In February 1667, Suriname became a Dutch colony after the signing of the Treaty of Breda between the Netherlands and the United Kingdom which ended the Second Anglo-Dutch War.

In 1762, the Maroons won their freedom and signed a treaty with the Dutch Crown to acknowledge their territorial rights and trading privileges.

During World War II, Surinam was host to U.S. soldiers after the Netherlands was invaded by Germany in 1940 and the royal family fled to exile in Canada.

Crown Princess Beatrix of the Netherlands and Prime Minister den Uyl were in attendance at the independence ceremony in Paramaribo.

[7] In 2013, the Netherlands called for the arrest of Bouterse in South Africa where he was attending the funeral of Nelson Mandela.

[9] After the 2020 Surinamese general election and the appointment of Chan Santokhi as president, both Suriname[10] and the Netherlands[11] expressed the desire to restore diplomatic relations and to reappoint ambassadors.

Santokhi stressed that the current financial crisis will lead to a re-evaluation of the existing diplomatic missions.

[10] In August 2020, Minister of Foreign Affairs Albert Ramdin was the first Surinamese member of government in ten years to pay an official visit to the Netherlands.

[18] Dutch exports to Suriname include: chemical based products, machinery, electrical and transport equipment.

Surinamese exports to the Netherlands include: live animals and food, raw materials and beverages.

Jacobi was recalled in April 2012 after the Bouterse government passed the amnesty law for the December murders.