covid travel rules netherlands

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Netherlands Travel Restrictions

Traveler's COVID-19 vaccination status

Traveling from the United States to the Netherlands

Open for vaccinated visitors

COVID-19 testing

Not required

Not required for vaccinated visitors

Restaurants

Not required in public spaces, enclosed environments and public transportation.

Netherlands entry details and exceptions

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Can I travel to the Netherlands from the United States?

Most visitors from the United States, regardless of vaccination status, can enter the Netherlands.

Can I travel to the Netherlands if I am vaccinated?

Fully vaccinated visitors from the United States can enter the Netherlands without restrictions.

Can I travel to the Netherlands without being vaccinated?

Unvaccinated visitors from the United States can enter the Netherlands without restrictions.

Do I need a COVID test to enter the Netherlands?

Visitors from the United States are not required to present a negative COVID-19 PCR test or antigen result upon entering the Netherlands.

Can I travel to the Netherlands without quarantine?

Travelers from the United States are not required to quarantine.

Do I need to wear a mask in the Netherlands?

Mask usage in the Netherlands is not required in public spaces, enclosed environments and public transportation.

Are the restaurants and bars open in the Netherlands?

Restaurants in the Netherlands are open. Bars in the Netherlands are .

New rules apply to travelers entering the Netherlands from a country with color code 'yellow'

Travelers arriving from an EU country with the color code ‘yellow’ on the coronavirus map have to show proof of a fully complete Covid-19 vaccination, a recent recovery from Covid-19 or a negative coronavirus test from Sunday onwards. Anyone age 12 and above must be able to show one of these three certificates when entering the Netherlands.

PCR tests cannot be older than 48 hours and antigen tests must have been completed in the past 24 hours prior to crossing the Dutch border. The Ministry of Foreign Affairs released information on where travelers can find a coronavirus test site outside of the Netherlands. “We have a special website where you can see per country and region exactly where you can your test”, a spokesperson of the Ministry of Foregin Affairs told NOS.

Outside of the Netherlands, travelers have to come up with the costs of the coronavirus test themselves. In some countries, coronavirus tests may be for free. Prices can range from 30 euros for a antigen test in Italy to 120 euros for a PCR test in Belgium.

Anyone who tested positive for the coronavirus in the past 11 to 180 days can also use their recovery certificate to enter.

“Travelling during the pandemic is paired with risks. We already warned about that”, the spokesperson said.

The new rules also apply to people traveling to the Netherlands by car. It was not yet clear how often drivers will be pulled over to have their coronavirus documents checked. Travel companies will review their passengers’ documents when arriving by plane, bus, train or boat.

Anyone unable to provide proof one of these three documents will be fined 95 euros. The same rules do not apply when coming from a country with the color code ‘green’.

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Can I go to Amsterdam? Travel rules for the Netherlands

By Abigail Malbon

Planning a trip to the Netherlands? Here’s what you need to know.

What are the entry requirements for the Netherlands?

Since Wednesday 23 March 2022 , fully vaccinated travellers to the Netherlands coming from within and outside the EU or the Schengen area no longer require a test, proof of recovery or proof of vaccination. They are still advised to do a self-test immediately after arrival and again on day five. This is not enforced, as it is not a legal requirement. If you are not fully vaccinated, UK residents and citizens arriving from England, Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland are not able to enter the Netherlands for non-essential purposes, unless you meet the requirements of one of the Dutch government's EU entry ban exemption categories. Find out more about the exemption categories . 

What are the UK entry requirements for those coming from the Netherlands? 

Since 18 March 2022, all Covid travel rules have been dropped in the UK. This means that, regardless of vaccination status, those entering the country no longer need to fill out a passenger locator form, take any tests or quarantine. In England, since Thursday 24 February 2022, all travellers have not been legally required to quarantine even if their day two test is positive, although the official government and NHS advice and guidance is still to quarantine at home for five days if you test positive, as long as your next two tests after those five days are negative – otherwise you should continue to isolate until they are. In Scotland, the legal requirement to isolate was removed on 21 March, while it ended on 28 March in Wales. In Northern Ireland, all legal restrictions were replaced by guidance on 15 February 2022.  

