Rob Jetten was sworn in as prime minister of the Netherlands on February 23, 2026, becoming both the youngest person and the first openly gay individual to hold the office. At 38, Jetten surpasses the record previously held by Christian Democrat Ruud Lubbers, who became prime minister in 1982 at age 43.

Jetten leads the centrist, pro-European Democrats 66 (D66) party, which he has represented in the Dutch House of Representatives since first winning a seat in 2017. His party narrowly defeated Geert Wilders’s far-right Party for Freedom (PVV) in snap elections held in October 2025, with D66 and PVV initially running neck-and-neck before D66 pulled ahead in the final count. After 117 days of coalition negotiations, notably faster than the 223 days it took to form the prior government, Jetten formed a minority coalition with the center-right Christian Democratic Alliance (CDA) and the liberal People’s Party for Freedom and Democracy (VVD), controlling 66 of the 150 seats in parliament’s lower house.

Jetten was sworn in by King Willem-Alexander at Huis ten Bosch Palace, with his fiancé, two-time Olympic hockey player Nicolás Keenan, attending the ceremony. The coalition’s platform includes increased defense spending, new housing development, and tighter asylum policy. Jetten’s rise comes 25 years after the Netherlands became the first country in the world to legalize same-sex marriage, a milestone the country is separately marking this year as host of WorldPride Amsterdam.