Average Dutch rent costs over 1.800 euros as affordable housing dwindles

Research by housing platforms Pararius and Huurwoningen.nl have revealed that the private rental market in the Netherlands is still tight as the number of affordable homes declines. The average monthly rent rose above 1.800 euros.

Fewer rental homes available in the Netherlands

In the fourth quarter of 2025, 14.698 homes were available in the private rental sector, while 15.188 were taken off the rental market. This means that the Dutch rental housing supply saw a further decrease.

"As long as more properties are being rented than are being created, this is bad news for home seekers,” Pararius director Jasper de Groot said in the report. “What does become available is often too expensive and quickly disappears from the market. The market is effectively becoming increasingly locked up."

Not only are there fewer homes available to rent in the Netherlands, but the number of affordable rental houses is also decreasing. Properties with a monthly rent below 1.500 euros only made up 26 percent of the available homes, while this category received 40 percent of all rental applications - this shows that demand is significantly higher than the supply.

Properties with rents between 1.500 and 2.000 euros were less skewed, but on the other end of the spectrum, there was a spike in the number of homes available with rents above 2.000 euros. 40 percent of all rental homes were in this price range, while receiving only 21 percent of all applications.

Dutch tenants need income of over 5.500 euros to afford average rent

The average rent for Q4 of 2025 was 1.838 euros per month, 6,5 percent higher than a year earlier. With private sector landlords often requiring tenants to earn three times the rent, this means homeseekers need a gross monthly income of around 5.515 euros to afford the average rental home.

“This income level makes a large part of the private sector difficult to access for many home seekers,” states the report. “Tenants with a modal income often do not meet this income requirement on their own. At the same time, the number of available rental properties remains limited, and a large portion of the supply is shifting to higher price ranges.”

The Netherlands has seen a shift from a rental market to a purchase market in the past several months. More landlords are selling their rental homes, particularly in the more affordable category, due to new rent regulations such as the Affordable Rent Act. 

Amsterdam remains most expensive Dutch city for renting

All of the Netherlands’ major cities saw rents increase in the last three months of the year, but Amsterdam remains the most expensive at 28,68 euros per square metre - up 9,1 percent compared to the same period the year before. Rotterdam (22,35 euros) and Eindhoven (19,72 euros) also saw significant rent increases, rising by 11,2 and 13,8 percent respectively.

The Hague (21,52 euros) and Utrecht (21,95 euros) saw more moderate increases, rising by 5 and 4,8 percent respectively. The cities that saw the largest increase per square metre were Rijswijk (23,4 percent), Hoorn (20,4 percent), Tilburg (20,1 percent), Leiden (17,3 percent) and Roermond (17,3 percent).