Dutch households are investing more and more in defence companies, new figures from DNB show. Germany’s Rheinmetall has become particularly popular. In Q2 of 2025, it became the first defence contractor to be among the top 25 companies in which households invest directly.
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The aggregate value of investments in defence companies has increased sharply in recent years: from €87 million in January 2023 to €832 million at the end of the second quarter of 2025.
Share price gains accounted for about 56% of that increase in value, with the remaining 44% resulting from net share purchases.
The first quarter of 2024 and the first half of 2025 saw a particularly sharp increase in the value of investments in the defence industry. The increase starting in March 2024 is possibly linked to the announcement of a European defence industry strategy, in which EU Member States committed to spending a significant share of their defence budgets within the EU. In addition, Germany announced in early 2025 that it would release its ‘debt brake’, paving the way for a significant increase in defence spending.
At De Nederlandsche Bank, we independently compile statistics on the Dutch financial sector and economy. This article is based on these statistics. More information on our statistics and all dashboards can be found on our Statistics homepage.
At €832 million, investments in the largest defence companies now make up about 1.3% of Dutch households’ total equity portfolio, as part of total direct investments in listed equities (€65.3 billion).
This analysis looks at direct investments in stocks and bonds issued by the largest defence companies according to 2023 data from the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute, a leading research institute and think-tank.
The list has been shortened to 62 companies whose arms sales and military services form a core activity, and specifically those companies whose revenues from these activities accounted for more than a third of 2023 total revenues. Besides direct investments, households also invest in the defence industry indirectly through holdings in investment funds. These indirect investments have not been included in this analysis.
Germany’s Rheinmetall accounts for 63% of the total value of Dutch households’ investments in defence companies. At the end of June 2025, households owned €521 million worth of shares of Rheinmetall, compared to €15 million at the beginning of 2023.
Every quarter, we publish a top 25 table of Dutch household investments in individual listed shares. Rheinmetall ranks 22nd as of the second quarter of 2025. This is the first time since we started tracking these figures (December 2018) that a defence contractor has been included on this list.
Total investments by Dutch households rose to €193.9 billion in the second quarter of 2025, up about 2.8% from a quarter earlier.
The quarter was marked by pronounced swings in global stock markets, partly due to the announced, and later postponed, US import tariffs.
In the end, Dutch households closed the quarter positively: the aggregate value of the listed shares in their portfolios had risen to €65.3 billion. Shares in investment funds were worth €122.0 billion at the end of June, while bond holdings remained steady at €6.6 billion.
These increases were almost entirely due to share price gains (96%); net purchases were limited to €316 million. A sharp fall in the value of the US dollar against the euro resulted in a foreign exchange rate loss of €2.4 billion.
The total securities holdings of Dutch households consisted of listed shares, investment fund positions and bonds totalling €193.9 billion at the end of the second quarter of 2025. By comparison, Dutch households keep far more funds in savings accounts with Dutch banks (€516.8 billion) than in investment portfolios. They also hold €111.6 billion in payment accounts with Dutch banks. Added to this are substantial assets kept with pension funds and insurers, business assets of self-employed persons and home equity, which fall outside direct securities holdings.
According to figures from Statistics Netherlands (CBS), there are 8.4 million private households in the Netherlands. Of these, around a quarter (2.2 million) invest, according to research (in Dutch) conducted by the Dutch Authority for the Financial Markets (AFM).
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