It’s more important than ever to purchase travel insurance with Covid cover that is appropriate for your destination. 

What are the current Covid restrictions within the Netherlands?

Since Wednesday 23 March 2022, wearing a face mask on public transport has no longer been required, although they must still be worn on aircrafts and at airports beyond the security checkpoint. Attendance at large-scale events no longer requires a negative Covid test result. This applies to indoor locations with more than 500 visitors per event and without assigned seating (such as a nightclub or live music venue). More information is available on the Dutch government’s website .

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• Passports, travel and living abroad
• Travel abroad
• Foreign travel advice

Netherlands

Entry requirements.

This advice reflects the UK government’s understanding of current rules for people travelling on a full ‘British citizen’ passport from the UK, for the most common types of travel.

The authorities in the Netherlands set and enforce entry rules. If you’re not sure how these requirements apply to you, contact the Netherlands’ embassy in the UK .

Countries may restrict travel or bring in rules at short notice. Check with your travel company or airline for changes.

If you test positive for COVID-19, you may need to stay where you are until you test negative. You may also need to seek treatment there.

Visit TravelHealthPro (from the UK’s National Travel Health Network and Centre) for general COVID-19 advice for travellers .

Travel to the Netherlands

There are no COVID-19 travel restrictions for the Netherlands. See the Dutch government website for information on COVID-19.

Passport validity requirements

If you are planning to travel to an EU country (except Ireland), or Switzerland, Norway, Iceland, Liechtenstein, Andorra, Monaco, San Marino or Vatican City, you must follow the Schengen area passport requirements .

Your passport must be:

• issued less than 10 years before the date you enter the country (check the ‘date of issue’)
• valid for at least 3 months after the day you plan to leave (check the ‘expiry date’)

You must check your passport meets these requirements before you travel. If your passport was issued before 1 October 2018, extra months may have been added to its expiry date.

Contact the embassy of the country you are visiting if you think that your passport does not meet both these requirements. Renew your passport if you need to .

Passport stamping

At Dutch border control, you may need to:

show a return or onward ticket

show you have enough money for your stay

Check your passport is stamped if you enter or exit the Schengen area through the Netherlands as a visitor. Border guards will use passport stamps to check you’re complying with the 90-day visa-free limit for short stays in the Schengen area. If relevant entry or exit stamps are not in your passport, border guards will presume that you have overstayed your visa-free limit.

You can show evidence of when and where you entered or exited the Schengen area, and ask the border guards to add this date and location in your passport. Examples of acceptable evidence include boarding passes and tickets.

If you are a resident in the Netherlands, read our living in the Netherlands guide .

Visa requirements

You can travel to countries in the Schengen area for up to 90 days in any 180-day period without a visa. This applies if you travel:

• as a tourist
• to visit family or friends
• to attend business meetings, cultural or sports events
• or for short-term studies or training

If you are travelling to the Netherlands and other Schengen countries without a visa, make sure your whole visit is within the 90-day limit. Visits to Schengen countries within the previous 180 days before you travel count towards your 90 days.

To stay longer (to work or study, for business travel or for other reasons) you must meet the Dutch government’s entry requirements. Check which type of visa or work permit you may need on the Dutch government website .

If you are travelling to the Netherlands for work , read the guidance on visas and permits.

If you stay in the Netherlands with a residence permit or long-stay visa, this does not count towards your 90-day visa-free limit.

Vaccination requirements (other than COVID-19)

At least 8 weeks before your trip, check the vaccinations and vaccination certificates you may need on TravelHealthPro .

Customs rules

There are strict rules about goods that can be brought into and taken out of the Netherlands. You must declare anything that may be prohibited or subject to tax or duty.

Taking food and drink into the Netherlands

You cannot take meat, milk or products containing them into EU countries. There are some exceptions for medical reasons, for example certain amounts of powdered infant milk, infant food, or pet food required for medical reasons. Check the rules about taking food and drink into the EU on the European Commission website.

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Globally we have been working together to limit the spreading of Covid-19. Here we inform you about security measures and rules of behaviour, which will help to protect your clients in the Netherlands.

