Short answer: there is no Showtime service to join in the Netherlands, or anywhere else any more. SHOWTIME Help says “SHOWTIME programming is now available through Paramount+”, and Paramount+ leaves the Netherlands off its “Paramount+ Regions” page. On 9 October 2026 neither the U.S. nor the international Paramount+ app was listed in the Dutch App Store.
Some Showtime-made series do reach Dutch screens, through SkyShowtime. Its Dutch page for Dexter: Resurrection names Showtime as the studio, lists the ten episodes of season one and shows season two as coming. On 14 September 2026 its board wrote that the owners, Comcast and Paramount, were reviewing the business, including “the possibility of a wind down”, and that “no decisions have been made”.
If it is the American catalogue you want, start small: one laptop browser, a residential U.S. IP from USip, paramountplus.com and a single Showtime episode — about ten minutes in all. Whether that connection is accepted is for Paramount+ to decide, and it can say no to any connection, USip’s as well.
Showtime has no Dutch brand of its own, but its series turn up under other names. On 9 October 2026 we read SkyShowtime’s Dutch pages, Ziggo’s page for Dexter: Resurrection and Paramount+’s own lists. This is what we found, set beside the U.S. Showtime catalogue on Paramount+.
| Series or service | In the Netherlands | Compared with the U.S. Showtime |
|---|---|---|
| Dexter: Resurrection, season one | On SkyShowtime, which names Showtime as the studio and lists ten episodes. Ziggo’s page, updated on 17 July 2026, says the series streams “exclusief op SkyShowtime” — only there — since Friday 12 September 2025. | Paramount+’s Showtime page lists “Dexter®: Resurrection” among its titles. In the U.S. the series sits inside Paramount+, not on a separate Showtime service. |
| Dexter: Resurrection, season two | Shown as coming on SkyShowtime’s Dutch page. FilmVandaag reported on 2 October 2026 that the first episode arrives on 31 October, followed by one a week. | Paramount’s U.S. press release of 1 October 2026 gives Friday 30 October for season two, “only on the Premium Plan”. |
| Dexter, Dexter: New Blood, Dexter: Original Sin | SkyShowtime’s Dexter: Resurrection page points viewers to all three. We did not open their own pages, so we do not say which seasons are there. | On Paramount+, Premium is the plan described as carrying “all of SHOWTIME®”. Which older series that covers on a given day is Paramount+’s catalogue, not something we can promise. |
| The Agency | SkyShowtime lists two seasons and names Paramount+, not Showtime, as the studio. | Labels differ between services, so check the studio line on a SkyShowtime page before assuming a series counts as Showtime. |
| Paramount+ and its Showtime section | Not offered here: the Netherlands is missing from the regions list, and neither Paramount+ app was in the Dutch App Store on 9 October 2026. | This is where the U.S. Showtime catalogue lives now. Essential lists Showtime originals, with the footnote “Series may not include all episodes”. |
The table describes two routes to two different things. SkyShowtime is a Dutch service with Dutch release dates, and for the Dexter series it is the straightforward choice: nothing about your connection needs to change. The U.S. catalogue on Paramount+ is, in Paramount+’s own description, all of Showtime, but it is made for viewers in the U.S., on U.S. dates, and Paramount+ does not offer it in the Netherlands.
SkyShowtime’s future is the open question. The Desk reported on 14 September 2026 that the board had told staff its shareholders were “commencing a review of strategic options for the business, which includes the possibility of a wind down”, and that the service would keep operating normally during the review. We add nothing to that: no decision had been announced when we read SkyShowtime’s pages on 9 October 2026.
Catalogues move on both sides. SkyShowtime adds and drops series, Paramount+ shifts titles between plans, and the Ziggo and FilmVandaag dates above are what those pages said when we read them. Look at the series page itself on the day you plan to watch.
3-day free trial · 14-day money-back · Paramount+ subscription not included
Most of the confusion around Showtime comes from names that changed. Six facts, each from Paramount’s own pages or a dated report, cover where things stand for a reader in the Netherlands.
