NS Kids Vrij costs nothing for ages four to eleven, and it beats the 2.50-euro Railrunner from the very first trip

In its annual price announcement of 5 November 2025 NS put two numbers side by side: around 250,000 children now travel free on a Kids Vrij subscription, while about 120,000 children a month still buy a 2.50-euro Railrunner. Both groups are aged four to eleven and both ride the same trains. Kids Vrij costs nothing to request and carries no fixed subscription fee in 2026; a Railrunner is 2.50 euro a day and its price is unchanged for 2026. So money leaves parents' pockets every month for something a quarter of a million other households already get for nothing. The difference is not price but a personal OV-chipkaart: NS verifies your account with a one-cent iDEAL payment when you order, and the card arrives within a week. Once that is done the child rides free until the day of their twelfth birthday.

• Kids Vrij: children aged four to eleven travel free and unlimited, peak hours included, on all NS trains and almost all regional operators, and the same card automatically gives 34 percent off bus, tram and metro fares. (source 1)
• Travelling condition: the child must always travel with a companion aged at least twelve who holds a valid ticket; children under four already travel free with no card and no subscription. (source 1)
• Ordering and contract: NS checks that your bank account exists with a payment of one eurocent by iDEAL; the subscription is signed on a yearly basis and can be cancelled monthly after the first year; the card with the subscription on it arrives within a week, or can be collected at a ticket machine within one working day if the child already holds a personal OV-chipkaart. (source 1)
• Railrunner: 2.50 euro for a whole day, usable immediately, either as an e-ticket or loaded onto an OV-chipkaart, and NS itself positions it as the handy choice for a one-off train trip. (source 2)
• Ending and succession: Kids Vrij stops by itself on the twelfth birthday, and NS then gives twelve to seventeen year olds an NS Flex Dal Voordeel subscription at no cost, worth 40 percent off during off-peak hours, at weekends and on public holidays. (source 3)

The household sum is a single line: number of children, times the number of days a year you take them on a train, times 2.50 euro. That is what carrying on with Railrunners costs you. Two children on twelve outing days is 60.00 euro a year; twenty-four days is 120.00. The Kids Vrij column is always zero, so the break-even is not the fifth trip or the tenth, it is the first: 2.50 is more than nothing. Multiplying the two figures NS published gives the same answer at national scale: 120,000 tickets a month at 2.50 euro is 300,000 euro a month, while 250,000 children pay nothing at all.

That does not make the Railrunner useless. It wins on time. It works the moment you buy it, while Kids Vrij takes a week to arrive. The real question is therefore not which is cheaper but which day you next take a child on a train. There are four weeks left before the October half-term, which is enough; if you are leaving tomorrow, a Railrunner is the only option.

There is one layer the Railrunner does not touch at all: 34 percent off bus, tram and metro. Work that one out as single fare times 0.34. A 2.00-euro ride saves 0.68 euro, and forty rides a year saves 27.20 euro. None of that involves a train, and a Railrunner gives none of it. Add it to the line above and the gap grows well beyond 60.00 euro.

Three thresholds sit on the order page rather than in the comparison box. First, you need a Dutch bank account that supports iDEAL, because that one-cent payment is how NS confirms the account exists. Second, although the price is zero, the contract still runs on a yearly basis and only becomes monthly after the first year. Third, on cross-border services the child pays no supplement on the Dutch legs of ICE, Intercity direct and EuroCity trains, but the accompanying adult does, and an adult heading to Belgium or Germany needs an international ticket of their own.

Hokimi field note: the cost of this card is not money, it is calendar. If you already know you are taking the children somewhere in the October half-term, today is the right day to order. If your child turns twelve this month, skip it and go straight to the equally free Dal Voordeel for twelve to seventeen year olds. And if the child is not yet four, you need neither.

Where

NS trains across the Netherlands and almost every regional rail operator

When

All year, peak hours included

Price

Nothing for the subscription and nothing for the child's fare

Ages

4 to 11, ending by itself on the twelfth birthday

Note

Maximum 3 children per companion・same class and route as the companion・not transferable