• Check out our COVID desk with answers to frequently asked questions by travellers.
• You can find up to date information and travel advisories at Government.nl .

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Dutch heir to throne spent year in Madrid amid safety fears, reports say

Princess Amalia, who had reportedly been talked about by organised crime groups, is now back in Amsterdam

The heir to the Dutch throne, Catharina-Amalia, Princess of Orange, spent more than a year in Spain as the Dutch royal family grappled with threats to her safety, according to media in the Netherlands .

The 20-year-old lived and studied in Madrid, royal sources told the public broadcaster NOS on Wednesday, after reports she had been mentioned in communications by organised crime groups, sparking fears she could be the target of attacks or kidnappings.

In September 2022, Amalia began studying at the University of Amsterdam, moving into shared accommodation with other students as she pursued a bachelor’s degree in politics, psychology, law and economics. Soon afterwards, the royal family said she had been forced to leave her student housing, citing concerns for her safety.

She returned to the royal palace in The Hague, venturing out of the heavily guarded residence only to attend classes, her mother said at the time. “She can’t live in Amsterdam and she can’t really go outside [the palace],” Queen Máxima said . “It has enormous consequences on her life.”

In February last year, during a visit to the Dutch island of Sint Maarten, the princess lamented the fact that her life as a student had turned out differently from what she had hoped. “I had the thought that what a student does, that I could do it too,” Amalia reportedly said . “Unfortunately, the reality was anything but that.”

At the time, Amalia was already on the radar of Spanish media , who had revelled in sightings of her near Madrid’s sprawling Retiro Park and ducking in and out of shops in the upmarket neighbourhood of Salamanca. At times she was seen in the company of her mother, who grew up in Argentina.

While NOS said this week that the threat to Amalia had not completely disappeared, it noted that she had since returned to Amsterdam after measures had been taken to ensure her safety. No further details were provided.

The Dutch royal household, which on Wednesday was preparing to host a state visit by Spain’s King Felipe VI and Queen Letizia, did not reply to a request for comment.

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Agence France-Presse and Reuters contributed to this article.

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Frustrated farmers are rebelling against EU rules. The far right is stoking the flames

Farmer’s Defense Force vice president Jos Ubels poses for a portrait at his farm in Anderen, Northern Netherlands, Monday, March 18, 2024. Ubels feels that everything from overbearing bureaucrats insisting when farmers should sow or harvest, imposing excessive restrictions on fertilizer and manure use and unfair international competition condoned by the European Union have created a potent mix that has driven him away from mainstream politics. (AP Photo/Peter Dejong)

FILE - Polish farmers with national flags and angry slogans written on boards, protest against European Union green policies that trim their production and against cheap grain and other food imports from Ukraine, in Warsaw, Poland, on Feb. 27, 2024. Across the EU, long convoys of tractors have cut off economic lifelines like ports and beltways around major cities, sometimes for days on end, with costs to industry running into the tens of millions daily and keeping hundreds of thousands of people from going to work. (AP Photo/Czarek Sokolowski, File)

FILE - Angry farmers scuffle with police officers at the International Agriculture Fair as French President Emmanuel Macron tours the exhibition on the opening day in Paris, on Feb. 24, 2024. Farmers across Europe have been protesting for weeks over what they say are excessively restrictive environmental rules. (AP Photo/Lewis Joly, File)

FILE - European Commissioner for European Green Deal Frans Timmermans speaks during a media conference at EU headquarters in Brussels, on June 28, 2023. The EU is seeking to push through stringent nature and agricultural laws as part of its vaunted Green Deal that needs to turn the bloc into a climate neutral continent by 2050, forcing farmers through drastic changes at a time of financial insecurity. (AP Photo/Virginia Mayo, File)

FILE - Farmers park their tractors near the European Council building in Brussels during a demonstration on March 26, 2024. Across the EU, long convoys of tractors have cut off economic lifelines like ports and beltways around major cities, sometimes for days on end, with costs to industry running into the tens of millions daily and keeping hundreds of thousands of people from going to work. (AP Photo/Geert Vanden Wijngaert, File)

