The Dutch Immigration and Naturalisation Service paid about €99 million in court-ordered penalties during the first seven months of 2026.
Figures reviewed by ibynews.com show that the payments resulted from delays in deciding asylum and residence applications.
The seven-month total has already passed the record €79 million paid throughout 2025.
The IND paid €36.8 million in 2024. Its monthly payments have now risen from an average of €6.6 million in 2025 to about €14 million in 2026.
Asylum Minister Bart van den Brink released the figures while answering written questions from members of parliament.
The IND must normally decide on an application within the legal decision period.
When the service misses the deadline, an applicant can ask a court to order the IND to make a decision within a new period.
The court can impose a daily penalty if the IND also misses that deadline.
Courts normally set the penalty at €100 per day, with a maximum of €15,000.
A judge can increase it to €250 per day and a maximum of €37,500 when a stronger incentive is needed.
Applicants can return to court when the IND continues to delay its decision. This allows the total payment in a single case to increase over time.
Between the beginning of 2024 and May 11, 2026, applicants filed 143,190 legal cases over delayed decisions.
At least 16,570 applicants successfully returned to court two or more times.
By July 29, courts had ordered the IND to pay more than €80,000 each to 46 people. Nine applicants received more than €100,000 each.
The number of payments above €3,000 has also increased.
The IND made 858 such payments in 2023 and 6,368 in 2025. By July 2, 2026, it had already made 5,442 payments above that amount.
The IND wants parliament to abolish the court penalties.
The service argues that the penalties do not speed up applications. It says handling the large number of court cases takes employees away from processing asylum requests.
The House of Representatives approved an amendment to end the penalties in June. The Senate must still consider the proposal.
The Council of State rejected an earlier attempt to remove the system in 2022 because it conflicted with European Union law.
Refugee support organisation VluchtelingenWerk has warned that the latest proposal may face the same legal problem.
