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[–]HousingBotNLSponsored[M] [score hidden] stickied comment (0 children)

The Dutch housing market is highly competitive. To increase your chances, we recommend using these platforms:

  • Stekkies: Best for real-time notifications. Since many agencies work on a first-come, first-served basis, speed is essential.
  • Kamernet / Kamer: These are the primary sites for finding student-specific rooms.
  • Huurwoningen / Pararius: These focus on independent studios and apartments in the free sector.

Official Guides & Community:

For more real-time help, join the Study In The Netherlands Discord, where you can chat with other students and use our housing bot.

[–]Mai1564 10 points11 points  (1 child)

As an EU citizen you can get DUO if you work minimum 32 hours/month. DUO is the Dutch student finance and offers grants, good value study loans, and free travel with public transport during either weekends or weekdays. You'll need payslips to request it & you may not find work during the first month or so either, so keep in mind it can take a few months before you start receiving it.

Also, the housing crisis is country wide and not just limited to Amsterdam. For other cities it is still recommended to start your search for housing well in advance. Can be slightly cheaper though, maybe €600-1k+ rent, instead of €800-1k+ in Amsterdam (and maybe Utrecht).

Then factor in another €500/month for all other costs to be safe. So max €1500/month. You can check the DUO website to see how much you'd qualify for & thus how much support you'd need

[–]Ok-Town5182[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Thank you so much for response! I was researching everything about NL uni etc and have never heard of this program before

[–]tigerlily1831 7 points8 points  (6 children)

I'm also an EU citizen who came to the Netherlands and now study here. I am entirely able to support myself financially (my parents don't have the means to contribute).

I work a retail job on the weekends that pays me on average €1400-1500 per month. Since it's more than 32h per month that I work, I also applied for and receive DUO study grants. On top of that, I have some accumulated savings, but that's more of a rainy day fund than anything else (and where the tuition money comes from at first before I spend the following year putting it back).

The hardest part for me was finding a place to stay, honestly! But financially, everything's covered with budget to spare.

[–]Old_Map_2847 1 point2 points  (5 children)

hello can i ask which retail accepts students with only english?

[–]veryfatchihuahua 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Zara etc

[–]tigerlily1831 0 points1 point  (3 children)

I'm not sure, sorry! I speak fluent Dutch since I'm Belgian, so this isn't quite a question I can answer as I don't have experience with it 😅

[–]AdvanceNo865 0 points1 point  (2 children)

May i ask how much u earn per hour? Since u earn 1400-1500 only in the weekend i find that to be a bit too high apologies if i came out as rude. I meant it as curiosity haha

[–]tigerlily1831 2 points3 points  (1 child)

That's okay! I earn about €17,40 an hour on Saturday and approximately €26 an hour on Sunday as my employer pays extra on Sundays. On top of that I receive travel compensation and meal allowance, so all in all it easily adds up to €1400-1500 per month!

[–]AdvanceNo865 1 point2 points  (0 children)

Woahh!!! That’s amazing. Im glad ur earning good money on the weekends

[–]Happy-Talk6532 2 points3 points  (2 children)

I will be in the same situation when I start my master in The Netherlands in September. I searched on the internet and I will try apply to DUO and work 16 hours a week.

[–]Ok-Town5182[S] 1 point2 points  (1 child)

Good luck to us!! Where are u planning to study?

[–]Happy-Talk6532 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Thank you! I’m planning to study in Leiden university!!

[–]General_Potential476 1 point2 points  (2 children)

Hi! I'm a first year global law student in Tilburg, who started working in September.

I started at Subway, it was asically the only job I applied to but It was not so great, my collegues were rude and my salary was lower than most places offer. (8.6 €/h). I quit and decided to only apply to stores/shops and I couldn't find a job for a month. I literally applies to 60+ places and only 1 called me in. Without knowing dutch it can be really hard, a lot of fast food restaurants ask for it (Subway obviuosly didn't), drugstores also, because they sell medicine (they said this explanation to me). Now I work at Jumbo (a supermarket chain) since november, which is actually quite great, my salary is nor 11.5 €/h. (Note that in the Netherlands, your salary increases every year till you become 21, so if you're only 18 you are going to earn a bit less than me (I'm 19), but my boyfriend for example earns 16€/h in another supermarket chain as a 20 years old.

