Please note: The Tax and Customs Museum is closed until summer 2012 due to reconstruction work!
The Tax and Customs Museum (or Belasting en Douanemuseum in Dutch) has a very interesting collection about everything that relates to tax and customs. Now this might not sound very interesting to everyone that hates to pay tax and customs, but there are actually some very nice things to see in this museum!

Smuggling goods
Rotterdam has always played an important role in the history of tax and customs because of the many goods entering and leaving the country through the harbour. In the museum there are more than 40,000 objects that you can see varying from uniforms, medals, prints, paintings, silver works to smuggling goods! The smuggling goods include a smuggling piano and a smuggling bike that was used to smuggle alcohol to Belgium.

Smuggling trip for kids
You can learn everything about taxes that we have to pay today and that our ancestors has to pay in their days. There are more than 100 different taxes that you can learn about! Children age 6 and above can join the exciting smuggling trip in the museum, where they experience a real smuggling attempt through multimedia!

The museum houses regulary different expositions. Please look at the museum website for information about their current expositions.

You can find the tax and customs museums in the majestic Scheepvaartkwartier and admission to the museum is free, so the museum is definitely worth your visit!