SHOWTIME Help puts it plainly: “The SHOWTIME streaming service is being discontinued”. People who had subscribed directly kept access “until they are discontinued on April 30, 2024”, and the programmes moved into Paramount+.
The Paramount+ plan that used to be called Paramount+ with Showtime became Paramount+ Premium, as TheWrap reported. The old name lives on for the Showtime cable and satellite channel in the U.S.
Paramount+’s U.S. plan page sums Premium up as “Watch hit originals, movies and all of SHOWTIME® ad free”, and adds “Access SHOWTIME® originals and movies when you sign up for the Premium plan.” Live CBS and downloads are on the Premium list too.
Paramount+ Essential lists “Access SHOWTIME® Originals”, with a footnote that matters: “Series may not include all episodes”. If a season stops short, look at the plan before you look at the connection.
Paramount completed its takeover of Warner Bros. Discovery, and the combined company is called Skydance (Forbes). It owns Paramount+, HBO Max, Pluto TV and the Showtime channel. No date has been given for any combined streaming service, and we will not guess one.
Paramount+ keeps a page for the Showtime brand, and when we read it, it listed “Dexter®: Resurrection” among its titles. That page, on paramountplus.com, is the U.S. home of the Showtime catalogue.
For someone in Amsterdam, Utrecht or Eindhoven, the practical result is short. The Showtime app closed in 2024, so there is nothing to install and no separate Showtime account to open. The U.S. catalogue is reached through a Paramount+ account and plan, and Paramount+ is not offered in the Netherlands. USip’s Paramount+ guide covers the service as a whole; this page stays with Showtime and the Dutch side of things.
3-day free trial · 14-day money-back · Paramount+ subscription not included
Episodes on demand have no start time, so the gap to the U.S. matters only for live television — Premium lists live CBS — and for anything Paramount+ announces for a U.S. hour. In most weeks the Dutch clock runs six hours ahead of New York’s and nine ahead of Los Angeles’s. In two short spells, when one side has changed its clocks and the other has not yet, the gaps are five and eight.
| In the U.S. | Amsterdam, normal weeks | Amsterdam, 25 Oct–1 Nov 2026 and 14–28 Mar 2027 |
|---|---|---|
| 13:00 Eastern (10:00 Pacific) | 19:00 | 18:00 |
| 16:00 Eastern (13:00 Pacific) | 22:00 | 21:00 |
| 19:00 Eastern | 01:00, next day | 00:00 |
| 21:00 Eastern | 03:00 | 02:00 |
| 21:00 Pacific | 06:00 | 05:00 |
| 00:00 Pacific (03:00 Eastern) | 09:00 | 08:00 |
Dutch clocks go back in the early hours of Sunday 25 October 2026; American clocks wait until Sunday 1 November. For that one week each U.S. hour reaches Amsterdam sixty minutes sooner than the middle column says.
In spring the U.S. moves first, on Sunday 14 March 2027, and the Netherlands follows on Sunday 28 March. For those two weeks New York is five hours behind Amsterdam and Los Angeles eight.
Premium includes CBS live, and live means American hours: a network show at 20:00 in New York lands at 02:00 in Amsterdam, or 01:00 during the short weeks.
An episode Paramount+ has already added does not care what time it is. Press play at breakfast or at midnight; the gap only bites when something is broadcast live.
At 20:00 in Rotterdam the East Coast is at 14:00 and the West Coast at 11:00, so live U.S. television during a Dutch evening is daytime programming.
SkyShowtime sets its own Dutch release days — Ziggo dates the Dutch start of Dexter: Resurrection to 12 September 2025 — so those need no converting at all.
Calculated in Python with the zoneinfo module and IANA tz release 2026c, for the zones America/New_York, America/Los_Angeles and Europe/Amsterdam.
