Amsterdam addresses decoded: gracht, straat, kade, house numbers and floors

In most booking threads the address is the longest line, and it is also the line that most often needs a second message. The reason is rarely a wrong street. More often a small mark is left out, or a word is translated, or a number is written in the order used at home. None of this is difficult to fix. It only needs a few minutes of reading before you write. Everything below is about central Amsterdam, where she reaches the door forty to sixty minutes after your booking is confirmed.

The order: street first, then the number

A Dutch address puts the name of the street first and the house number after it. There is no comma between them. So you write the street name, one space, and the number. In many countries the number comes first, and some visitors write it that way from habit. On a map app this usually still works. In a quick message read on a phone, it can cause a pause, and a pause costs time. Keep the Dutch order, because it is the order on the sign at the corner and on your hotel confirmation.

The postcode is the second part of a full address. It has four digits, a space and two capital letters. It sits in front of the city name. You do not need to learn it, but copy it into your message if you have it. A postcode narrows the address down to one short stretch of one street, and a map app finds it at once.

What the end of a street name tells you

Many Amsterdam street names are one long word. The last part of the word says what kind of street it is. Keep the whole word in Dutch when you write it. Here are the endings you will meet most often in the centre:

• gracht: a canal with a street on each side. The houses face the water.
• straat: an ordinary street, often a shopping street.
• kade: a quay, a street along open water or a wide canal.
• plein: a square.
• dwarsstraat: a short cross street that joins two larger streets or canals.
• steeg: a narrow lane, sometimes too narrow for a car.
• weg and laan: a road and an avenue, more common outside the canal ring.
• dijk: a street built on an old dike.

Two names can share a first half and still be two different places. A gracht and a straat with the same first half may be a few minutes apart, or on opposite sides of the old centre. So the ending is not decoration. Leave it off and you may be giving her a different street.

Words at the start of a street name

Some street names begin with a small word that changes everything. Eerste, Tweede and Derde mean first, second and third, and they are often written 1e, 2e and 3e. A street called 2e with a name after it is a different street from 1e with the same name. Nieuwe and Oude mean new and old. Korte and Lange mean short and long. Binnen and Buiten mean inner and outer. In the oldest part of the city, two long streets run side by side on two sides of the centre, and one begins with Oudezijds while the other begins with Nieuwezijds. If your street has one of these small words, copy it exactly. Never drop it to make the name shorter.

Letters after the house number

A house number can have a letter after it: 45A, 45B. Usually this means that one old house has been divided into more than one home, and each home has its own door or its own bell. So 45 and 45A are not the same place. They may share a front step and still have separate doors. Write the letter in capitals, with no space: 45A.

Floor marks: I, II, III and 2-III

Here is the part that surprises most visitors. In Amsterdam, a number is often followed by a floor mark. The mark may be written with a hyphen, with a space, or with nothing between. Roman numerals are common:

• I means the first floor above the street.
• II means the second floor above the street.
• III means the third floor above the street.
• IV means the fourth floor above the street.

So 2-III reads as house number 2, third floor. And 58-II reads as house number 58, second floor. Some people use ordinary digits instead, and write 58-2 or 58 2. It means the same thing.

Now the important detail. In the Netherlands, the floor at street level is not counted. It is called the ground floor, and the first floor is one flight of stairs up. In the United States and some other countries, the floor at street level is already the first floor. So a Dutch III is what an American would call the fourth floor. When you write your address, keep the Dutch mark exactly as it is on your confirmation. Then, if you want to be doubly clear, add a few words: three flights of stairs up.

Ground floor, basement and upstairs: hs, sous and boven

Three short words appear after house numbers instead of a numeral:

• hs is short for huis. It means the home at street level, usually with its own front door.
• sous is short for souterrain. It means a home a few steps below the street, often with a door under the main steps.
• boven means upstairs. It usually means all the floors above the street, reached through one shared door.

So 12-hs and 12-boven are two homes in one building, with two doors. If your address has one of these words, it tells her which door to knock on before she even arrives.

Canal houses and their stairs

Many flats in the centre are inside tall, narrow canal houses. The stairs inside are steep, and sometimes very steep. There is often no lift. This is normal and nothing to worry about. It only means that the floor mark matters more than usual. A wrong floor in a hotel means one short ride in a lift. A wrong floor in a canal house means climbing three flights to the wrong door.

Next to the front door you usually find a column of bell buttons. Each one has a floor mark, a name, or both. The name on a bell is often the name of the owner, not the name of the guest. If you are staying in a rented flat, look at the bells before she comes. Then write in your message which button to press: the bell marked III, or the bell with the name on it.

Hotels: name, street and the right entrance

For a hotel, the hotel name is enough to find the building, but add the street and the number too. Some hotels have more than one building, and some have a second entrance on another street. Write the address of the entrance you will use. If the main door closes at night and guests use a side door, say so in one short line.

Add the room number as soon as you know it. In many hotels the first digit of a room number is the floor, so room 214 is often on the second floor. That is only a habit of many hotels, not a rule. If you are not sure, write the room number and the floor: room 214, second floor. If a key card is needed for the lift, add that as well. She then knows to message you from the lobby, and you can come down.

Flats, door codes and shared doors

A rented flat often has a street door shared with other homes. The street door may have a key box or a keypad. Do not write the code into the booking message unless you want to. You can also come down to open the door. A clear line is enough: street door locked, I will come down. If there are two doors, one at the street and one at your flat, say which floor your own door is on.

Words you may see on a door

A few Dutch words on doors and signs are useful to know, both for you and for reading your own building:

• ingang: entrance.
• trekken: pull. duwen: push.
• bellen: ring the bell.
• voorhuis: the front house, facing the street.
• achterhuis: the back house, behind the front one, often reached through a passage.

An address with achterhuis in it means the door is not on the street at all. Tell her how to reach it: through the passage on the left, door at the end.

Schiphol and the hotels near it

An address at Schiphol airport, or at a hotel near it, is not reached on the forty to sixty minute window of central Amsterdam. It is arranged separately. The length of her journey is agreed with you first, and only then is the hour fixed. For an airport hotel, write the hotel name and the room number, and say whether it is inside the airport area or a short ride away from it. No address beyond Amsterdam and Schiphol is on the list.

A template for the address line

If you want one layout that works for every kind of address, use this one. Write each part on its own line:

Street and number: [street name as written on the sign] [number and letter, if any]
Floor or room: [floor mark, and in words; or room number]
Postcode: [four digits and two letters]
Door: [which bell, which entrance, or: I will come down]

Four lines are enough. They fit inside the longer booking message you can copy, where the address is the first of five lines.

Check it on a map before you send

Paste your address, exactly as you wrote it, into a map app. Look at the pin. Is it on your street, at your building? If the pin lands somewhere else, check the ending of the street name and any small word at the start. Do not trust the app if it changed the spelling. If you used a translation app to write your message, make sure it did not translate the street name; the page on booking with a translation app explains why this happens.

If the address changes

Plans change. You may move hotels, or a friend may offer a flat. If the address changes after your booking is confirmed, write the new address in the same thread, on its own, in the same four lines. Do this as early as you can. If the new address is still in central Amsterdam, the arrival window stays the same. If it is at Schiphol, the journey is agreed again before anything is fixed. And if she has already set out when you change it, the new journey may take longer than the first one would have.

Why all this care is worth it

An address written well saves a message, and a message saved at night can be ten minutes saved. It also makes the arrival calm. She knows the door, the floor and the bell before she gets there. You know she will find you. Nobody stands in the rain reading bell names. For a first visit to a city with canals, steep stairs and street names of twenty letters, that small calm is worth five minutes of reading.