Check a rental listing before you pay

The short answer

Before you send money for a rental in the Netherlands, check these points. This is what the rule pack says about each of them.

• For contracts concluded from 1 July 2023 the deposit may be at most two months of base rent (rent without service costs).
• Agents who work for the landlord cannot charge you agency fees, whoever pays them in the end. Fees may be disguised as administration, registration or contract costs.
• Since 1 July 2024 most new rental contracts must be for an indefinite period. A fixed end date is allowed only in specific situations, such as students renting temporarily for their studies.
• Temporary contracts for the listed groups run for at most two years and must have an end date. Other legal bases can differ.

Your listing

Signs of a rental scam

• There are scammers who offer rooms and homes online and on social media. They ask for a deposit, agency costs or a few months' rent. After you have paid, you hear nothing more. The Fraudehelpdesk says: pay nothing before you have checked a few things, such as whether the landlord is reliable and whether the home matches what is offered.
• The Fraudehelpdesk describes rental fraud like this: a home is offered, and before a viewing can take place the deposit and sometimes several months' rent have to be paid. In the end the home does not exist, or the address and the photos of a home that belongs to someone else are misused.
• Another sign of fraud is that you have to send the money for the rent, the deposit or the agency costs to a foreign bank account.
• Another sign is that you can only communicate online with the landlord, because the landlord is abroad and you cannot see the home first. This is not always the case: sometimes you can see the home and it is still fraud. If there is no way at all to see the home beforehand, the Fraudehelpdesk says not to go ahead with this landlord.
• Scammers sometimes rent a home for a week or a weekend, or borrow one from a friend or relative, to show it. After the viewing you are asked to sign a rental contract at once and to pay an advance or a deposit.
• A rent that is low for the size and the place of the home is also a sign of fraud. This page does not compare a rent with a market price.
• You can check reviews about the landlord by searching for the name, the website or the place of the home together with the word klacht, review or oplichting. You can check the address on Google Street View, and check with a reverse image search whether the photos appear on other websites.

Before you rely on this

This page reads the points of a listing and compares them with the rule pack. It does not know the home, the landlord or the rest of your situation, and it never says that an offer is genuine. It is not legal advice.

Official sources

The statements on this page come from these pages, which we last checked on 5 October 2026.

• Rijksoverheid: woning huren waarborgsom (checked 5 October 2026)
• Volkshuisvesting Nederland: waarborgsom (checked 5 October 2026)
• Rijksoverheid: moet ik bemiddelingskosten betalen voor een kamer of huurwoning (checked 5 October 2026)
• Juridisch Loket: bemiddelingskosten (checked 5 October 2026)
• Volkshuisvesting Nederland: regelgeving bemiddelingskosten (checked 5 October 2026)
• Rijksoverheid: wanneer kan ik tijdelijk huren (checked 5 October 2026)
• Rijksoverheid: wet vaste huurcontracten vanaf 1 juli 2024 van kracht (checked 5 October 2026)
• Volkshuisvesting Nederland: vaste huurcontracten de norm (checked 5 October 2026)
• Huurcommissie: wettelijke wijzigingen per 1 januari 2026 (checked 5 October 2026)
• Huurcommissie: verlaging aanvangshuurprijs (checked 5 October 2026)
• Huurcommissie: verlaging aanvangshuurprijs vragen (checked 5 October 2026)
• Rijksoverheid: regels voor verhuurders en verhuurbemiddelaars (checked 5 October 2026)
• Fraudehelpdesk: een dak boven je hoofd of van je centen beroofd (checked 11 October 2026)
• Fraudehelpdesk: fraudevormen en termen (checked 11 October 2026)

What this page does not cover

This tool applies the rules in our rule pack and the official pages listed below to the answers you give. It does not know your contract or your whole situation, and it is not legal advice. For advice about your situation, see the box below.