Is it actually legal? Not quite. Cannabis here is tolerated rather than legal, which is not the same thing, and it is the reason the rules at the door are enforced so strictly. We go into that properly in a separate article.
No two of them are alike
Amsterdam has 165 coffeeshops left in 2026, and beyond the rules they have almost nothing in common. Some are small, worn in and unbothered about it, the kind of place where the same people have been sitting at the same table for twenty years. Others have been done up like a boutique bar, with marble, brass and a menu you could frame.
Neither is better. It depends entirely on what you want from the hour you are going to spend there.
What is on the menu
Most shops carry cannabis flower, hash, pre-rolled joints and edibles — brownies and space cakes being the classics. Alongside that you will usually find a proper drinks list: coffee, a decent range of teas, soft drinks, sometimes something small to eat.
What you will not find anywhere is alcohol. That is not a house preference, it is one of the national conditions. No beer, no wine, and you cannot bring your own.
Bring your passport. Every time.
You must be 18 or older, and a valid ID or passport is checked at the door. Every visitor, every time, regardless of how old you look. A photo on your phone will not do.
This is the rule with the least room for negotiation, because it is the one that costs a shop its licence. If you forget your ID you will be turned away, however far you have come.
How you pay
The old assumption that coffeeshops are cash-only is largely out of date. Many now take debit and credit cards — we do — though it still varies per shop, and some add a small fee for card payments. Worth a glance at the door if you are counting on it.
The rules that apply everywhere
- Nobody under 18, no exceptions
- A maximum of 5 grams per person per day
- No hard drugs, and no tolerance for anyone trying to sell them
- No alcohol on the premises
Beyond that, every shop sets its own house rules. If you are unsure about anything, ask at the counter. It is a normal question and the staff hear it all day.
When to come
Mornings are the quiet part of the day. From nine until around noon most shops are close to empty, the staff have time to talk, and you get to pick a table rather than take whatever is free. Late afternoon into the evening is the busy stretch, weekends especially.
Where in the city you are matters just as much. Shops in the old centre absorb the full weight of the tourist traffic. Walk ten minutes out of it, or take one tram stop — the Plantage, the Oosterpark side, Roetersstraat where we are — and the whole thing is calmer, easier to sit around in, and a good deal closer to what this city is actually like.
If it is your first time
Two things are worth knowing before you order. Menus change regularly and strength varies a great deal, so rather than arriving with a name you read online, tell the person behind the counter what you are after and how much experience you have — that is exactly what they are there for. And edibles are not smoking: a space cake can take an hour or more to do anything, and then lasts far longer. Start small and give it time.
There is rather more to say about all of that, so we gave it a guide of its own — how much to start with, what the strain names are really worth, and how to roll a joint.
Stay a while
A coffeeshop is not somewhere you walk in and out of. Most people buy something, order a drink and settle in for an hour. That is the part the word gets wrong — it is less a shop than a front room that happens to sell cannabis, and it is a genuine part of how this city works.
If you want the long version of how that came about, we wrote about where the Amsterdam coffeeshop came from — and where our own name came from with it.