“Huurtoeslag” is a subsidy paid by the Dutch Tax Office (“Belastingdienst”) to help cover (part of) the cost of renting a flat, for people with a lower income.
The “huurtoeslag” allowance applies to renting an entire apartment, not just one room, for example. To apply for this allowance, you must be at least 18 years old, legally resident in the Netherlands and registered with a local authority. You do not have to be Dutch citizen, and citizens of other EU countries legally resident in the Netherlands can also receive this support.
The condition for obtaining the allowance is to have a lease agreement signed by the property owner and to regularly pay for the rented apartment.
To be eligible for this benefit, your monthly rent cannot exceed a certain amount set by the government each year. In 2024, this “rental allowance limit” (“huurgrens”) is €879.66 per month for people aged 23 and over. For younger people (18-22), it is €454.47.
This is about the total fee, i.e. the fee for renting itself plus the so-called “service costs” (e.g. fees for heating, cleaning and renovation of the common parts of the building, elevator maintenance, administrative costs, etc.).
The allowance is mainly available to people renting cheaper social housing (“sociale huurwoning”), which is usually owned by housing cooperatives (corporations) (“woningcorporations”). To get social housing, you have to meet certain conditions. More on this topic:
Social housing in the Netherlands. How to get it?
A person applying for the “huurtoeslag” cannot have too much wealth. In 2024, only people with assets of less than 36,952 euros are entitled to the “huurtoeslag”, and in the case of a couple, the total assets cannot exceed 73,904 euros.
Whether a person is entitled to this allowance and its amount depend not only on age, assets and rental costs, but also on the person’s income (and the income of any co-tenants).
Until 2019, the government set a rigid income limit: anyone who earned less than this amount and met the other conditions could apply for “huurtoeslag”. In 2019, the income limit was €22,700 gross per year for a person living alone and €30,825 gross per year for the joint income of tenants (e.g. a couple).
Since 2020, there is no longer such a single, rigid limit for everyone. In each case, it is calculated individually and depends on a number of factors: the amount of the rent, age and how many people live at a given address. The highest allowance will be given to people with low incomes living in a relatively expensive apartment. People with high incomes in a cheap apartment are unlikely to be entitled to “huurtoeslag”.
On the website of the Dutch Tax Office, you can use a special “bonus calculator”. After entering the appropriate data (earnings and rent, age, number of household members, etc.), the taxpayer will find out whether they are entitled to this bonus, and if so, how much. The calculator can be found: HERE .
For example, a 40-year-old person living alone with an annual income of 30,000 euros gross, renting an apartment for 750 euros per month (kale huur) plus 50 euros (servicekosten) can count on 217 euros “huurtoeslag” per month in 2024. In turn, a 30-year-old couple with a combined annual income of 42,000 euros gross and renting an apartment for 850 euros “kale huur” plus 38 euros serciekosten should receive 115 euros “huurtoeslag” per month.
The supplement is not automatically received, you have to apply for it. It is paid, like several other supplements, by the Belastingdienst Tax Office. It is on this office’s website, dedicated to supplements (“Mijn Toeslagen”, www.mijntoeslagen.nl ) that you can apply online for “huurtoeslag”. To log in to www.mijntoeslagen.nl , you need a DigiD login and password .
The office should consider the application within five weeks of its submission.
If your income changes, you should report this to the Tax Office as soon as possible, as this affects the amount of the allowance. It often happens that after the end of the year and the tax settlement, the income turns out to be different than expected and the person has to return part of the allowance or gets an additional “huurtoeslag”.
If someone forgot to apply for this supplement, all is not lost. You can apply for it until the end of August of the following year. You can therefore apply for the supplement for 2023 until the end of August 2024. You can therefore apply for the supplement for 2024 until the end of August 2025.