.nl is the country domain used in Netherlands. Across 87,309 .nl addresses verified by BounceZero between April and October 2026, 21.9% were invalid, 0.2% catch-all, 4.5% unknown and 54.6% confirmed valid. The verdicts are reliable and can be acted on directly.
The .nl row is all 87,309 addresses verified in the six months to October 2026; the other rows are the benchmarks from the same corpus. Risky and role results fill each row to 100%.
| Segment | Addresses | Invalid | Catch-all | Unknown | Confirmed valid |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| .nl | 87,309 | 21.9% | 0.2% | 4.5% | 54.6% |
| All non-freemail domains (business and ISP) | 6,514,884 | 14.5% | 2.3% | 27.0% | 32.6% |
| Business domains only (consumer ISP and freemail excluded) | 1,269,919 | 22.9% | 9.4% | 22.5% | 40.3% |
| All freemail | 1,415,154 | 17.6% | 1.1% | 2.1% | 74.0% |
Non-freemail includes consumer ISP mailboxes; a business-only cut is on the benchmarks page. Method and every other cut: Lead List Quality Benchmarks 2026. Risky and role on the .nl row: 18.7%.
A high confirmed-invalid rate driven by retired regional freemail brands, with few unknowns because Dutch gateways answer clearly.
Dutch lists carry a high confirmed-invalid rate because Microsoft's retired regional freemail brands, live.nl and hotmail.nl, make up a large share of the segment and dormant accounts were recycled. Dutch gateways answer clearly, so the verdicts are reliable and there are few unknowns. The Netherlands requires opt-in for individuals and permits legitimate-interest prospecting to companies with an opt-out; most ISP and freemail addresses fall on the consumer side.
On confirmed-invalid rate, .nl ranks 7 of 23 country domains in the corpus, just behind .org at 24.6%, ahead of .net at 17.6%.
On unknown rate, .nl ranks 20 of 23 country domains in the corpus, just behind .fr at 9.3%, ahead of .nz at 3.6%.
On confirmed-valid share, .nl ranks 7 of 23 country domains in the corpus, just behind .br at 58.5%, ahead of .ca at 54.4%.
How to read these rates: they are BounceZero's probe outcomes on customer lists over April to October 2026, not a census of .nl mailboxes. Unknown and catch-all measure what verification could not confirm, which depends on the provider's gateway policy during the window as much as on the addresses. The lists are the ones customers chose to upload, so segments dominated by a few large uploads carry their age and source. Method and limitations: benchmarks page.
Unknown results are rare on .nl: the gateway answers probes clearly, so a result you get is a result you can act on.
.nl runs at 21.9% confirmed invalid, ordinary for a list that has not been checked in a while; the failures are closed mailboxes and should be removed.
Catch-all is negligible on .nl (0.2%); when this provider does return valid, the mailbox accepted the probe itself rather than a blanket accept.
54.6% of .nl addresses confirmed as deliverable at verification time and can go straight to the primary sequence, with a re-check before every send.
Note the risky and role share: 18.7% of .nl results landed there, which the four headline columns do not show. Read risky as 'deliverable but with a flag' and test it at low volume before trusting it.
Trust the verdicts and expect a fifth of a Dutch list to drop on first verification.
Role addresses such as info@ and sales@ make up 1.0% of .nl addresses in the corpus. Role addresses rarely reach a person; prefer named contacts.
21.9% of 87,309 .nl addresses verified by BounceZero between April and October 2026 were confirmed invalid, against 14.5% across non-freemail domains and 17.6% across freemail.
4.5%. Unknown means the mailbox could not be confirmed either way, usually because the gateway deferred the probe. BounceZero refunds unknown results; on .nl it is rare enough to re-check once and move on.
Not in practice: 0.2% of .nl addresses returned catch-all, so a valid verdict means the mailbox exists.
54.6% confirmed valid at verification time. Keep bounces under 2% and complaints under 0.3% on the send, and re-verify the segment before every send.
Upload the file and see valid, invalid, catch-all and unknown per row, with the .nl segment against this benchmark. 100 free checks a month, unknowns refunded.
Ayoub built BounceZero's 5-stage validation pipeline, its dedicated BGP-announced IP infrastructure, and the Patroni HA PostgreSQL cluster behind every verification. Previously built high-volume email delivery infrastructure. Trained at 1337 Benguerir (École 42 network, 2019). Open-source: bgp_analyzer.
Invalid, catch-all and unknown rates per email provider and country domain, 2026
39,022 MindSpring addresses verified April to October 2026
1,252,193 .net addresses verified April to October 2026
36,773 .nz addresses verified April to October 2026
38,181 Optimum addresses verified April to October 2026
56,401 .org addresses verified April to October 2026
25,971 PeoplePC addresses verified April to October 2026
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