Every connection reaches the internet with a public address, and websites use it as their first guide to where you are. Dutch providers hand out Dutch addresses whatever the technology: fibre and 5G make a line faster, not American.
| Type of line | Market shares (ACM, Q4 2025) | Address Paramount+ gets |
|---|---|---|
| Home broadband: fibre, cable, DSL | Broadband: KPN 35–40%, VodafoneZiggo 35–40%, Odido 10–15%, DELTA Fiber 5–10%, each other provider 0–5% | Dutch, over IPv4 — and over IPv6 too, where the line supports it |
| Phone on 4G or 5G | Mobile: KPN 25–30%, Odido 25–30%, VodafoneZiggo 20–25%, virtual operators 20–25% combined | Dutch, on the handset and on any laptop tethered to it |
| Wi-Fi at work, university or a hotel | The organisation that runs it | Dutch — and some of these networks refuse tunnel software outright |
| Hotspots on trains, in stations and cafés | The hotspot’s operator | Dutch, on a network shared with strangers, which is where the government-backed safety site recommends a VPN |
IPv6 deserves a second look. A laptop can hold an IPv6 address from your provider alongside its IPv4 one, and if the U.S. connection carries only part of the traffic, the rest can still announce a Dutch origin. Step one of the check below asks you to read both lines of an address checker for exactly this reason.
Your choice of provider does not otherwise matter here. A KPN line in Groningen and a Ziggo line in Maastricht look equally Dutch from the outside; once a U.S. connection takes over, the question becomes what Paramount+ makes of that connection, and that is up to Paramount+.
ACM, the Dutch telecoms regulator, gives market shares as ranges, not exact percentages. The ranges here come from its Telecommonitor covering October to December 2025, published on 31 March 2026, which we reopened on 9 October 2026. A later edition, for the first quarter of 2026, came out in July; we were unable to reopen it for this page, so we have not used it.
3-day free trial · 14-day money-back · Paramount+ subscription not included
Several kinds of tool will make an address checker say “United States”. They are not interchangeable: each hands Paramount+ a different kind of address, and that difference is the thing to understand before you choose.
| Option | Address Paramount+ is shown | Fair use of it | Keep in mind |
|---|---|---|---|
| Your Dutch connection | An address from KPN, VodafoneZiggo, Odido, DELTA or a mobile network | SkyShowtime and the other Dutch services | Paramount+ does not operate in the Netherlands |
| Free VPN apps | A single server address that a crowd of strangers is using too | Very little you can draw a conclusion from | Paramount+ alone decides what it does with such traffic |
| Data-centre VPN | An address from a server farm’s range, not from a home | Privacy on hotspots | It may place you in the U.S., yet it plainly is not a household |
| USip residential U.S. IP | An ordinary consumer address on a U.S. internet provider | A check on paramountplus.com you can actually read | Paramount+ may still turn it down |
One episode that keeps playing in a fresh private window answers the address question for that evening.
None of this is about the network, so switching server will not fix any of it.
3-day free trial · 14-day money-back · Paramount+ subscription not included
A laptop comes first, because it shows you the address and the player at the same time. The steps are ordered so that each rules out one cause; by the fourth, only one explanation is left.
Bring up USip in OpenVPN Connect on your Windows or Mac laptop and load an address-checking site. Look for an American provider on the IPv4 line. Look at the IPv6 line too, if there is one: should it still name KPN, VodafoneZiggo, Odido, DELTA or your phone network, the Dutch connection is still in play and needs sorting out before you go on.
Open a private window, which brings along nothing from browsing on your Dutch address, and go to paramountplus.com. Sign in with the Paramount+ account you already have, and keep other streaming sites shut for now.
In the SHOWTIME section, start any episode and leave it running for sixty seconds. Glance at the plan the account shows while you wait: Premium is described as carrying “all of SHOWTIME®”, and Essential’s small print says “Series may not include all episodes”.
Pictures that keep moving mean Paramount+ took the connection on this occasion. Words about your location, a VPN or a proxy mean it did not. Copy them exactly, reconnect USip and try a second time. If the same words return, send them to USip support instead of retrying a dozen times.
