OBJECTIVES: The aim of this study was to estimate the total economic and health related burden due to breast cancer in women in the Netherlands. METHODS: Data from the Dutch National Cancer Registry from between 1990 and 2014 were used to obtain prevalence and European Standardized incidence- and survival rates. Additionally, an extensive literature search was performed to further build and validate the analysis. Results are reported for overall, early (stage 0-IIIa) and advanced breast cancer (stage IIIb-IV). RESULTS: Since 1990, the overall incidence of breast cancer increased from 102 up to 141 per 100,000. This increase was entirely driven by an increase of 44% in early breast cancer (88 to 128 per 100,000), the incidence of advanced breast cancer remained constant at 14 per 100,000. In 2014, the 5 years prevalence of breast cancer was 72,607 and 15,600 were newly diagnosed with breast cancer. Of these 15,600, 1,600 were diagnosed with advanced breast cancer. Although the ten year overall survival rate increased from 65% to 77% between 1990 and 2014, the ten year overall survival for advanced breast cancer is still only 30%. Each year breast cancer is still responsible for 3161 deaths, 26,000 life years lost and 90,000 DALYs in the Netherlands. The total economic burden of breast cancer was €1.1 billion in 2013. The majority of these costs were due to healthcare costs which accounted for €850 million, followed by the productivity losses due to morbidity and mortality being €28 and €261 million, respectively. CONCLUSIONS: This study provides a comprehensive assessment of the burden of breast cancer and subsequent trends over time in the Netherlands. The results emphasize that the burden of disease due to breast cancer is significant and show large differences in the prevalence and survival of early and advanced breast cancer in the Netherlands.