Room prices in Utrecht did not rise last year

When looking for a room, many students end up renting something from a private landlord, but landlords are not created equal. Some are shrewd slumlords looking to squeeze every last penny out of their tenants, while others are more idealistic and only ask for a modest price.

Expensive
Room rents on the private market have risen quite rapidly in recent years, but only increased by 0.5 per cent last year, according to rental website Kamernet.

Amsterdam remains by far the most expensive university city in the Netherlands: private landlords there charge 945 euros per month on average. That is 5 per cent more than last year. Students there pay 70 euros per square metre. Other cities do not come close to these prices, although rents are still painful for students' wallets. Students in The Hague and Haarlem pay on average 750 euros per month, while those in Rotterdam and Utrecht pay around 700 euros.

Cheap
Students live more cheaply in Wageningen (395 euros) and Enschede (351 euros). In Enschede, they also get more space for their money, as they pay less than 23 euros per square metre.

In two cities, it's actually become cheaper to rent a room. Eindhoven stands out from the rest with a decrease of 7.4 percent. The other outlier is Breda, with a decrease of 2.7 per cent. In Utrecht and Enschede, the situation has stayed the same.

Nationwide, the supply of private rooms has decreased slightly: 1.9 per cent less than in April, May and June 2024. This also varies considerably from city to city. In Haarlem, the supply fell by a third, while in Amsterdam and Breda it fell by a quarter. Wageningen, Maastricht and Tilburg, on the other hand, saw the supply increase by about 25 percent.

Living away from home
More than half of higher education students (over 400,000 students) in the Netherlands leave their parents' home during their studies. About 43 per cent of these students end up renting from a private landlord, while the rest find their accommodation through housing associations such as SSH.

The problems in the housing market sometimes lead to distressing situations, such as desperate students being scammed. They pay thousands of euros in deposit for a room that does not exist. But the sharp rise in prices is also a consequence of the housing shortage: landlords seem to think that for every person looking for a room, there are ten others.

Attempts by politicians to curb rents are meeting with practical objections. Where, for example, will housing associations get the money to build new homes? Such rules may also lead private landlords to sell their properties rather than rent them out to students.

Many students are not quick to assert their rights, even though they have more options than they think. Last spring, an international student won a court case because his 10 square-metre furnished room should not have cost 1,500 euros per month. According to the judge, the student should only have paid 212 euros per month for such a room.

Source: Kamernet report on the second quarter of 2025.