The Council of State (Dutch: Raad van State^ⓘ) is a constitutionally established advisory body in the Netherlands to the government and States General that officially consists of members of the royal family and Crown-appointed members generally having political, commercial, diplomatic or military experience. It was founded in 1531, making it one of the world's oldest still-functioning state organisations.

The Advisory Division of the Council of State must be consulted by the cabinet on proposed legislation before a law is submitted to parliament. The Administrative Jurisdiction Division of the Council of State also serves as one of the four highest courts of appeal in administrative matters. The King is president of the Council of State but he seldom chairs meetings. The Vice-President of the Council of State chairs meetings in his absence and is the de facto major personality of the institution. Under Dutch constitutional law, the Vice-President of the Council is acting head of state when there is no monarch such as if the royal family were to become extinct.

Charles V, Holy Roman Emperor, founded a Council of State on 1 October 1531 as one of three Collateral Councils (the other two were the Privy Council or Secret Council and the Council of Finances) to advise his sister Mary of Hungary, his regent in the Habsburg Netherlands, and her successors, on "the great and principal affairs and those which concern the state, conduct and government of the lands, security and defense of the said lands here". Members of the council were the great nobles of the realm and a few of the great prelates.

After the accession of Philip II of Spain to the throne and his departure to Spain in 1559 the Council became the forum for the strife between the Spanish representatives in the Council, led by Antoine Perrenot de Granvelle, and the Netherlandish grandees like the Prince of Orange and the Counts of Horne and Egmont. The latter faction felt themselves pushed aside and resigned in 1567, leaving the field to a Spanish-dominated Council at the start of the Dutch Revolt. After the death of Luis de Requesens y Zúñiga, then governor-general of the Habsburg Netherlands, in 1576, the Council of State temporarily assumed his authority as representative of king Philip, awaiting the arrival of the new governor-general, Don Juan. Before he could arrive, the members of the Council were arrested in a coup by the Brussels garrison. Soon afterwards the Pacification of Ghent was concluded, pitting the States-General of the Netherlands against the Spanish crown, represented by Don Juan. When the latter retreated to Namur in early 1577, the Council of State split into two rumps, one joining Don Juan (and forming the nucleus of what would become the Council of State of the Spanish Netherlands and later the Austrian Netherlands), the other remaining close to the rebellious States-General. These members were discharged by King Philip in 1578, formally ending the Council as a Habsburg institution in what was to become the Dutch Republic.

When the Duke of Anjou came to be temporarily recognized as the new sovereign of the rebellious provinces in 1581, a new Council of State was appointed to advise him and to perform certain executive duties, pertaining to defense and finances. This Council soon split in two regional councils, one for the area West of the river Meuse, the other for the area East of that river. The first, residing in Antwerp where the States-General also convened, played the main role up to the departure of the Duke. After his departure the (again unified) Council followed the States-General to Middelburg, Delft, and The Hague.

After the assassination of the Prince of Orange in 1584 the Council was given new executive powers and temporarily assumed full executive authority in the place of the Prince. The States-General meanwhile took the lead in the search for another protecting sovereign. This resulted in the Treaty of Nonsuch of 1585 with Elizabeth I of England that explicitly assumed a leading role of the Council in the evolving constitution of the provinces of the Union of Utrecht. Article XIV of the treaty authorised Elizabeth to appoint two English representatives on the Council, besides the Governor-General, who would preside the council.

The next articles gave far-reaching authority to the Governor-General, acting with the council, in matters of defense, finance and government. For instance, the Stadtholders of the provinces would henceforth be appointed by the Governor-General and the Council (art. XXIV), though the States of Holland and West Friesland preempted this by appointing Maurice, Prince of Orange stadtholder before the Earl of Leicester, who would accept the Governor-Generalship, conferred on him by the States-General against the wish of Elizabeth, arrived in the Netherlands. This was the first instance of the way the mighty province of Holland frustrated the policies of Leicester. His attempt to found a new Council of Finances (the old one had been dissolved in 1580), which was supposed to take a number of the financial powers of the Council of State, was quietly thwarted.

On the instigation of the Land's Advocate of Holland, Johan van Oldenbarnevelt, who was a member of the Council, more and more executive tasks of the Council were taken over by the States-General, to dilute English influence on the Dutch affairs of state. These tasks and this influence of the Council did not return after Leicester had left the Netherlands at the end of 1587.