Student room prices in the Netherlands, checked against 31,000 rooms

You finally found a room in Groningen at €600 a month, a month before your study programme starts. Then a friend who moved to the Netherlands two years ago tells you she paid way less, for a bigger room in a nicer house, closer to the Zernike bus. She's not misremembering. Groningen rooms cost about 10% more than a year ago, and Groningen is not even the steepest climb.

So here's the honest version for every international student planning a budget: what a student room actually asks in 14 Dutch university cities right now, where prices moved, and how our numbers line up with the quarterly Kamernet Rent Report. No averages pulled from a forum thread. We counted 30,977 rooms.

How much does a student room cost in the Netherlands in 2026?

A student room in the Netherlands asks a median monthly rent of €631 in 2026, for about 16 m2 of private space in a shared house, with the kitchen and bathroom in common. That is the middle of 30,977 free-sector rooms advertised from January to mid October 2026 (RentHunter data). Half of all rooms sit between €500 and €790.

That national figure hides a gap of more than double between cities. Amsterdam asks €900. Enschede asks €425. Same 16 m2 or so, same shared fridge with someone else's oat milk in it. Many rooms come furnished, which helps if you're flying in with two suitcases: in the Q2 2026 Rent Report we compare with below, 47% of rooms were furnished.

Worth knowing before you compare these with what DUWO or SSH charge: student housing providers are not in this count. Their student accommodation, the social student housing sector, is usually cheaper (the report we compare with below says the same about housing associations). The catch is the waiting list, and the shortage behind it: Kences counted 21,500 student homes too few in the 2024 to 2025 academic year, as quoted in the same report. If you don't have years of registration time, the free sector above is the student housing market you're actually shopping in, and for most international students it's the only option that works before the start of the academic year.

Student room prices by city: the full list

Rooms split into four price tiers in 2026, and the line between them is mostly Randstad or not. The table below shows the median and the middle half of rooms in each city (the 25th to 75th percentile), so you can tell a normal price from a strange one.

RentHunter data, free-sector rooms first seen 1 January to 14 October 2026, medians.

A few things jump out.

Amsterdam is its own planet. €900 buys you a median 14 m2, which works out at €62.50 per square metre. A whole self-contained flat in Amsterdam asks €30.23 per m2 (RentHunter data, 18,357 homes, same period). So per square metre, a room costs about twice what a flat does. You're paying for the postcode, not the floor space. In Amsterdam, a room near €1,000 is normal: the top quarter starts at €1,100.

The Randstad sits in a tight band. Utrecht, Rotterdam, Den Haag and Leiden all land between €676 and €720. Not Amsterdam prices, but nowhere near cheap.

The €600 club is where a lot of students actually end up living. Groningen, Eindhoven, Tilburg, Maastricht and Nijmegen sit between €595 and €625. Groningen alone counted 4,061 rooms in 2026, more than Amsterdam (3,816). Plenty of supply, which is honestly the only good news in this article.

Delft is cheaper than it looks, and the range is wider than it looks. A €540 median, but the middle half runs from €425 to €735. That spread is the widest outside Amsterdam. Translation: in Delft, the room you're looking at could be a bargain or a rip-off, and the listing won't tell you which.

Why student room prices keep rising outside the Randstad

Room rents outside the Randstad rose 8 to 15% in a year, while Amsterdam and Den Haag barely moved. Comparing the same platform, the same city and the same size band, the year to September 2026 against the year before gives this (RentHunter data):

• Wageningen: +15%
• Enschede: +11%
• Groningen: +10%
• Maastricht: +9 to 13%
• Tilburg: +8 to 10%
• Delft: +8%
• Amsterdam: +3 to 4%
• Den Haag: 0%

Where we give a range, the result depends a little on the method, so we show both ends. Utrecht and Rotterdam swing too much with the method to give a clean number, so they're left out of this list on purpose.

Here's the bit worth remembering though: this was not a slow, steady creep. Nationally, the median room asked €580 to €590 in spring 2025, jumped to €640 to €660 from August 2025, and has stayed at €630 to €650 since (RentHunter data). A single step, at the start of the 2025 academic year, and then a plateau. We checked whether it was just the usual autumn rush: it wasn't. In 2026 there's no month to month cycle, so "wait until June, rooms get cheaper" is not something our data supports.

On the same basis, the national room median rose 7.0% from Q3 2024 to Q3 2025 and 2.2% from Q3 2025 to Q3 2026 (RentHunter data, same platforms, type, city and size band). So the national picture has calmed down. The student cities in the east, the south and the north haven't.

Why there? Our data shows where prices moved, not why landlords moved them. The obvious suspects are the university cities where students are a big share of renters and where the cheap end of the market had the most room to catch up with the Randstad. In euros it adds up: on a €595 Groningen room, a 10% rise means roughly €55 more per month than a year earlier, about €650 over a twelve-month contract (own calculation). Enschede rising 11% still leaves it at €425, though. Cheap is relative.

AI-generated illustration. Your €631 buys a private bedroom. The kitchen, the bathroom and the arguments about the dishes are shared.