FILE - Marion Marechal, Marine Le Pen’s niece and Executive Vice President of French far-right party ‘Reconquete’, center, speaks with farmers and journalists during a demonstration of French and Belgian farmers outside the European Parliament in Brussels, on Jan. 24, 2024. (AP Photo/Virginia Mayo, File)

FILE - A tractor collects straw on a field in a private farm in Zhurivka, Kyiv region, Ukraine, on Aug. 10, 2023. Add the Ukraine war and the EU’s decision to give the embattled nation sizeable leeway to export its cheap produce that often doesn’t even have meet strict environmental standards that EU farmers face, and it makes for a perfect storm just as the EU-wide elections are drawing near. (AP Photo/Efrem Lukatsky, File)

FILE - Protesting farmers dump a load of produce onto a main boulevard during a demonstration outside the European Council building in Brussels, on March 26, 2024. Across the EU, long convoys of tractors have cut off economic lifelines like ports and beltways around major cities, sometimes for days on end, with costs to industry running into the tens of millions daily and keeping hundreds of thousands of people from going to work. (AP Photo/Harry Nakos, File)

FILE - Belgian Farmer and politician, Bart Dochy, stands in front of tractors in a barn at his family farm in Ledegem, Belgium, on Feb. 13, 2024. As the Christian Democrat mayor of the farming town of Ledegem and a parliamentarian, Dochy represents the powers that have always been dominant in farming communities for centuries in large swathes of Europe, Christian and Conservative. (AP Photo/Virginia Mayo, File)

FILE - People walk under a banner advertising the European elections outside the European Parliament in Brussels, on Jan. 24, 2024. The Farmers Defense Force and partners plan to hold one more massive protest of farmers close to EU headquarters in Brussels on June 4. Voting for the elections starts two days later. (AP Photo/Virginia Mayo, File)

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ANDEREN, Netherlands (AP) — Inside the barn on the flat fields of the northern Netherlands , Jos Ubels cradles a newborn Blonde d’Aquitaine calf, the latest addition to his herd of over 300 dairy cattle.

Little could be more idyllic.

Little, says Ubels, could be more under threat.

As Europe seeks to address the threat of climate change , it’s imposing more rules on farmers like Ubels. He spends a day a week on bureaucracy, answering the demands of European Union and national officials who seek to decide when farmers can sow and reap, and how much fertilizer or manure they can use.

Meanwhile, competition from cheap imports is undercutting prices for their produce, without having to meet the same standards. Mainstream political parties failed to act on farmers’ complaints for decades, Ubels says. Now the radical right is stepping in.

Across much of the 27-nation EU, from Finland to Greece, Poland to Ireland, farmers’ discontent is gathering momentum as June EU parliamentary elections draw near.

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Ubels is the second in command of the Farmers Defense Force, one of the most prominent groups to emerge from the foment. The FDF, whose symbol is a crossed double pitchfork, was formed in 2019 and has since expanded to Belgium. It has ties to similar groups elsewhere in the EU and is a driving force behind a planned June 4 demonstration in Brussels it hopes will bring 100,000 people to the EU capital and help define the outcome of the elections.

“It is time that we fight back,” said Ubels. “We’re done with quietly listening and doing what we are told.”

Has he lost trust in democracy? “No. … I have lost my faith in politics. And that is one step removed.”

The FDF itself puts it more ominously on its website: “Our confidence in the rule of law is wavering!”

This story, supported by the Pulitzer Center for Crisis Reporting, is part of an ongoing Associated Press series covering threats to democracy in Europe.

‘DON’T LET UP!’

In March, protesting farmers from Belgium ran amok at a demonstration outside EU headquarters in Brussels, setting fire to a subway station entrance and attacking police with eggs and liquid manure. In France, protesters tried to storm a government building.

In a video from another protest, in front of burning tires and pallets, FDF leader Mark van den Oever said two politicians made him sick to his stomach, saying they would “soon be at the center of attention.” The FDF denies this was a threat of physical violence.

