Yes, and by more than most people expect. New tenants in Amsterdam paid €28.56 per square metre in the third quarter of 2026, about 37 percent above the national €20.92, and the average home sold for €630,621 in 2025 against €479,527 across the country. What makes Amsterdam different from other expensive cities is the other half of the sum: the average Amsterdam household has slightly less to spend than the average Dutch household, not more. The premium is paid out of an ordinary income.
Rent in Amsterdam against the other big cities
Pararius, one of the big Dutch rental listing sites, publishes the asking rent per square metre for new tenants in the free sector every quarter. The table shows the five largest cities for the third quarter of 2026, with what that works out to for a flat of 60 square metres. The figures are for new contracts on the open market, which is the price a newcomer actually faces; see our data sources for what that does and does not include.
| City, Q3 2026 | Rent per m² | 60 m² flat |
|---|---|---|
| Amsterdam | €28.56 | €1,714 |
| The Hague | €22.95 | €1,377 |
| Rotterdam | €22.92 | €1,375 |
| Utrecht | €22.87 | €1,372 |
| Eindhoven | €19.61 | €1,177 |
| Netherlands | €20.92 | €1,255 |
Amsterdam is not just the most expensive, it is in a class of its own: the gap between Amsterdam and The Hague is bigger than the gap between The Hague and Eindhoven. A 60 square metre flat costs about €338 a month more in Amsterdam than in Rotterdam. The one piece of good news is the direction: Amsterdam rents rose 1.1 percent in a year, the smallest increase of the five, while the national figure rose 4.4 percent.
Two thirds of Amsterdam rents, and most of that is not on the open market
About 68 percent of Amsterdam homes are rented rather than owned, the highest share of any Dutch city, but only 28 percent of all homes are private rentals. The rest of the rented stock is social housing, let by housing associations at regulated rents with long waiting lists. The Pararius figure above describes the private slice at the moment a new contract is signed, not what the average Amsterdammer pays.
That is why figures for the average rent in Amsterdam vary so much between sources. A survey of all tenants, including people who have been in a regulated flat for twenty years, produces a much lower number than a listing site. For someone arriving from abroad without a place on the social housing list, the listing price is the relevant one.
Home values run from €294k in Zuidoost to €602k in Zuid
Within the city the spread is larger than the gap between Amsterdam and the rest of the country. The table lists the eight boroughs by average WOZ value, the official valuation used for property tax, with the share of homes that are rented and the share that are private rentals. The figures are built from CBS neighbourhood statistics; the city-wide average sits below the CBS municipal figure because it weights neighbourhoods equally.
| Borough | Home value | Rented | Private rental |
|---|---|---|---|
| Zuid | €602k | 67% | 43% |
| Centrum | €601k | 68% | 37% |
| Oost | €507k | 67% | 25% |
| Weesp | €500k | 34% | 9% |
| West | €492k | 69% | 32% |
| Noord | €434k | 68% | 15% |
| Nieuw-West | €397k | 70% | 24% |
| Zuidoost | €294k | 72% | 23% |
Zuid and Centrum are level at the top, and Zuid is where the private rental share is highest. Zuidoost, at the bottom, has homes worth less than half of those in Zuid and the largest share of rented housing. Weesp is the odd one out: it joined Amsterdam in 2022 and still looks like the commuter town it was, with far more owners than renters. Between individual neighbourhoods the gap is wider still, from Apollobuurt in Zuid at €1,308k to Amstel III/Bullewijk in Zuidoost at €242k, which we take apart in our story on price swings within a city.
Amsterdam incomes are not higher than the Dutch average
The usual defence of an expensive city is that people there earn more. In Amsterdam they do not, on average. The mean disposable income of an Amsterdam household was €60.8k in 2024, against €61.6k nationally, and households where the main earner is an employee had €65.6k against €67.5k. The average Amsterdam household faces rents a third above the national level with an income slightly below it.
The averages hide two very different cities. Single-person households in Amsterdam have more than singles elsewhere, €37.8k against €34.2k, and couples with children have €107.6k against €96.6k. The low overall average comes from the large number of students, single pensioners and households on benefits, concentrated in the boroughs with the most social housing. Our story on income by city has the full comparison.
What these figures do and do not tell you
The rent figure is an asking price for new free-sector contracts, from one listing site, in one quarter. It says what you will be quoted, not what you will end up paying after negotiation, and it says nothing about the regulated sector, which from 2024 covers more flats than before under the new rent points system. The WOZ value is a tax valuation on 1 January, not a sale price. And groceries, transport and energy are priced nationally; on those, Amsterdam is roughly as expensive as the rest of the Netherlands, which we compare with other countries in Is the Netherlands expensive to live in?
None of this is a personal budget. A single person in a 60 square metre flat in Nieuw-West and a family of four in Zuid are in different markets that happen to share a city name. The question is not whether Amsterdam is expensive, but which part of Amsterdam, and compared with what.
Where in Amsterdam your money goes furthest
The boroughs with the lowest home values, Zuidoost, Nieuw-West and Noord, are also the ones with the fewest private rentals apart from Weesp, so the cheapest part of the city is the hardest to get into from abroad. Our page on safety in Amsterdam shows how the same boroughs compare on registered crime.
You can compare every Amsterdam neighbourhood on home value, rental share and the other figures that matter to you in the explorer, open Amsterdam or another city, or read how each figure is built on our data sources page.