearing shirts that read Zwarte Piet is racisme. Kick Out Zwarte Piet formed in 2014. In a letter of 27 November 2015 the Dutch government said it agreed with the UN committee against racial discrimination that the figure can carry negative stereotypes, and it ruled out a state ban.
The broadcaster NTR dropped fully blackened Petes from the Sinterklaasjournaal and the national arrival in 2019. Since then those events have used roetveegpieten, whose faces carry a few smudges of soot and stay recognizable. Local arrivals vary. A 2019 survey of 185 municipalities found only fully black Petes at 65 per cent of them, and in November 2024 Kick Out Zwarte Piet still named 23 towns and villages it planned to protest in. The agreement it asked of arrival committees that year set out soot marks on a recognizable face, with no dark undercoat, no red lipstick, no earrings and no afro wigs.
EenVandaag's polls found 89 per cent of respondents wanted Zwarte Piet left unchanged in 2013 and 55 per cent in 2023, and acceptance of roetveegpieten at the national arrival rose from 31 per cent in 2019 to 54 per cent in 2023. The feast entered the national inventory of intangible heritage in January 2015, after the Sint & Pietengilde registered it. An opinion site reports that the heritage centre KIEN removed it on 23 June 2022 after rejecting the guild's safeguarding plan, and we could not read KIEN's own page to confirm that. In Flanders a Pietenpact signed in 2016 was meant to end fully blackened Petes from 2017, and practice there still varies by town.
Worth knowing
- Check your town's arrival program in early November if you are travelling with children. The arrivals in Amsterdam and Maastricht come two weeks before the Christmas markets open.
- Bakeries and shops sell chocolate letters and pepernoten in the weeks before 5 December, so the feast is easy to taste even if you miss the arrival.
Quick answers about Sinterklaas
When does Sinterklaas arrive in the Netherlands?
Sinterklaas arrives by boat in mid-November, with a national arrival and separate local ones on different dates. Amsterdam's 2026 arrival is on Sunday 15 November.
Is Zwarte Piet still used in the Netherlands?
No, not at the national arrival or on the Sinterklaasjournaal, which have shown only roetveegpieten with soot smudges since 2019. Many towns followed. Some local arrivals still use fully blackened Petes, and campaigners protest at those.
When do Dutch children get their Sinterklaas presents?
Dutch children get their main presents on pakjesavond, the evening of 5 December. In Flanders the presents arrive overnight and are opened on the morning of 6 December.
How should you behave at Sinterklaas?
At Sinterklaas: The debate is about racism and the history of slavery, and Black Dutch campaigners pushed the change for decades. Treat it as a serious question when you talk about it with locals, whichever side they take. Keep images of blackface out of anything you post or share, including photos of a local arrival that still uses fully blackened Petes.