Rotterdam Pride runs from Thursday 17 to Sunday 27 September 2026. Two fixed points sit in the middle of it and both fall on Saturday 26 September.
The march gathers on the Stationsplein in front of Rotterdam Centraal and walks from 10:30 to 13:00, under the motto "Pride is still a protest". It ends at the Willemsplein on the Maas, by the Erasmus bridge, and the festival takes over the same square from 13:00 to 23:00. Entry is free. The organisers published the full line-up on 3 September: twelve acts on the bill, plus the drag programme and the PrideCast.
The theme this edition is Queertopia, which the organisers describe as a city where queer creativity, freedom and inclusivity are ordinary rather than exceptional. The week opens on Thursday 17 September with the launch of the Qtopia magazine at FERRY on the Westblaak.
The rest of the eleven days is filled by the city's own organisations rather than by the Pride office, and the calendar keeps growing until the week starts. Already listed: poetry at Altstadt in Delfshaven, a roller derby scrimmage at Sportcentrum West and a Pride afternoon at the Maritiem Museum, all on the opening day; a conversation at the Donner bookshop on the Coolsingel on 18 September; drag bingo at Cafe Dox; and a gardening morning at the Educatieve Tuin Lieven de Key on 19 September.
The organisers publish an accessibility page for the week. It describes the festival site as wheelchair accessible with accessible toilets, points wheelchair users at public transport rather than the car, with the metro at Leuvehaven about five minutes away, and lists the quiet rooms and the earplugs at the site.
The city itself has a scene worth a day either side of the march. We list nine places in Rotterdam: the bars Cafe Strano, Cafe Bonaparte, Bar Loge90, Cafe naar Ons, Cafe KeerWeer and Elio, the club FERRY, the shop GayToys and Queer Gym. The Netherlands scores 63.82 of 100 on ILGA-Europe's Rainbow Index; the legal position is on our Netherlands page.
If you are staying in the country afterwards, the Dutch Pride season runs on into October. Utrecht Queer Culture Festival, Ede Pride and Pride Enschede are all on 2 October, Pride Almere on 7 October and Breda Pride on 10 October, Breda being the nearest at about 40 km.