Across the EU, over the winter, tractor convoys blockaded ports and major roads, sometimes for days, in some of the most severe farm protests in half a century.

Farmers and the EU have had a sometimes testy relationship. What’s new is the shift toward the extreme right.

Destitute after World War II and with hunger still a scourge in winter, Europe desperately needed food security. The EU stepped in, securing abundant food for the population, turning the sector into an export powerhouse and currently funding farmers to the tune of over 50 billion euros a year.

Yet, despite agriculture’s strategic importance, the EU acknowledges that farmers earn about 40% less than non-farm workers, while 80% of support goes to a privileged 20% of farmers. Many of the bloc’s 8.7 million farm workers are close to or below the poverty line.

At the same time, the EU is seeking to push through stringent nature and agricultural laws as part of its Green Deal to make the bloc climate-neutral by 2050 . Agriculture accounts for more than 10% of EU greenhouse gas emissions, from sources such as the nitrous oxide in fertilizers, carbon dioxide from vehicles and methane from cattle.

Cutting these emissions has forced short-notice changes on farmers at a time of financial insecurity. The COVID-19 pandemic and surging inflation have increased the cost of goods and labor, while farmers’ earnings are down as squeezed consumers cut back.

And then there’s the war next door. After Russia’s full-scale invasion in February 2022, the EU granted tariff-free access for agricultural imports from Ukraine , many of them exempt from the strict environmental standards the bloc enforces on its own producers. Imports surged from 7 billion euros in 2021 to 13 billion euros the following year, causing gluts and undercutting farmers, particularly in Poland .

“Don’t let up,” Marion Maréchal, the lead candidate for France’s extreme right Reconquest! party in the June elections, exhorted farmers at a protest earlier this year. “You have to be in the streets. You have to make yourself heard. You have to —” she tried to finish the sentence but was drowned out by shouts of “Don’t Let Up! Don’t Let Up!”

FERTILE GROUND

Farming in Europe is about more than just food; it touches on identity. In France, the far right taps into the love of “terroir,” that mythical combination of soil, location, culture and climate.

“The French realize that the farmers are the roots of our society,” said Maréchal.

Such sentiments echo across Europe. In Ireland, where more than a million people died in the famine of 1845-1852, farming “is deep in our culture, in our psyche,” said Environment Minister Eamon Ryan, a Green Party lawmaker.

The far right has used farming as a way to attack mainstream parties. In Italy, the far right has mocked the EU’s efforts to promote a low-carbon diet, playing on farmers’ fears that lab-grown proteins and insects could one day replace meat.

“Revolt is the language of those who are not listened to. Now, back off,” warned far-right Italian lawmaker Nicola Procaccini in February. In a few months, he said, the European elections “will put people back in place of ideologies.”

Such calls fall on fertile ground. According to predictions by the European Council on Foreign Relations, the radical right Identity and Democracy group could become the third biggest overall in the next European Parliament, behind the Christian Democrats and the Socialists, but edging out the Liberals and Greens. The farm protests are providing vital leverage.

A SPADE IS A SPADE

One farmer sidestepping militant demonstrations is Bart Dochy in western Belgium. As the Christian Democrat mayor of the farming town of Ledegem and a regional parliamentarian in Flanders, he represents the traditional forces in European farming communities: Christianity and conservativism. When Socialism took the big cities, the countryside and its farmers remained staunchly Christian Democrat.

That’s now changed. Once, billboards with the cry, “Save our farmers!” would have come from his party; now, they bear the logo of the far-right Flemish Interest, predicted by polls to become the biggest party in Belgium in June.

“In a sense it is only logical that the extreme parties have specialized in capturing that discontent. They call a spade a spade. And that is good,” he said. But farming is complicated, he warned: nature, trade, budgets, commodity prices and geopolitics are all involved. Solutions will have to come from common sense, “not from the extremes.”

Dochy’s Christian Democrats are part of the biggest group in the EU parliament, the European People’s Party, once a strong proponent of the EU’s Green Deal. Farmers, after all, are among the biggest losers from climate change, affected at different times by flooding, wildfires, drought and extreme temperatures .