What the Kamernet Rent Report says (Q2 2026)

The latest edition, published on 30 July 2026 and covering April to June 2026, tells the same story from a different angle: the steepest increases are outside the Randstad. According to Kamernet's Q2 2026 Rent Report, the average student room on its platform asked €643 a month, up 6.2% on a year earlier, across 17 cities and 14,489 rooms.

Here is how the report's city figures sit next to ours:

Kamernet figures: Q2 2026 Rent Report, 30 July 2026. RentHunter figures: free-sector rooms, 1 January to 14 October 2026. Like-for-like change: year to September 2026 against the year before.

The direction matches almost everywhere: flat in Amsterdam and Den Haag, double digits in Tilburg and Enschede and the south. The levels differ, and that's expected. Three reasons:

1. Different market slice. The report counts rooms on one platform only: 49% from private landlords, 39% from housemates looking for a replacement, 11% from agencies. We count about 900 platforms, Kamernet included, with each room counted once.
2. Different period. Their Q2 covers April to June, the run-up to the academic year. Our figures cover January to mid October.
3. Different maths. Their national €643 is a weighted average of 17 city medians. Our €631 is a single median across every room.

Eindhoven is the real disagreement, especially on the size of the rise. The report has rooms there up 22.7% to €540. We see €600 across the year and don't publish a same-platform room change for Eindhoven. A quarter on one platform moves more than a year across hundreds, so treat the 22.7% as a strong signal on that platform, not as the whole Eindhoven market. Good to know if you study at TU/e or Fontys and wonder why quotes vary so much.

A room is the most expensive space per square metre

Per square metre, a room is the priciest way to live in the Netherlands, and that's the number to remember when a studio looks "too expensive". Nationally, a room asks €38.82 per m2 in 2026 (RentHunter data, 30,977 rooms) against €21.88 for an apartment (69,651 apartments, same period). The room's m2 doesn't include the shared kitchen and bathroom, so the gap is smaller than it looks, but it's still there.

That's why the step from a room to a studio is often smaller than people expect. Nationally, the median studio asks €915 (RentHunter data, 8,356 studios, January to mid October 2026), under €1,000, though in the big cities it's well over. We broke that ladder down city by city in room, studio or apartment: what each step up costs. If you're 18 and just need a bed near the university, a room still wins on the monthly bill. If you're doing a master's with some savings behind you, run the numbers on a studio before ruling it out. Our guide to student apartments in the Netherlands covers that side, and the average rent prices in Dutch cities cover the rest of the related costs of a self-contained home.

AI-generated illustration. Move-in day, and the famous Dutch staircase.

How to find a student room at a fair price this year

Rising medians don't mean every room got 10% dearer. The middle half of rooms in each city is still a wide band, and that's where your leverage is. A few habits make a real difference, especially for international students searching from abroad.

• Price-check every offer against the table above. In Tilburg, the middle half runs €500 to €700. A room at €800 there needs a reason (en suite bathroom, utilities included, a balcony). A room at €350 needs a viewing, and a few questions about what's actually included.
• Look at the next city over. Enschede at €425 and Leeuwarden at €475 are a long way from Amsterdam's €900. If your campus allows it, a neighbouring town on the train line is a real option and can save you hundreds a month, with more rooms available. Groningen's 4,061 rooms in 2026 also mean far more choice than its reputation suggests.
• Read the price line properly. Our figures include service costs. Ask what the basic rent (kale huur) is, whether there are agency fees, whether utilities like gas, water, electricity and internet are in the rent or on top, and how big the deposit is. That's the real monthly expense of living there, everything included.
• Plan your search early, avoid paying before a viewing and a signed contract. A room far under the city's middle band is how most scams open. Our guide to spotting rental scams has the full checklist, and our Kamernet guide covers how that website works if you rent through it.

Then there's the boring part: actually seeing the rooms. Student housing is spread over hundreds of sites, from the big room platforms to tiny local agencies and Facebook groups, and checking them all every morning gets old fast. Been there. RentHunter brings listings from 1,100+ Dutch rental sites into one search, so you stop checking them site by site. Set a free alert on RentHunter and new rooms that match your budget land in your inbox or the app.

Final thoughts

The national room median barely moved this year. The student cities that used to be the affordable escape route are the ones catching up, from Groningen in the north to Enschede in the east and Tilburg in the south. They're still cheaper than the Randstad, just not by as much as they were. Budget for the city median, not for the story someone told you about 2023, and use the middle band to spot both the overpriced rooms and the fake ones.

When the Q3 report comes out, we'll put its numbers next to ours here. Until then, hit up RentHunter and let the hunt begin.

Happy room hunting!

Sources

• RentHunter listing data, free-sector rooms first seen 1 January to 14 October 2026, central stats file of 15 October 2026. Like-for-like changes from the RentHunter press data methodology (7 October 2026). Checked 19 October 2026.
• Kamernet Rent Report Q2 2026 (English, HousingAnywhere) and the Dutch version on Kamernet, published 30 July 2026. Checked 26 October 2026.
• Kamernet Verhuurrapportage Q3 2025, published 14 November 2025. Checked 19 October 2026.
• Vastgoedjournaal on the Kamernet Q3 2024 report, 7 November 2024. Checked 19 October 2026.
• Belastingdienst, huurtoeslag conditions. Checked 26 October 2026.