Messaged a landlord last Tuesday, heard nothing. Checked back Thursday, already gone. Found another one Friday, messaged them, same silence. Den Haag’s rental market has a way of making you feel invisible before you’ve even figured out which tram to take.
Read this before you start, it’ll save you a few weeks of confusion.
🌍 Why does everyone end up in Den Haag
Okay so Den Haag is kind of its own thing. It’s not Amsterdam, it doesn’t have that chaotic “tourists everywhere, €6 coffee” energy. But it’s still super international. Embassies on every other street, big international organisations, students from about 80 different countries, all of them here for more or less the same reasons.
The beach is close, Scheveningen is a 20 minute bike ride and people actually go there. Streets are wide. There’s a mix of old Dutch architecture and newer neighbourhoods, none of it feels crammed or overcrowded.
People describe it as the Netherlands on easy mode. Which is also why the housing market is still a proper fight, because half the city has already figured that out.
💸 What rent costs in 2026
Not Amsterdam prices, but nowhere near cheap. People show up expecting a bit of a discount and it catches them off guard.
| Soort onroerend goed | Average monthly rent | What to expect |
|---|---|---|
| Studio-appartement | €900 – €1,400 | Small, high demand, limited supply |
| Appartement met 1 slaapkamer | €1,200 – €1,800 | Most common expat/student option |
| Appartement met 2 slaapkamers | €1,600 – €2,500+ | Often shared or for couples |
| Furnished apartments | +10-20% | Higher price, more convenience |
| “Cheap” apartments | 800 euro – 1100 euro | Usually smaller or outside centre |
Budget options exist, yeah. They tend to be smaller, older, further out. Pick the two things you care most about and accept you’re probably not getting the third one. Central, spacious and affordable at the same time is not really a thing here.
🗺️ How the rental process works
The steps are genuinely simple. It’s the speed of it that gets people.
Find a listing, send a message fast, arrange a viewing (video is fine if you’re not in the country yet), hand over your documents, pay the deposit, sign. That’s it. The problem is that a decent listing can have 30 messages in the first couple of hours, so by the time you’ve thought about it for a day, someone else already has the keys.
Oh, and there’s no single website with everything on it. Listings are spread across agencies, platforms, random landlord pages, so you’re hopping between tabs constantly just hoping to catch something fresh. It’s a lot of effort for something that should probably just be one website.
🛋️ Furnished or unfurnished
Go furnished for your first place. Just do it.
It costs more, around 10 to 20% extra a month, but the alternative is genuinely rough. New country, new city, you need a bed sorted, a desk, a couch, kitchen stuff, meanwhile IKEA has given your wardrobe a 3 week delivery window and you still haven’t figured out the Dutch word for duvet. All of that while also starting a new degree or job. Hard pass.
Furnished means bags down, done. Most students end up staying in a furnished place way longer than they thought they would. Once you’ve settled in and actually know where you want to live long term, that’s a better time to think about buying furniture.
⚡ Why this market is harder than people expect
The pace. That’s the thing. Not the paperwork, not the rules, just how quickly it all moves.
Classic story: spend a few evenings browsing, save some listings, fire off a few messages on a Wednesday morning, sit back and wait. Nothing comes back. Check a few days later and every apartment you liked is gone. This happens to basically everyone at least once.
Landlords don’t wait around for the right person, they just pick whoever responded first and has their stuff together. No rejection email, no “sorry someone else got it.” The listing vanishes and you’re back to square one.
💡Two people can see the exact same listing at the same moment. Whoever already has their documents ready is probably getting the apartment. The other one isn’t.
📋 What to have ready before you start looking
Sort this before you look at a single listing, not halfway through applying:
- Valid ID or passport
- Employment contract, student enrollment proof, or other proof of income
- Gross monthly income around 3 to 4 times the rent (or a guarantor if you don’t hit that)
- Deposit amount ready to transfer (1 to 2 months’ rent)
- A short personal message about yourself, ready to tweak and send quickly
That last one genuinely helps. Landlords wade through loads of copy-paste “Hello I am interested in your apartment” messages. Write something that sounds like a real person sent it. Mention you’re a student, that you’re quiet, that you won’t be turning the living room into a club night venue. It sticks.
