Widows and widowers of Dutch East Indies staff can claim unpaid wartime salary from 2027
Widows and widowers of people who served the Netherlands-Indies government in the Second World War can apply for compensation for unpaid salary from 1 February 2027.
The cabinet has approved a Backpay scheme for widows and widowers of civil servants and soldiers who served the Netherlands-Indies government during the Second World War and did not receive their full salary. Applications open on 1 February 2027, and the Sociale Verzekeringsbank (SVB) will run the scheme.
Why it matters
- Widows and widowers of the former civil servants and soldiers can apply from 1 February 2027.
- Information on how to apply will be on the SVB website and Rijksoverheid.nl from 1 December 2026.
- Heirs of widows and widowers who have already died are not covered.
Minister Sterk of Long-term Care, Youth and Sport said a scheme has "finally" come, but tempered expectations: full restoration of rights (rechtsherstel) cannot be offered.
I am well aware that full restoration of rights can never be offered to these widows and widowers. What happened to them during and after the Second World War can never be reversed or undone.Minister Sterk of Long-term Care, Youth and Sport
The scheme supplements the 2015 Backpay scheme (Uitkeringsregeling Backpay), which paid former soldiers of the colonial army (KNIL) €25,000 for the salary they missed. In 2025, at the request of Caroline van der Plas of the BBB, the government responded to a long-standing call from the Tweede Kamer and from Indische and Moluccan communities for individual redress for these widows and widowers.
The government says the scheme is complex to run. No file or archive shows who qualifies, so each application needs its own archival research. For the same reason, the scheme excludes heirs of widows and widowers who have died, even though Indische interest organisations had asked for them to be included. The government says this is not practically feasible.
Backpay is part of the redress for Indische people after the war, which the health ministry (VWS) now handles. About 13,000 people still receive a war pension or benefit under the laws for resistance participants and war victims.
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SVB (Sociale Verzekeringsbank)
The Sociale Verzekeringsbank is a Dutch government implementing body that carries out national social insurance schemes. Its best-known tasks are paying the state old-age pension (AOW), survivors' benefits (Anw) and child benefit (kinderbijslag). Besides these core schemes, the government can assign it other benefit schemes to administer, so it handles applications and payments for those.
Tweede Kamer
The House of Representatives, the lower and more powerful house of the Dutch parliament. Its 150 members are elected directly; it can amend bills and holds the cabinet to account.