New tenants in the Netherlands paid an average of €1,914 per month for a rental home between July and September, despite listings getting fewer responses and staying online for longer.
This is based on the most recent rental report by housing platforms Pararius and Huurwoningen, which analyses trends in the unregulated housing sector.
Let’s break it down.
Homes are staying on the market longer
A private rental home received an average of 23 responses during the last quarter, down from 40 just a year earlier. According to Pararius, that’s the fewest responses since the second quarter of 2021.
And that lack of interest affects how long homes stay on the market, with listings staying online for 21 days on average. Rental homes above €2,000 a month were online for nearly a month, at 27 days.
Meanwhile, rental homes averaging €1,500 a month were snatched up in roughly 15 days.
The research team crunched the numbers, and they tell a pretty lopsided story:
- Rental homes up to €1,500 were the rarest group (at 20.1% of the properties on offer), but received 32.2% of all responses.
- Homes in the €1,500 to €2,000 range were 36% of the properties on offer and received 40.5% of all responses — making it the most popular range for prospective renters.
- Homes above €2,000 were the most common (at 43.9% of all properties on offer), but received just 24.4% of all responses.
Renters now need to earn €5,742 a month to qualify
In the Netherlands, landlords typically request a gross monthly income of at least three times the rent.
With an average rental price of €1,914 per month, your required gross monthly income now hits a whopping €5,742 — €135 higher than last year.
Which cities and provinces are the most expensive?
As the supply of Dutch rental properties has shifted to smaller homes, the average rent per square metre has also risen by 4.4%.
Amsterdam leads the pack as the most expensive city for rental homes at €28.56 per square metre, followed by Amstelveen (€24.72) and Haarlem (€24.34).
The strongest increases, meanwhile, were recorded in Nijmegen (18%) and Hoofddorp (13.4%). Within the Randstad, Rotterdam (5.0% to €22.92) and The Hague (+4.8% to €22.95) had the strongest increases in rent per square metre.
Did the rent per square metre fall in any city? Yes, Lelystad (-12%) and Dordrecht (-10.5%) both saw a decline in rent per square metre, but Pararius cautions that these are “smaller rental markets, where a limited number of transactions can make the average fluctuate more strongly”.
Province-wise, North Holland remains the most expensive at €25.44 per square metre, with South Holland (€21.58) and Utrecht (€20.86) trailing closely behind. The cheapest provinces, meanwhile, are Drenthe (€13.16) and Friesland (€13.60) — the only two with a rent per square metre below €15.
Landlords are selling off their priciest rentals
When a tenant moves out, some landlords sell the home instead of renting it out again. Pararius tracks this using sales data from the Kadaster (the Dutch Land Registry). In July and August, 5.4% of all homes sold in the Netherlands used to be rentals, slightly fewer than a year ago.
The big change is the type of home being sold. A year ago, landlords were mostly selling cheaper rentals. Now, almost a third (32.7%) of the rentals they sell cost more than €2,000 a month, up from 21.3% last year.
That’s surprising, because those homes aren’t affected by the Affordable Rent Act (Wet betaalbare huur). Since July 1, 2024, the law has capped rents for middle-segment homes, but landlords can still charge whatever they like for homes above €1,228.07 a month.
So why sell? Pararius blames Box 3, a tax every private landlord pays on rental property, which has gone up since 2024.
“The Affordable Rent Act was supposed to deliver more affordable rental homes, but it is achieving the opposite,” says Pararius CEO Jasper de Groot. He fears the higher tax means renting out expensive homes no longer pays off for many landlords either.
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