Wietexperiment Municipalities + Coffeeshops: The 10 Cities Explained

Which Dutch municipalities allow regulated cannabis sales, and how many coffeeshops actually participate?

The Netherlands wietexperiment operates across ten carefully selected municipalities, with 70 of the country’s 563 coffeeshops now selling only regulated supply. Understanding which wietexperiment municipalities are in scope and how many outlets each city contributes is the first compliance question any cultivator or supply chain participant must answer before engaging with the closed supply chain.

This article breaks down each of the ten participating cities by coffeeshop count, notes the timeline that brought the experiment to full scale, and explains why Amsterdam, despite early interest, is not part of the regulated pool. For the full legal and cultivation context, see the Netherlands Wietexperiment Compliance Guide. The EUDA (European Union Drugs Agency) cannabis topic page provides EU-level data on cannabis use and policy that contextualises the Netherlands experiment within broader European trends.

Which Dutch Municipalities Allow Wietexperiment Sales?

The experiment was designed to be geographically representative: spread across north, east, south, and west of the country, covering both large cities and smaller urban centres. The ten wietexperiment municipalities and their licensed coffeeshop counts are set out below.

Each of the 70 coffeeshops across the wietexperiment municipalities is contractually obligated to purchase exclusively from one of the ten licensed cultivators approved under the experiment. Mixing regulated and unregulated stock is a licence violation and can result in removal from the programme.

How Did the Wietexperiment Timeline Unfold Across These Municipalities?

The rollout was deliberately staged to allow regulators to observe supply chain behaviour before expanding to the full ten-city footprint. The city of Breda was one of the two pilot municipalities where the experiment launched in December 2023.

The phased approach gave the supply chain time to scale. Cultivators who came online for Breda and Tilburg in December 2023 had roughly six months to prove they could meet consistent demand before the full national expansion in June 2024.

Market Scale: What 70 Coffeeshops and 10 Municipalities Actually Mean

The numbers look small relative to the total Dutch market, and that gap is intentional. The wietexperiment is not a full legalisation: it is a controlled test with a defined geographic and retail boundary. The EUDA Netherlands country profile documents that the Netherlands has one of the highest per-capita coffeeshop densities in Europe, which gives the 70-shop experiment meaningful statistical power despite its limited footprint. Understanding the scale context helps both policy observers and cultivators calibrate expectations.

The 70 coffeeshops spread across wietexperiment municipalities represent roughly 12% of the national total. The 65,000 kg annual demand figure encompasses the entire Dutch market; the ten-municipality sub-market represents a proportionally smaller slice, though Maastricht (13 coffeeshops) and Arnhem and Tilburg (11 each) account for a disproportionately large share of experiment throughput.

For cultivators approved under the wietexperiment licensed cultivators list, understanding the per-city demand concentration is directly relevant to logistics and batch planning. A cultivator supplying Maastricht’s 13 shops must plan for higher and more variable weekly throughput than one whose contracts are concentrated in Heerlen or Voorne aan Zee.

Why Was Amsterdam Excluded from the Wietexperiment Municipalities?

Amsterdam registered interest in the experiment early and met the initial eligibility criteria. Its exclusion was a political, not regulatory, decision: the Dutch Parliament voted to remove Amsterdam from the participating municipalities list after concerns that the city’s scale and high proportion of tourist-driven coffeeshop demand would distort the experiment’s results.

The concern was statistical validity. Amsterdam alone accounts for a disproportionate share of the national coffeeshop market, with over 160 coffeeshops in the city. Including Amsterdam would have skewed consumption data, compliance patterns, and supply chain stress tests in ways that would make it difficult to draw conclusions applicable to medium-sized Dutch cities. The experiment is designed to test a “controlled supply” model that can eventually scale nationally; evidence drawn primarily from Amsterdam’s unique tourism-dominated market would not translate cleanly to policy for the rest of the country.

Amsterdam may be considered for inclusion in a potential post-experiment permanent framework, but it plays no role in the current closed supply chain. Any cultivator whose business case rests on Amsterdam supply contracts is operating outside the regulated wietexperiment system for now.