An episode that plays tonight says nothing certain about next month: Paramount+ can refuse any connection, USip’s included. USip keeps its own dated record on a separate page, USip’s published checks, which this guide neither quotes nor summarises.
3-day free trial · 14-day money-back · Paramount+ subscription not included
USip made the four videos below in September 2021, back when Showtime had an app and a website of its own. Follow them for the USip part, which has not changed. Ignore them for the Showtime part: today the programmes open inside Paramount+, either at paramountplus.com or in the Paramount+ app.
In OpenVPN Connect, add the USip profile and connect; check the address before you open anything else. Then visit paramountplus.com in a private window. The 2021 video opens the old Showtime service instead, and that service closed in April 2024.
Use your own computer rather than a work laptop with a company VPN of its own: with two tunnels running, nobody can say which one produced the result.
Step by step: the Windows setup guide.
Nothing about the USip steps in the Mac video has changed. Two Mac settings are worth a look before you trust a result: iCloud Private Relay, which sends Safari’s traffic through Apple’s own relays, so pause it; and IPv6, which your Ziggo, KPN or Odido line may hand out, so read that line on the checker too.
After that, sign in at paramountplus.com. The Showtime screens in the September 2021 recording belong to a service that has since closed.
Step by step: the Mac setup guide.
In the 2021 Android video, the phone’s Google Play country is switched so that the old Showtime app can be installed. Leave that step out. Google Play Help now says “To set up a new country or region, you must be in that location”, and once a country is set, you “must wait at least 90 days” before another change.
Everything to do with OpenVPN Connect still works the way the video shows. Exempt the app from battery saving so Android does not cut the connection halfway through an episode, and try paramountplus.com in Chrome first. Google Play is not something we could inspect store by store, so this page says nothing about the Dutch one.
Step by step: the Android setup guide.
The iPhone video was made for the Showtime app, which closed on 30 April 2024, and Apple’s App Store settings have changed since it was recorded. If you ever think about moving your account’s country, read Apple’s own conditions first (the link is in the sources): some things must be settled beforehand, and what is on offer can differ by country.
Neither Paramount+ app was in the Dutch App Store on 9 October 2026. Keep the connection steps from the video and open paramountplus.com in Safari.
Step by step: the iOS setup guide.
A TV, a streaming stick or a games console has nowhere to run OpenVPN Connect, so USip covers them with Smart DNS. The order is: tell USip your home’s public IP address; put USip’s DNS settings into the device, or into the router once for everything behind it; and if your provider ever gives your home a different public address, let USip know the new one.
We did not check whether Samsung or LG televisions, or KPN and Ziggo set-top boxes, offer the Paramount+ app in the Netherlands. The 2021 videos show the Showtime app, which no longer exists; on a television, the app to look for is Paramount+.
3-day free trial · 14-day money-back · Paramount+ subscription not included
REAL US HOME BROADBAND
Choose your billing period. US$0 due today.
MONTHLY BILLING
US$15.99US$9.99 / month
Billed monthly after your trial
Then US$9.99 every month
SIX-MONTH BILLING
US$6.50 / month
Monthly equivalent
Then US$39 every 6 months
LOWEST MONTHLY RATE
US$5.75 / month
Monthly equivalent
Then US$69 every year
Included in every plan
US$0 due today. Payment method required. After your trial, your selected plan renews automatically at the price and billing interval shown until canceled. Cancel before the trial ends to avoid the first charge.
All prices in USD. Streaming subscriptions sold separately. 14-day refund policy
One residential U.S. IP — an ordinary consumer address on a U.S. ISP, not a server range. USip and Paramount+ are separate services: the plans include the connection only — not a Paramount+ subscription, an app-store region or the rights to any title.
Separate services: these prices are for the USip residential U.S. IP service only. Showtime streams inside Paramount+, a separate service; a Paramount+ subscription and access to any particular series or film are not part of a USip plan.
