Short-stay rental of a Dutch home is governed mainly by public law, and by the municipality rather than by the platform. Letting a dwelling to tourists withdraws it from the housing stock, which the Housing Act 2014 allows a municipality to prohibit without a permit, and most cities have added a registration number, a notification duty for each let and a cap on the number of nights. On top of that comes the omgevingsplan, which decides whether hotel-like use of a home is permitted at that address at all.
This article sets out the short-stay rental rules that apply in the Netherlands: which authority regulates what, what a municipality may demand, how enforcement works and what you can do against a fine, and what the position is if you are a tenant rather than an owner. The rules of a homeowners association are a separate subject, dealt with in our article on short-stay rentals and the homeowners association.
Where the rules come from
Four layers of rules apply at the same time, and complying with one says nothing about the others. The first is the Housing Act 2014 (Huisvestingswet 2014), which gives municipalities the power to protect the housing stock and, since 2021, a specific set of instruments for touristic rental. The second is the omgevingsplan, the municipal planning instrument under the Environment and Planning Act, which determines the permitted function of the property. The third is private law: your lease, your mortgage conditions, your insurance and, in an apartment building, the deed of division and the association rules. The fourth is European: Regulation (EU) 2024/1028 on data collection and sharing relating to short-term accommodation rental services, which has applied since 20 May 2026 and standardises registration numbers and data sharing by platforms across the internal market.
The practical consequence is that there is no single national answer to whether you may rent out your home in the Netherlands. The answer depends on the municipality, on the address and on your own title to the property. What follows is the framework you need in order to ask the right question in your own case.
Withdrawing a home from the housing stock
The starting point in the Housing Act 2014 is the protection of housing. Under article 21 of that Act, the municipal council may designate categories of dwellings that may not be withdrawn from the housing stock, merged, converted or split into separate units without a permit. Where the council has used that power in its housing ordinance (huisvestingsverordening), letting a designated home to tourists counts as withdrawal from the housing stock, because the property is no longer available for permanent residence.
That is why holiday letting is legally an exception rather than a right. Municipalities that permit it do so by setting out in the ordinance the conditions under which the withdrawal permit is not required: typically a maximum number of nights per year, a maximum number of guests at a time, the requirement that the host has the property as their main residence, and the obligation to notify each let. Rent the property out beyond those conditions and you are back in the permit regime, and a permit for withdrawal is not readily granted in cities with housing shortages.
Registration number, notification and permit
Since the Act on touristic rental of residential accommodation was added to the Housing Act 2014 in 2021, municipalities have three instruments they can switch on in their housing ordinance, in ascending order of severity. The first is the registration duty: article 23a of the Act makes it an offence to offer a dwelling for touristic rental without stating the registration number in every advertisement. The number is issued by the municipality and identifies the address, which is what makes enforcement possible at all.
The second is the notification duty: each individual let must be reported to the municipality, in advance, so that the authority can count the nights used. The third is a permit requirement for touristic rental, which the council can impose where the pressure on the housing stock justifies it. A municipality may combine these, and may set a maximum number of nights per calendar year and a maximum number of guests. Amsterdam is the strictest example: holiday rental of an entire home is currently limited to thirty nights per year with a maximum of four guests, alongside a registration number and a notification for every let. Those figures are set in the municipal ordinance and can be changed by the council, so check the current text of the ordinance for the municipality concerned rather than relying on a general description.
Platforms are part of the enforcement chain rather than bystanders. Under the European Regulation, the online platform must ensure that a registration number is displayed and, on request, verify it against the data of the competent authority, and it must share booking data with the member state through a single digital entry point. A listing without a valid number can be removed. In practice this means that the number the municipality issues, and not the platform account, is what makes a listing lawful.
Does the omgevingsplan allow this use?
A registration number says nothing about planning law. Under the Environment and Planning Act, which replaced the old zoning plans on 1 January 2024, every municipality has one omgevingsplan that assigns functions to locations. Where the function is living (wonen), commercial letting to a succession of guests can amount to a different use, in the same way that running a bed and breakfast or a hotel does. Some plans expressly permit a limited form of holiday rental or bed and breakfast within the residential function; others do not.
If the use does not fit, the route is an application for an environment and planning permit for an activity deviating from the omgevingsplan, on which the municipal executive decides. This is a discretionary decision, weighed against the balanced allocation of functions to locations, and in housing-shortage areas it is often refused. Two points are worth noting: planning enforcement can be triggered by a neighbour’s request for enforcement, which the authority is in principle obliged to act on, and planning rules bind the property, so a new owner inherits the problem.
Enforcement: fines, orders and how to respond
Enforcement lies with the municipal executive, and it has two different kinds of instrument. An order subject to a penalty payment (last onder dwangsom) is meant to stop the conduct: it orders you to cease the letting and sets an amount payable for each breach or each week the situation continues. An administrative fine under the Housing Act 2014 is punitive: it sanctions what has already happened, and the amounts are set in the municipal ordinance, with higher tariffs for repeat offences and for commercial exploitation. Both can be directed at whoever actually withdrew the dwelling from the housing stock, which may be the owner but equally the tenant who sublet it.