Compliance Obligations for Coffeeshops Across Wietexperiment Municipalities

Participation in the experiment is not optional for coffeeshops in wietexperiment municipalities once they are enrolled. Under the closed supply chain model, each enrolled coffeeshop in the ten wietexperiment municipalities must:

• Source all cannabis products exclusively from one or more of the ten licensed cultivators
• Maintain traceability documentation linking each product to the cultivator and batch of origin
• Comply with product specifications set out by the Bureau Wietexperiment, including THC-to-CBD ratios and format restrictions
• Participate in track-and-trace reporting from delivery receipt through point-of-sale
• Cease purchasing from any non-approved source for the product categories covered by the experiment

As of September 2025, the hashish enforcement milestone extended these obligations fully to cannabis resin products. Coffeeshops that were previously maintaining separate stocks of hash from legacy sources are now required to transition entirely to regulated supply or face licence sanctions.

For cultivators, the compliance mirror image applies: products must be tested to NVWA quality testing requirements before delivery, and batch records must be available for audit at any point in the supply chain. Breaches on the cultivator side can trigger suspension of supply rights to one or more municipalities.

How the Coffeeshop Count Per Municipality Affects Supply Planning

The distribution of 70 coffeeshops across ten cities is uneven, and that unevenness has direct operational implications for cultivators and logistics providers.

Maastricht’s 13 shops represent 18% of all experiment retail outlets but are concentrated in a single city in South Limburg. A cultivator with supply contracts in Maastricht must maintain consistent weekly delivery capacity to that single geography. Arnhem and Tilburg, also at 11 shops each, are geographically separated, so a cultivator serving both requires either two separate logistics flows or a centralised distribution point with two outbound routes.

At the small end, Heerlen (2 shops) and Voorne aan Zee (2 shops) and Almere (3 shops) and Zaanstad (3 shops) together account for only 10 shops, roughly 14% of the experiment total. For a cultivator whose initial approval is limited by batch output capacity, starting with the lower-volume municipalities provides a lower-risk entry point before scaling to Maastricht or Nijmegen.

The Netherlands cannabis laws for cultivators require that supply agreements specify delivery frequency and minimum and maximum batch sizes. Coffeeshop demand patterns vary by city: Maastricht’s tourist-heavy trade shows more seasonal variation than Groningen’s student-dominated demand, which tracks the academic calendar. Cultivators should model both peak and trough demand scenarios across the municipalities they supply.

Frequently Asked Questions

Which Dutch municipalities allow Wietexperiment sales?

Ten municipalities participate in the wietexperiment: Almere, Arnhem, Breda, Groningen, Heerlen, Maastricht, Nijmegen, Tilburg, Voorne aan Zee, and Zaanstad. Together they host 70 of the country’s 563 licensed coffeeshops. All sales of cannabis within these shops must come from one of the ten licensed cultivators approved under the experiment.

Why was Amsterdam excluded from the Wietexperiment?

The Dutch Parliament voted to remove Amsterdam from the participating municipalities list on grounds that its unusually large number of coffeeshops (over 160) and heavy tourist-driven demand would skew the experiment’s results. The experiment is designed to generate data applicable to medium-sized Dutch cities. Amsterdam may be considered in a future permanent framework but is not part of the current closed supply chain.

When does the Wietexperiment end?

The experiment is expected to run until approximately 2029. The full experimental phase began on April 7, 2025. After the experimental period concludes, the Dutch government will evaluate supply chain performance, compliance data, and public health outcomes before deciding whether to move to a permanent regulated model, extend the experiment, or revert to the prior toleration policy.

How many coffeeshops are in the Wietexperiment?

70 coffeeshops across the ten participating municipalities are enrolled in the experiment. Maastricht has the highest count at 13, followed by Arnhem and Tilburg at 11 each. Heerlen and Voorne aan Zee each have 2, the lowest count of any participating city.

Can a coffeeshop outside the ten municipalities join the Wietexperiment?

No. The wietexperiment is geographically closed. Coffeeshops in municipalities not on the approved list cannot enrol. The government has indicated no plans to expand the geographic scope before the experimental period ends around 2029. Any expansion would require a new parliamentary decision and regulatory update to the closed supply chain framework.

Get the Full Wietexperiment Compliance Guide

The complete PDF covers licensed cultivator requirements, NVWA quality testing standards, track-and-trace obligations, cultivation facility specifications, and the full regulatory timeline in one reference document.

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