Which apps a phone or television can install depends on the country attached to the account behind the store — Apple’s, Google’s or the TV maker’s — not on the address your connection shows. Here is what we established, and what we could not.
We searched Apple’s Dutch storefront for both Paramount+ apps. The U.S. app (id530168168) turned up only in the American store, and the international app (id1340650234) in the British, Irish and Australian stores, not in the Dutch one.
Apple publishes its own conditions for moving an Apple Account to another country or region, with things to settle beforehand and a warning that what is offered varies. It is an account-wide decision, not a setting for one app.
We had no way to inspect Google Play country by country, so this page makes no claim about the Dutch Play Store. Google’s switching rule is plain, though: be in the country first, and expect a wait of at least 90 days before any further switch.
A laptop browser involves no store and no account country at all. That is why the check above uses one, and why phones and televisions come afterwards.
Whether the Dutch Samsung or LG app stores carry Paramount+ is something we did not establish. Where a television has the app, USip connects it with Smart DNS, not OpenVPN Connect.
The Showtime app closed on 30 April 2024. There is nothing to search for under the Showtime name in any store; the U.S. catalogue opens through Paramount+.
3-day free trial · 14-day money-back · Paramount+ subscription not included
It is a fair question whether a VPN is allowed in the Netherlands. Below is what our reading turned up, what it did not, and where this guide stops.
Veiliginternetten.nl, an initiative of the Dutch economic affairs ministry, the National Cyber Security Centre and ECP, calls a VPN “een versleutelde, veilige verbinding”, an encrypted, secure connection, and recommends one on public Wi-Fi and for working away from the office.
We have not found a Dutch law that bans VPN software as such. What you then reach or share over any connection falls under other rules, which this guide does not cover and which can change.
We are not lawyers, so read this as general information rather than legal advice. When a real decision depends on it — your employer’s network policy, your university’s rules, a contract you have signed — a qualified Dutch adviser is the person to ask, not a page about streaming.
Dutch law is one thing; Paramount+’s own decisions are another. Paramount+ chooses which connections to accept and may refuse any of them, USip’s included. What USip supplies is an address, never anyone’s consent.
3-day free trial · 14-day money-back · Paramount+ subscription not included
Every answer draws on Paramount’s pages, SkyShowtime’s and Ziggo’s Dutch pages, the regulator ACM and the government-backed Veiliginternetten.nl, read on 9 October 2026 unless we give another date.
Not as a service of its own. Showtime’s streaming service closed on 30 April 2024, and SHOWTIME Help says “SHOWTIME programming is now available through Paramount+”. Paramount+ does not list the Netherlands among its regions (read 9 October 2026). Some Showtime-made series do stream here on SkyShowtime, whose Dutch page for Dexter: Resurrection names Showtime as the studio. The full U.S. catalogue is on Paramount+, which does not operate here.
No. On 9 October 2026 the “Paramount+ Regions” page listed 28 countries, Germany, France, the UK and Ireland among them, but not the Netherlands. The same day, neither the U.S. Paramount+ app nor the international one was in the Dutch App Store. SkyShowtime’s Dutch pages name Paramount+ as the studio behind some series, such as The Agency, but that is SkyShowtime’s catalogue, not a Paramount+ service.
On SkyShowtime. Its Dutch page names Showtime as the studio and lists the ten episodes of season one, and Ziggo’s page says the series streams exclusively on SkyShowtime, from 12 September 2025. Season two is shown as coming; FilmVandaag reported on 2 October 2026 that its first episode arrives on 31 October. In the U.S., Paramount+’s Showtime page lists “Dexter®: Resurrection”.
No decision had been announced when we checked on 9 October 2026. On 14 September 2026 SkyShowtime’s board wrote that its shareholders were “commencing a review of strategic options for the business, which includes the possibility of a wind down”, and that “no decisions have been made”, as The Desk reported. The Desk added that the service would keep operating normally during the review. We make no forecast beyond that.
