Laravel localization in Dutch Nederlands

Locale codes

Set the base locale in config/app.php. For regional variants, Dutch commonly uses: nl_NL, nl_BE

// config/app.php
'locale' => 'nl',
'fallback_locale' => 'en',

// Or switch at runtime
App::setLocale('nl');

Plural rules: what Dutch actually needs

CLDR defines 2 cardinal categories for Dutch. The sample numbers below were computed by ICU for this exact locale:

Laravel's trans_choice() maps numbers to 2 pipe-separated forms for this locale:

// lang/nl/messages.php
'items' => ':count item|:count items'

// Usage
trans_choice('messages.items', $count, ['count' => $count]);

Try any number live in the pluralization tester.

Localized dates with Carbon

Real output for Dutch (nl locale), generated by Carbon for March 21, 2026:

$date = now()->locale('nl');

$date->translatedFormat('l, j F Y');
// "zaterdag, 21 maart 2026"

$date->isoFormat('LLLL');
// "zaterdag 21 maart 2026 14:30"

$date->isoFormat('L');
// "21-03-2026"

$date->subDays(3)->diffForHumans();
// "3 maanden geleden"

What to watch out for in Dutch

• Je/u formal-informal distinction; modern consumer UI usually uses je, but decide per audience.
• Two grammatical genders reflected in the articles de and het.
• Compounds are written as single words, producing long strings for labels and buttons.
• Decimal comma with dot as thousands separator (1.234,56).

Framework strings already translated

Laravel's own validation, auth and pagination strings are maintained in Dutch by the open-source Laravel-Lang project (MIT). Install them, then manage your app's own strings live:

composer require laravel-lang/common --dev
php artisan lang:add nl
php artisan lang:update