Since 1 January 2023, there are 342 regular municipalities ( ; sing. ) and three special municipalities ( ) in the Netherlands. The latter is the status of three of the six island territories that make up the Dutch Caribbean. Municipalities are the second-level administrative division, or public bodies (), in the Netherlands and are subdivisions of their respective provinces. Their duties are delegated to them by the central government and they are ruled by a municipal council that is elected every four years. Municipal mergers have reduced the total number of municipalities by two-thirds since the first official boundaries were created in the mid 19th century. Municipalities themselves are informally subdivided into districts and neighbourhoods for administrative and statistical purposes. The Netherlands is a decentralized unitary state, which means that the central government is supreme and delegates certain tasks to lower levels of government by law. The different levels do, however, make work agreements, which give municipalities a certain degree of independence in their policy decisions. Municipalities are responsible for a wide variety of public services, which include land-use planning, public housing, management and maintenance of local roads, waste management and social security. After the Dissolution of the Netherlands Antilles in 2010, three special municipalities (officially public bodies) were formed. These municipalities function the same as regular municipalities and are grouped together as the Caribbean Netherlands and are not part of a province.
The municipalities are governed by both a board of mayor and aldermen and a municipal council. The municipal council, which is titled island council in the special municipalities, is elected every four years. The number of members in the council ranges from nine members for the smallest municipalities to forty-five members for the largest. It is the highest administrative body in the municipality and controls public policy. The executive power lies with the executive board, which consists of a mayor, titled lieutenant governor in the special municipalities, and multiple aldermen, titled island deputies in the special municipalities. The mayor is appointed for six years at a time by the crown and the alderman are elected by the municipal council, typically after each municipal election. The mayor is responsible for public order and is the first in command during emergencies, all other tasks are distributed freely between mayor and aldermen. The exact portfolio for each person differs between each municipality.