But ever since the demonstrations started, EU politics on agriculture and climate have shifted rightwards, outraging many of the center right’s old allies with whom it set up the Green Deal. Measures to reduce pesticide use and protect biodiversity have been weakened, while the protesters’ demands to cut regulation have been heard.

But as the rhetoric heats up, so too does the climate. Data for early 2024 shows record-breaking temperatures in Europe. In Greece — where an estimated 1,750 square kilometers (675 square miles) burned in 2023, the worst fire in EU records — wildfires are already breaking out, weeks earlier than expected.

The far right offers no detailed solutions to the climate crisis but it has proved adept at tapping into farmers’ frustrations. In its program for the June elections, the Dutch far-right party, the PVV, is short on details but big on slogans about “climate hysteria” and its “tsunami of rules.” Nature and climate laws, it said, “should not lead to whole sectors being forced into bankruptcy.”

Ubels made the case for farmers’ realpolitik.

“The government doesn’t listen to us, but the opposition does,” he said.

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Why Electro’s Exacting Duo Justice Wanted to Break Its Own Rules

For “Hyperdrama,” Gaspard Augé and Xavier de Rosnay’s first album in eight years, the duo added genre experiments and guests to its arsenal of bangers.

By Eric Ducker

Reporting from Indio, Calif.

The sun was setting on the opening night of the Coachella Valley Music and Arts Festival last weekend and the mood backstage in Justice’s artist compound was simmering anxiety, masked by glasses of wine and discrete vaping.

In a few hours, the Paris-based electronic music duo would debut an all-new stage show and give fans an early taste of “Hyperdrama,” its new studio album, out April 26. The setting was meaningful: Justice played its first real show at Coachella in 2007 just before releasing “Cross,” the album that propelled it to the forefront of the electro scene, and this appearance would be its first big concert since 2018.

In the eight years since Justice’s “Woman” LP arrived, dance music subgenres have risen and fallen in favor, yet the pair has remained indifferent, focused strictly on its own trajectory. “Hyperdrama,” a 13-track album with guest appearances by Miguel, Thundercat and Tame Impala, riffs on its longtime aesthetic — melodic hooks, funky bass lines, the occasional blown-out fuzzy beat — and stretches out in fresh ways.

Though Justice’s Gaspard Augé and Xavier de Rosnay were joined by friends and former collaborators, many of whom had flown in from France, the two remained on the fringes of the backstage gathering, periodically conferring with their longtime lighting designer, Vincent Lérisson, or Pedro Winter, the manager who discovered them in the early 2000s. The new show is a complex production built largely around Lérisson’s massive, swirling display, which took over 18 months to create and involves 11 tons of lights and kinetic motors on trusses. Justice prides itself on its precision, and knew there were hundreds of things that could go wrong.

The pair finally took the stage just before 10:30 p.m. and faced each other in Celine suits and sunglasses, unleashing intertwining grooves from across its discography. Songs from “Hyperdrama,” like the four-on-the-floor thump of “Neverender” and the relentless “Generator,” fit seamlessly with “D.A.N.C.E.,” the buoyant single that earned its first Grammy nominations, and the scuzzy strut of “Phantom.”

The next morning, sitting by the pool of their Airbnb clad in an open-collared Hawaiian shirt (Augé) and a short-sleeved leopard-print button-up (de Rosnay), the duo dissected its approach to performances with its usual strict attention to detail.

“A record is not meant to be fully understandable the first time you listen to it,” de Rosnay, the chattier of the two said, in an interview conducted in English. “A live show, it has to be fully understandable whether you know us or not, which is the case in festivals. There might be a lot of people coming where they just know one song, they just heard of the band, or they’re maybe 17 years old and they’re like, ‘Oh yeah, my dad used to listen to that.’”

Augé, 44, and de Rosnay, 41, met through mutual friends when they were young graphic designers, later deciding to commit themselves fully to music. “At some point we just had to choose, would you rather spend your life in front of a computer or spend your life in front of a computer?” Augé deadpanned.

