List of municipal flags of the Netherlands

This is a list of flags of municipalities of the Netherlands. Not every Dutch municipality has or had its own flag. It is the municipal council that decides whether and, if so, which municipal flag to fly. Municipal flags are adopted by the municipal council, after adoption of the municipal coat of arms by the High Council of Nobility (Dutch: Hoge Raad van Adel; HRvA). Thus, the flag is not granted by the king, as is the case with the coat of arms. The High Council of Nobility advises municipalities in choosing the municipal flag and also records municipal flags in the flag register. However, the trend is for many municipalities to replace their flag with a bedsheet - usually white - with a logo and the name of the municipality on it, similar to and barely distinguishable from most corporate flags. These logo flags are not recorded in the flag register.

A municipality may adopt a different flag and/or coat of arms when municipal boundaries change, or when there is a need for renewal for some other reason. After a municipal redivision, the flags of the former municipalities that were merged are often designated by the municipal council as town or village flags for the respective localities. The same happens with village coats of arms.

It is customary in the Netherlands for a municipal flag entered the flag register to have the same colours as the municipal coat of arms, unless there are good reasons to deviate from this, for example when historical research has shown that the original colours of the municipal coat of arms are different from the colours in which the coat of arms was granted. Another reason for using different colours may be when the municipality historically flagged with certain colours that were, for example, associated with local patron saints or historical rulers.

Until around 1960, the High Council of Nobility recommended using strips of bedsheet in the colours of the municipal coat of arms as municipal flags. This enabled citizens to manufacture their own flag at low cost, while manufacturing was inexpensive using methods common at the time. These flags are sometimes referred to as colour flags^[1], as a result of the small number of possible variations, many municipal flags from that period look similar. Later, High Council of Nobility stepped away from this opinion. There was more prosperity in the country and the manufacture of flags changed, allowing flags with symbols to also be manufactured at a reasonable price.

Some Dutch merger municipalities use a logo flag. Many of these logo flags have no official status because they are not adopted by the municipal council. They therefore only represent the municipal organisation and not the citizens or the territory. Even when the municipal council does officially adopt a logo flag, these flags are not included in the flag register of the High Council of Nobility because they do not adhere to the rules of flag doctrine.^[2]