Dutch residents spend less of their income on housing despite rising prices
By Simone Jacobs
New figures from Statistics Netherlands (CBS) have shown that people living in the Netherlands spend a smaller percentage of their income on housing costs than they did five years ago. Incomes rising faster than fixed costs is cited as the reason for this.
Dutch housing costs use smaller portion of income
In the CBS report, the organisation looked at the median housing ratio, which is the total housing costs as a percentage of household income. Both homeowners and tenants in the Netherlands saw a lower median housing ratio in 2023 than they did in 2018, which means they did not have to use as large a portion of their salary to pay their housing bills.
Households that saw the biggest drop in the median housing ratio were those in rental properties owned by housing corporations. Tenants in these homes were using 31 percent of their incomes to pay for housing in 2018; this decreased to 25,4 percent in 2023.
Growing incomes outpace rising housing prices in the Netherlands
There’s no denying that housing prices in the Netherlands are continuing to rise, as CBS confirms that the total monthly costs spent on housing were higher in 2023 than in 2018. Residents staying in private sector rental housing saw the largest price increase at 23 percent, while tenants in housing corporations (11 percent) and homeowners (6 percent) saw smaller increases.
Despite this rise, Dutch residents still had more of their salary left over after paying for housing, as average incomes saw strong increases from 2018 to 2023. The average income of private sector tenants went up by 33 percent. Housing corporation tenants saw a 25 percent rise and homeowners 27 percent.
Salaries in the Netherlands increase faster than fixed costs
Research by the Netherlands Bureau for Economic Policy Analysis (CPB) revealed that housing costs aren’t the only expenses that are rising at a slower rate than salaries in the Netherlands. The part of income spent on fixed and necessary expenses, or the burden ratio, dropped from 50 percent in 2019 to 46 percent in 2023, reports NOS.
Mainly due to higher prices for energy and groceries, people in the Netherlands spent an average of 21.000 euros on fixed costs in 2019 and over 23.000 euros in 2023. However, the average disposable income went up to 55.000 euros - 10.000 euros more than four years earlier.
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Editor for the Netherlands at IamExpat Media. Simone studied Genetics and Zoology at the University of Pretoria in South Africa before moving to the Netherlands, where she has been working as a writer and editor since 2022. One thing she loves more than creating content is consuming it, mainly by reading books by the dozen. Other than being a book dragon, she is also a nature lover and enjoys hiking and animal training. Read more