They were both children of MTV’s video age, but Augé listened to more heavy metal and later the output of the British indie label Warp Records, known for its forward-thinking electronic music, while de Rosnay embraced hip-hop, which led him to older funk and soul tracks. Their early recordings were made in the free Apple software GarageBand, using samples from Italian horror scores and R&B jams. Sheering off the smoothness and predictability of the era’s European dance music, they created party soundtracks that felt dangerous yet sophisticated.

Earlier in their career, Justice would get frustrated when collaborators couldn’t transform the ideas that were in their heads into reality. Over the years, they’ve become more understanding, but not less exacting. The art director Thomas Jumin has worked on multiple Justice projects, dating back to the video for “DVNO” from 2007. He created the album art for “Hyperdrama” — the latest version of Justice’s cross motif — which took a year and a half to produce, and the discussions about it stretched back even longer.

“They like to try many different things around every idea to make their choice,” Jumin wrote in an email. “There are a lot of sketches and tests to decide if a detail, a color, or an effect is valid or not, and I know they have the same path in the studio. It’s a long process.”

“Cross” was followed by the grandiose “Audio, Video, Disco” in 2011, which charted on Billboard’s all-genre Top 200. “Woman” didn’t match its success, but the group remixed its live show and won a Grammy in 2019 for the result, “Woman Worldwide.”

Though the award came in an electronic dance music category, Justice has had an ambivalent relationship with the genre — and the idea of genre, itself. With its members’ leather jackets and stage stacked with Marshall amps, people perceived Justice’s debut album as a rock ’n’ roll take on electronic music. “The imagery led people to think that it was a heavy metal influence, but it was more distorted funk,” Augé said.

Alexander Ridha, who records and performs as Boys Noize, was living in Germany when he got a copy of one of Justice’s first singles, “Waters of Nazareth,” and was captivated by its embrace of distortion and aggression. He played it at a Berlin club when minimal techno was at its peak and immediately emptied the dance floor. “It was clear that this was the future,” he said during a recent call. “I had this really rare feeling of, ‘I’m onto something, but nobody knows it and nobody feels it.’”

Augé and de Rosnay spent two years touring behind “Woman,” another working on “Woman Worldwide” and then a year putting together the concert film “Iris: A Space Opera by Justice.” The pair started making “Hyperdrama” in February 2020, then paused until June since they couldn’t be in the studio together at the height of the pandemic. The pair’s guiding intention was to bring back a sense of playfulness in how they make music and reconsider some of the lessons they’d mastered. “You start learning about rules and ways things should be made,” de Rosnay said, “but the truth is that in most cases, things sound better if you just take a side step.”

Galvanized by the structural incoherence of the rapper Travis Scott’s multipart 2018 smash “Sicko Mode,” they fused three songs into one on the lead single “One Night/All Night,” which features guest vocals from Tame Impala’s Kevin Parker . Justice also found unexpected inspiration in gabber, a pummeling dance music subgenre from the Netherlands that can reach up to 190 beats per minute. Several of the songs on “Hyperdrama,” including “Afterimage” and “Incognito,” use a technique where Justice created a track incorporating gabber elements, then treated it almost like a sample — pitching the tempo down and harmonizing it to make something more melancholy.

The biggest departure in “Hyperdrama” comes during the album’s third quarter, where the duo leaves the dance floor behind and heads into cosmic territory. The dreamy three-song stretch of “Moonlight Rendez-Vous,” “Explorer” and “Muscle Memory” is “almost like one track that goes through different states of consciousness,” Augé said.

When Justice performs, it usually places some mics in the crowd to hear how people are reacting. At Coachella, the group told its sound engineer to cut them entirely so it could concentrate completely on the performance. It left the duo feeling a bit isolated, so they stole glances whenever they could to gauge the response. (The crowd was feeling it.) When it was over, Augé and de Rosnay patted each other on the back, looking a little stunned that they’d pulled it off.

Back at their compound, their friends greeted them with applause. There had been some mistakes, even if only they noticed them, and the celebration didn’t last long. The next morning, when asked how the rest of the night was, Augé replied, “Quiet.” They were already thinking about rehearsals and the adjustments that they had to make for Coachella’s second weekend.

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