General elections were held in the Netherlands on 30 November and 4 December 1848.^[1] Held immediately after the Constitutional Reform of 1848, they were the first direct elections to the House of Representatives, and were the first to elect a States General to which government ministers would be responsible.^[2] Voting was restricted to men over the age of 23, and who paid a certain level of taxation.^[3] This limited the franchise to 55,728 people,^[4] roughly 11% of the male population over 23, or 2.5% of the total population of the country.^[3] Candidates were elected in districts in a two-round system; if no candidate received over 50% of the vote in the first round, the top two candidates would face a run-off.^[3] The districts had one MP for every 45,000 inhabitants.^[3]

As there were no official political parties until 1879,^[5] all candidates were nominally independents.