It closed. SHOWTIME Help says “The SHOWTIME streaming service is being discontinued”, and that people who subscribed directly kept access “until they are discontinued on April 30, 2024”. Since then Showtime has been part of Paramount+. USip’s setup videos were recorded in September 2021, while the app still existed, so on any device today you open paramountplus.com or the Paramount+ app instead.
Premium, in full: the U.S. plan page describes it as “Watch hit originals, movies and all of SHOWTIME® ad free”. Paramount+ Essential lists “Access SHOWTIME® Originals”, with the footnote “Series may not include all episodes”. The plan once called Paramount+ with Showtime was renamed Paramount+ Premium on 23 June 2025, so older articles using that name are describing today’s Premium.
No. USip provides one residential U.S. IP address, an ordinary household connection on an American internet provider, plus OpenVPN Connect profiles or Smart DNS settings for your devices. Your Paramount+ account, your plan and the rights to every series sit with Paramount+, which accepts or refuses connections as it sees fit, USip’s included.
Only through Paramount+, and leave the television until last. TVs, sticks and consoles have no place for OpenVPN Connect, so USip connects them with Smart DNS: you give USip your home’s public IP address and enter its DNS details on the set, or on the router once. We have not checked whether the Dutch Samsung or LG stores carry Paramount+, so prove things on a laptop first.
Our search turned up no Dutch law banning VPN software itself. The government-backed Veiliginternetten.nl, set up by the economic affairs ministry, the National Cyber Security Centre and ECP, describes a VPN as an encrypted, secure connection and recommends one on public Wi-Fi. Other rules govern what you reach or share online. We are not lawyers; if your own case depends on it, ask a qualified Dutch adviser.
Deep in the night. A show at 20:00 in New York reaches Amsterdam at 02:00 in most weeks, and 20:00 in Los Angeles is 05:00 Dutch time. In the week of 25 October to 1 November 2026, and again between 14 and 28 March 2027, take off another hour. Showtime episodes already on Paramount+ have no start time, so they play whenever you like.
Not to the country a website sees: all of them give you Dutch addresses, and Dutch is what a website sees until a U.S. connection takes over. By ACM’s count for late 2025, KPN and VodafoneZiggo each have 35–40% of broadband. The one detail that can trip you up is IPv6: with USip connected, the IPv6 line on an address checker should not name a Dutch provider.
Not as of 9 October 2026: neither the U.S. nor the international Paramount+ app had a Dutch App Store listing. Google Play we could not inspect store by store, so it gets no claim from us either way. Stores go by the country on your account, and changing it is subject to Apple’s and Google’s own conditions, which is why our check uses a browser instead.
It means Paramount+ has not accepted the connection it is seeing. Look at both address lines first: a Dutch IPv6 address sitting next to the U.S. IPv4 one is one possible cause. Then copy the message exactly, reconnect USip and make one more attempt. If the message repeats, send its wording to USip support; a tenth attempt teaches nothing the second did not.
3-day free trial · 14-day money-back · Paramount+ subscription not included
The Showtime hub explains Showtime’s move into Paramount+ for every country at once. For a Dutch reader, Norway, Denmark and Sweden are the closest comparisons — three more SkyShowtime markets on the same clock — while Belgium, next door, has neither SkyShowtime nor Paramount+.
Each page below was read on 9 October 2026. Streaming services and Dutch providers update their pages often, which is why the facts above carry dates.
If the Dexter series is what you are after, SkyShowtime already carries it in the Netherlands, with Showtime named as the studio, and it needs nothing from us. Keep an eye on its owners’ review, which was still open when we read The Desk’s report.
If you want the U.S. Showtime catalogue on Paramount+, give it ten minutes on one laptop: connect USip, read both address lines, open paramountplus.com in a private window and play one episode for a minute. If a message about your location, a VPN or a proxy appears, note it word for word, retry once, then send it to USip support.
USip supplies the residential U.S. IP connection only. Paramount+ accounts, plans and catalogues are Paramount+’s, and Paramount+ can refuse any connection, USip’s included.