🔍 Finding listings without losing your mind
There’s no central place to look, which is the annoying part. Listings are scattered across different platforms, private agencies, individual landlord websites, and you can’t just check one and feel like you’ve covered it.
Going through all of them manually every day gets old fast. You start missing things, checking less, and that’s usually when something decent slips by.
Most international students end up using alert tools like Renthunter that pull from 1000+ sources and ping you when something new drops. Not a magic fix, but being consistently early to listings is basically the whole advantage.
💰 What “affordable” really means here
Cheaper apartments exist in Den Haag, just not in the way most people picture.
At that price point you’re usually looking at: studios under 30 sqm, buildings with a lift installed in 1994 that hasn’t been serviced since, or locations where you’re a tram and a bus away from anything central. Some of those are fine honestly. Others you’ll only regret once you’re living there in February and the heating is doing its best.
If budget is the priority, location is the thing to compromise on. Dropping the central requirement genuinely opens up options, more than anything else does.
📄 What Dutch landlords require
Income requirement is pretty much universal: gross monthly earnings of around three to four times the rent. So for a €1,500 place, you’d need to show €4,500 to €6,000 gross per month. As a student you probably won’t hit that, which is where a guarantor comes in, usually a parent, who signs on to cover it if things go wrong.
Deposit is one to two months upfront, returned when you leave as long as you haven’t put any “creative” holes in the walls. Contracts are either fixed term (usually a year) or open-ended. Dutch tenant law is reasonably fair to both sides, but read what you’re signing, especially the bit about how much notice you need to give.
Also: make sure you can register at the address. BRP registration. If the landlord says you can’t register there, walk away. You need it for your BSN number and without a BSN you’ll run into walls constantly, bank accounts, healthcare, all of it.
🤔 Is Den Haag the right city for you
International feel without the tourist circus, beach 20 minutes away, solid public transport, real neighbourhoods where people actually live rather than just Airbnb through. For a lot of international students it’s genuinely one of the better places to land in the Netherlands.
The housing market is where people get tripped up. Not because the city is unfair, just because it moves fast and tends to punish anyone who goes in without a plan. Get organised before you start and it’s very manageable. Wing it and watch your coursemates find places while you’re still refreshing the same three websites.
❓ Veelgestelde vragen (FAQ)
How do I rent in Den Haag as an international student? Documents first: ID, enrollment proof, guarantor sorted if you need one. Then search across multiple platforms and respond the same day to anything that looks right. Decisions often get made within 24 hours of a listing going up.
Is it really that competitive? Yes. Decent apartments in good areas go quickly. You can find something, but it requires being organised rather than just hoping something works out.
What does a one-bedroom cost? Somewhere between €1,200 and €1,800 for most students. Studios come in cheaper. Two bedrooms or anything furnished tends to land well above €2,000.
Is furnished worth the extra money? For the first year, yes almost always. You’re already dealing with a new city, new courses, new everything. Not having to also furnish a flat from scratch is worth the price difference.
What if I don’t have a Dutch income? Very normal for students. A guarantor, usually a parent who meets the income threshold, is the standard way around it. Some landlords will also consider savings proof or a letter from your university.
How fast do listings go? Hours, sometimes. See something that looks right, apply that day. Not tomorrow morning. That day.
🏁 To wrap up
Den Haag is worth it. Once you’re settled it tends to be the kind of city people stay in longer than planned, great sign or cautionary tale depending on your degree timeline.
Prepare before you start. Get your documents sorted, know the prices, watch out for scams, and use Renthunter to see listings the moment they go up rather than two days after everyone else applied.
Start furnished, find your feet, go from there. That’s the Renthunter way.
👉 Ready to start? Browse Den Haag apartments and set up free alerts at Renthunter
