Dutch rental housing: What the new CBS figures actually show

A new study by Statistics Netherlands (CBS) found that 21 percent of starter households moving into housing association rentals in 2024 included someone with an asylum residence permit. Across all new households moving into these rentals, the share was 8 percent.

Who moved into these rental homes?

The CBS study covering 2018 to 2024 examines who moved into rental homes owned by housing associations, most of which are social housing. In 2024, new households moved into around 162.000 of these homes. Around 13.000 included someone with an asylum residence permit, known as a status holder (statushouder).

A household with a status holder can be someone living alone or several people living together. Only one member needs to hold an asylum residence permit for the household to count in this category. Other members may be Dutch citizens or other residents.

Of the 162.000 homes, around 42.000 went to “starter households”. Every member must meet CBS’s definition: someone leaving their parents’ household, moving out of institutional accommodation such as asylum reception or becoming a registered resident of the Netherlands during the year. Around 8.800 of these households, or 21 percent, included a status holder. These are part of the overall count of around 13.000, not an additional group.

Share among starter households has risen since 2018

The proportion of starter households with a status holder rose from 9 percent in 2018 to 21 percent in 2024. Their number increased from around 3.500 to around 8.800. The share rose both because more starter households included a status holder and because fewer households without one moved into these rentals: their number fell from around 35.000 to around 32.900.

The share increased more slowly in 2024, from 20 percent in 2023 to 21 percent. Across all new households moving into the rentals covered by the study, the proportion with a status holder was around 8 percent in both 2023 and 2024.

Households with a status holder were not all moving directly from asylum reception. The figures also include households whose members had held asylum residence permits for more than a year and were already living outside reception at the beginning of 2024. People who had become Dutch citizens by year-end are not counted as status holders.

What the research measures

CBS used administrative records to compare the registered occupants of housing association homes at the beginning and end of 2024. The analysis counts homes occupied by a single new household at year-end, with none of the previous residents remaining. It also includes newly built homes and homes created through conversions.

The figures exclude homes shared by multiple households and homes where an existing resident stayed on when someone else moved in. This includes, for example, someone moving in with a partner who already lived there.

The figures show who moved into these homes. They do not establish whether households received priority, how long applicants waited or how allocating homes to status holders affected other applicants’ waiting times.