Because the fine is punitive, the safeguards that go with a criminal charge apply. The municipality bears the burden of proving that this dwelling was let on these dates, and it has to do so on the basis of evidence that stands up: platform data, reports and observations, key handovers, statements. You are not obliged to cooperate in your own punishment, and a hastily given explanation at the door frequently becomes the strongest evidence against the host. Take advice before responding to a report of findings.
The procedure is that of the General Administrative Law Act. You have six weeks from the date of the decision to lodge a notice of objection with the municipality, then six weeks to appeal to the district court against the decision on objection, and after that a further appeal lies to the Administrative Jurisdiction Division of the Council of State. Missing the six-week period is usually fatal, so diarise it the day the decision arrives. Where a penalty payment has already been incurred, a separate recovery decision follows, which has its own objection period.
If you are a tenant: subletting and Airbnb
Tenants face a stricter rule than owners, and it is often overlooked. Article 7:244 of the Civil Code provides that the tenant of residential accommodation is not entitled to give the property, in whole or in part, into the use of another. There is one exception: a tenant of a self-contained dwelling who has their principal residence there may give part of it into use. Letting the entire home to guests, even for a weekend, therefore falls outside what a tenant may do, whatever the lease says and whatever the municipality allows.
The consequences are severe. Landlords, and social housing corporations in particular, treat unauthorised holiday letting as a serious breach and ask the court to dissolve the lease and order eviction; courts regularly grant that, especially where the letting was commercial and repeated. In addition, the landlord can claim the profit made from the letting as damages, so the income does not stay with the tenant. Add the municipal fine on top and a few weekends of letting become a very expensive exercise. If you are a tenant considering this, the only safe route is written permission from the landlord in advance, and even then the municipal rules still apply. Our overview of tenant rights in the Netherlands sets out the wider framework.
One related point concerns the guests. Letting for a use that is by its nature of short duration falls outside the protective rules on residential tenancies under article 7:232 of the Civil Code, which is why a genuine tourist does not acquire security of tenure. That exception is applied narrowly: it looks at the nature of the use, the way the property is furnished and marketed and the length of the stay, not at the label on the contract. A so-called short-stay contract used to house someone for months is likely to be an ordinary residential tenancy, with all the protection that entails, including the rules introduced by the Affordable Rent Act.
If you are an owner: mortgage, insurance and the association
Owners have their own set of restrictions that sit outside public law. Most mortgage deeds contain a letting clause (huurbeding) based on article 3:264 of the Civil Code, under which the property may not be let without the lender’s consent; commercial short-stay letting is normally caught by it, and breach is a ground for the lender to act. Home insurance is the second trap: many buildings and contents policies exclude damage caused by paying guests, or require notification of commercial use, so a claim after a bad weekend can be refused precisely when it matters.
In an apartment building, the deed of division and the association rules decide whether short-stay letting is permitted at all, and the association can enforce its own rules independently of the municipality. That regime is set out separately in our article on short-stay rentals and the homeowners association. The order in which to check is: deed of division and association rules first, then the municipal ordinance and the omgevingsplan, then the mortgage and the insurance policy. Any one of them can make the plan impossible.
Tourist tax and income
Municipalities may levy tourist tax on overnight stays by people who are not registered as residents, and the person providing the accommodation is normally the one assessed, whether or not the platform collects it. Rates and rules differ per municipality and are set annually in the local tax ordinance, so take them from the municipality itself. The income you receive, and the question whether letting activity crosses into a business or attracts VAT, is a matter for a tax adviser; we do not give tax advice and will refer you to one where the case calls for it. What we do stress is that the tax position and the housing-law position are independent: paying tourist tax does not make an unlawful let lawful, and a registration number does not settle your tax position.
What to check before you list
Start with the address rather than with the platform. Look up the current housing ordinance of the municipality and establish whether a registration number, a notification and a permit are required, and what the maximum number of nights and guests is. Then check the omgevingsplan for the location. Then read your own documents: the lease if you rent, the deed of division and association rules if you own an apartment, the mortgage deed and the insurance policy. Only then does it make sense to create a listing.
Keep records from the start. Note every let, keep the notifications you filed, and keep the correspondence in which permission was given. If enforcement follows, that file is what decides the case, because the dispute is almost always about how many nights were let and by whom. And if you receive a report of findings, an intended decision or a fine, react within the period stated and take advice before you explain anything: an administrative fine of this kind is a punitive sanction, and the municipality has to prove its case.
Law & More advises owners, tenants, investors and homeowners associations on short-stay rental rules in the Netherlands: the housing ordinance and the registration and permit regime, the planning position of the property, objections and appeals against fines and penalty orders, and disputes with landlords or associations. If you would like your situation reviewed before you let, or you have been confronted with enforcement, our real estate law team at Law & More is happy to help.
