Guides
What to know before you apply
Not a course in tenancy law. Only what actually matters when you are looking in the free sector, with the amounts that apply right now.
Points, not marketing
Not everything called “free sector” actually is
A property's points score decides which segment it falls in, not the label at the top of the advert. From 187 points a landlord may ask whatever they like. Below that there is a legal maximum.
Challenging it afterwards
Six months to claim your rent back
For up to six months after the tenancy starts you can have the opening rent reviewed by the Huurcommissie, the national rent tribunal. If the rent is above the maximum for the points score, it comes down. So you are allowed to sign first.
Good Landlordship Act
What a landlord may not charge you
A deposit of at most two months' basic rent, no agency fees when the agent works for the landlord, and a contract in writing. If it goes wrong, the council is where you report it.
Preparation
Have your paperwork ready before the alert arrives
The free sector runs in order of arrival. The best tenant does not win; the first complete one does. If you are still hunting for payslips when the alert arrives, you are too late.
Market practice
The 3× rent income rule is not a law
Almost every free-sector landlord demands three to four times the basic monthly rent in gross income. That appears nowhere in the law. It is policy, and policy has exceptions.
Timing
Why the place is always already gone
The average free-sector listing stays open for less time than most people think. Look once a day and you are systematically seeing the wrong half of the market.
Notice period
You can always give notice, in writing and on time
A tenant does not have to give a reason for ending a tenancy. What you do have to do: give notice in writing, keep to the right period (usually one month with monthly rent) and record the state of the place while you still live there.
Upfront costs
What the first month really costs
The deposit, the first month's rent and the move all land in the same week. Key money, contract fees and the landlord's agency fees do not belong on that list: those are not costs, they are offences.
Deposit
Getting your deposit back is a matter of evidence
At most two months' basic rent, returned within fourteen days of the tenancy ending, and only deductions that are substantiated. Whoever took photos at the handover wins the argument that starts two months later.
Service charges
The service charge statement nobody checks
You pay an advance every month and see the actual costs once a year. The law says: within six months of the end of the calendar year, itemised, with access to the underlying paperwork.
Fixed Tenancy Act
Temporary tenancies are now the exception
Since 1 July 2024 an open-ended tenancy is the default. Temporary is still allowed in a short list of cases. If your contract nonetheless says “twelve months” at the top, that is worth checking.
Indexation
What your landlord may add to your rent
In the free sector the rent may only go up if the contract provides for it, at most once every twelve months and by no more than that year's legal maximum. That maximum is a different thing from the indexation of the rent thresholds.
Repairs
Report a defect in writing, then wait six weeks
A leak, mould, a boiler that will not run: the landlord has to fix it. The route is fixed: report it in writing, allow six weeks, then the Huurcommissie. Withholding the rent yourself is the mistake that costs you most.
Energy label
The energy label counts twice
The label feeds into the points score, and so into the segment your home falls in. It also decides your energy bill. With an older place and no valid label, that is news twice over, and worth asking about.
Rotterdam
Comparing Rotterdam neighbourhoods as a tenant
Free-sector supply in Rotterdam sits in a handful of areas. What sets the neighbourhoods apart is not the mood of the advert but the build year, the commute, the parking permit and whether a housing permit is required.
Waiting time
Register with the housing associations, even if you are looking in the free sector
Registered waiting time is the only thing in this market that grows on its own. It costs at most a small amount a year, the clock keeps running while you rent in the free sector, and in five years it is the difference.
Preparation
Preparation is two things and only one of them is a race
The first decides whether you stand a chance: in most regions social housing is allocated by how long you have been registered, and that clock only starts once you register. The second decides how fast you are when the alert comes in.
The moment
The half minute after the heads-up
This is about the moment itself, because that is where most time goes: not in the file but in looking for the file. Six actions, each with the reason. What is not among them: a trick to get ahead of others. We do not have one, and neither does anyone else.
The letter
What we do not ask
What a landlord may truly know is small: can you carry the rent, did you cause no nuisance, and was there ever an eviction. Everything else is curiosity.
After a rejection
Four reasons, one of which is yours
They are in order of how often they occur, as far as we can see. With three of the four there is nothing to improve, and that is not a consolation prize but the point: then it is not yours to blame yourself for either.
At the viewing
Seven reasons to walk away
This one you can have, and that makes it harder rather than easier. After a rejection the pull to say yes to the first place that will have you is strongest, and that is exactly where it goes wrong.
After the keys
Two you choose, two you only report
Four things to arrange within two weeks, two of which you actually get to choose. That distinction is the first thing you want to know, and for two of the four it saves you an afternoon of searching.
The first two weeks
Seven things with a deadline
Seven things, and four of them you cannot catch up on. The other three you can still arrange a week later at no cost.
Amounts and points thresholds: Volkshuisvesting Nederland and the Huurcommissie, as they stand on 1 January 2026. They expire every year; we update them as soon as the new thresholds are published.