A fifth of Dutch millionaires are farmers

Eight out of ten still-working millionaires in the Netherlands are self-employed, Statistics Netherlands reported on Tuesday. They can mainly be found in agriculture, trade, financial services and business services. 19 percent of still working millionaires are farmers.

This is based on Statistics Netherlands data dated 1 January 2015. On that date the Netherlands counted 106 thousand households with a capital of one million euros or more. About two thirds of these millionaires had work as the main source of income. The rest consists mainly of retirees.

Of the working millionaires, almost half are the CEO and major shareholder of a company. Only 20 percent work as an employee. With this, self-employed people are heavily overrepresented among the millionaires in the Netherlands. Of the Dutch with less than a million euros in assets, only 15 percent are self-employed.

According to the stats office, the fact that the agricultural sector accounts for such a large proportion of millionaires in the Netherlands, can be attributed to the large number of farmers that have equity in their own businesses, including land. About half of the millionaire farmers have a dairy farm. A quarter are vegetable or grain farmers.

Of the millionaires working in financial services, two-thirds are active in a financial holding company. Millionaires in the business services are often active in organizational advisor agencies and law firms. In the health sector, the millionaires are relatively often specialists or dentists.