There is a long tradition of defining standard Dutch pronunciation as accentless. In a series of experiments it is investigated how listeners’ regional background influences the identification and evaluation of regional accent variation. It is shown that people from the Netherlands are successful in recognizing the regional background of speakers of standard Dutch. The standard is clearly based in the Randstad area. Although speakers are recognised as being from the Randstad, their speech is characterised as non-regional and standard. However, the evaluation of standard Dutch is not as homogeneous as in other studies. In comparison with people from other regions in the Netherlands, those from the South are less positive about Randstad speech and have more positive evaluations of the Southern accent.