Bridge & Lock Opening Times in the Netherlands: Planning a Canal Route Around Them (2026)

On Dutch waterways, distance is the least interesting number in your plan. A 40-kilometre canal route can pass thirty bridges and a couple of locks, and every one of them is a decision: is it fixed, and do you fit under it? Does it open, and is anyone operating it when you arrive? Miss an operating window by ten minutes and you are moored to a bollard until tomorrow morning. This guide explains how bridges and locks actually govern a canal passage in the Netherlands, and how to plan a route around their schedules instead of discovering them one closed bridge at a time.

#Two kinds of bridge, two kinds of problem

A fixed bridge (vaste brug) is a clearance problem. Dutch charts and the national fairway database give its doorvaarthoogte - the height of the passage above the canal reference level. If your air draft (waterline to highest point, antenna included) exceeds it, you do not pass, full stop. There is no schedule to wait for. Routes through old city centres are full of these: the Amsterdam canal ring alone has dozens of fixed bridges with clearances between roughly 1.7 and 3 metres, which is why the classic tall-mast route around a city exists at all.

An opening bridge (beweegbare brug) is a timing problem. It can lift, swing, or draw open, but only when it is operated - and Dutch bridges are operated on published schedules called bedientijden. Some are staffed around the clock, many are remote-controlled from a central post, and plenty of small ones open only on weekdays in daylight, with a lunch break, and less often outside the summer season. Locks (sluizen) work the same way: published hours, sometimes a phone number or VHF channel to call, and a hard stop when the operator goes home.

#Bedientijden: the schedule that runs your day

Operating times in the Netherlands are not one number. A single bridge typically has different hours for summer and winter, different hours on Saturday and Sunday, and sometimes special rules for holidays. The official source is the national fairway information service (vaarweginformatie.nl), where every operated bridge and lock carries its schedule periods and rules. Reading them for one bridge is easy; reading them for the thirty bridges on tomorrow's route, each at the time you will actually arrive there, is the part boaters skip - and the part that decides whether the day works.

#How to plan a Dutch canal passage

1. 1Know your two numbers: draft (under water) and air draft (above water). Air draft decides fixed bridges; draft decides shallow canals and lock sills.
2. 2Route on the waterway network, not the map: canals connect where junctions exist, and the shortest water route often differs sharply from the road view.
3. 3List every bridge and lock on the line, in order, with your ETA at each one at cruising speed.
4. 4Check fixed clearances first: one fixed bridge below your air draft means rerouting, not waiting.
5. 5Check operating windows at each ETA: mark anything closed when you arrive, then shift departure earlier or later until the day fits inside the windows.
6. 6Keep the phone numbers: many smaller bridges and locks are opened on request; the fairway database lists the number to call.

The Marine OS route planner now does the heavy rows of that table for you. The inland canal router covers the entire Dutch waterway network - about 25,000 junction points from the national canal and river system - so a route from Amsterdam to Groningen or Middelburg to Zwolle snaps to real water, not a straight line. Open the Voyage Timeline on that route and it lists every bridge and lock within a cable of your track, in passing order, each with your ETA there: fixed bridges show their clearance in metres, opening bridges and locks show that day's operating windows and a plain verdict - in service at your ETA, or closed at your ETA. A summary line shows the lowest fixed clearance on the whole route, which answers the mast question before you untie a single line.

#Frequently asked questions

Fit first, then timing: clear every fixed bridge on paper, then bend your departure around the bedientijden. For picking the route itself see the Netherlands canal route planner guide, the wider inland waterway planning guide, and for coastal legs between canal systems the European route planning guide.