Dutch social housing and housing benefit

There are two markets for rental properties in the Netherlands: the private rental market and the social housing market.

Private rentals

In the private market, properties are usually rented out by private persons and commercial companies.

The rent usually excludes user’s costs, i.e. utilities, municipal levies for rubbish collection, garden maintenance and other extra costs.

Property listings in the Netherlands always mention the number of kamers (rooms), which includes the living room and the bedrooms. For example, a driekamerwoning (three-room house) is a two-bedroom house.

There are three types of rental homes: ongemeubileerd (unfurnished), gestoffeerd (partly furnished) and gemeubileerd (fully furnished).

Social housing

Please note that conditions may change from one year to another but here you have the main ones:

• There is a maximum gross income a year that you can have
• Sociale-huurwoning refers to houses with a lower rent than private housing.
• You need to register at a housing corporation

If you meet the requirements, you can apply for a huurtoeslag (housing benefit) from the Dutch government. The main aim of the benefit is to enable people with a low income to afford a place to live. In order to qualify for the benefit, you:

• must be over 18 years of age
• your rent, joint income and capital (yours and any person registered at the same address) must meet certain criteria (they should not be too high). In 2021 the maximum annual income is 40,024 euros.
• must be living in a rented property and pay maximum of 752.33 euros (in 2021) – Including servicekosten (service costs).
• must be the tenant of an independent property (e.g. an apartment)
• must be registered in the gemeente (municipality) as a tenant of this particular property