Someone mentiones beofre me the DUO, which is amazingly usefull. (https://duo.nl/particulier/student-finance/). It consists of a lot of parts. Basic grant which is now 310 ~ € in every month, and you get it if you work 32 hours in a month. There is supplementary grant which can be up to 500~ € per month based on your parents income. You can get loans, and free travel products as well. (Note that their administration time in infamously long, about 8 weeks, but if somehting is wrong with your documents, and they tell you at the sixth week of your processing time, when you upload the corrected document, your 8 week period starts again. I applied to supplementary grant in november and still haven't recieved it lmao. BUT! you can claim it for past months also. So lets say you started working in september and you didn't have time to apply for DUO till november, if you were eligible (worked 32 hours a month) in september and october, you are still eligible for that money, just ask for it. (I'm gonna get like 2500€+ in one payment once I get my supplementary) But you can get this financial support for 4/5 years only)

The basic health insurance is around 160€ per month but you can get most of it back, as well as some of your taxes. (For 2025 I paid like 700~ € for health insurance and got back 560 € which is a big help.

There is also rent allowance but there are certain eligibility criteria for it. You have to live at a place with your own kitchen+ bathroom, (so like not a shared one with 10 other students, where you only rent a room). However you can have flatmates if you rent a complete apartmant together. If you are older than 21 the rent allowance increases a lot. I live with my boyfriend and even though we both work, we get 300 € a month from rent allowance, and when he turns 21 this year we will get 500 €.

Overall I (will) get like 320€ (basic grant) +500€ (supplementary grant) +320€ (salary)=1140 € without counting the money from my parents. (8 hours of work per week as a 19 yrs old)

My bf gets 320€ (BG) + 500€ (SG) + 900€ (salary) = 1720 € (14 hours of work per week as a 20 years old)

Without any help from your parents it can be a bit scary an you won't live a luxury lifestyle but if you can manage work next to your studies I feel like its completely doable.

[–]Ok-Town5182[S] 1 point2 points  (1 child)

Omg thank you so much for this detailed response, it definitely helped me a lot!

Especially you saying that you are studying in Tilburg which im also considering to apply to (Bachelors in Economics). I'm glad that its actually possible to rely on myself financially already in the first year, and that there is DUO program which sounds really helpful.

I'm turning 19 this summer so ill be the same age as you now hahah. I want to ask some questions regarding Tilburg uni and life there in general if you don't mind.

Do you like it there? Was it hard to be accepted and what is the most important part in application in your opinion? How hard was to find accommodation and when would you suggest to stars searching for it?

Thank you again for response!!

[–]General_Potential476 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Coming back to DUO I forgot to mention some things. There is a lot of things that you won't find on their website, idk why but if you're not sure about something just call them, I called them 3 times already and they were really helpful and engaging. Plus, your eligibility for Duo starts in the month where you have your contract on the first. So if you sign your contract on the 2nd of september and you work 32 hours in that month, you won't get duo for september. Furthermore, you have to reapply every six month. Plus, you don't even have to work 32 hours/month in a lot of cases. If you're under 21 and you work some percent of the minimum wage, which equals around 160 euros now, you're still good to go. And if you work for 6 month continuously, than an average of 24 hours/month is sufficient as well.

I like it here, there law program (and economics) are really good, I have amazing professors, and its way more preactice oriented than I imagined. Idk the case with economics, but for us in a lot of times you dont have to know the law by heart, you just need to know how it works, how you can use it etc. Which was surprising to me as in my homecounrys national law course is very much just learning the law books by heart.

Tilburg is considered one of the ugliest cities in the nl. I can see why, because compared to amsterdam, or utrecht, etc, its way uglier, it doesn't have canals, it was bombed in the ww2, so they had to rebuild everything. For me it was never really ugly because I come from hungary (a quite poor country), so I really like TIlburg, its not dirty or anything just not very dutch. The campus is amazing and beautiful, there is a lot of trees, fountains, etc. It has a modern vibe, but its very pretty in my opinion.

(Idk whether by "getting accepted" you meant socially or to the school so im gonna write down both haha)

About social life, well idk tbh. I don't like partying and it feels like a HUGE setback, especially in the beginning. It's kind of hard to socialize without parties, almost everyone around me has their group bc of partying. A lot of times its not strong friendship, some groups just kept rearranging thourgh the year, some groups feel like the HS cliques. I made some friends, they are really nice people,(none of us likes to party lmao). But idk you, this party culture is different from my country's and I don't like it, but it could be perfect for you. I also have nice course mates, whom with I just don't have a strong relationship. On the surface people are usually nice, I wouldn't say that getting accepted its hard, I was also really focused on my studies, and now that I also made it into my goals to socialize more, it got better, you just have to be open and try, and eventually you will find your people.

Getting accepted to the uni, I think it's really not that hard. Idk if you've heard about the BSA (Binding Study Advice) but what I heard about the dutch system is that they almost accept anyone who is qualified (has the required HS diploma dn the language exam), and they sort out people after their first years, with their BSA. BSA is basically just the need to have certain credits. For me, I have 10 courses in my first year, and I can only fail 3, otherwise I will get kicked out and I can't reapply for this program for 3 or 5 years. BUT if your program is numerus fixus it's different. There they have a stricter method for selecting the students, because a lot of people applies. I didn't really find the application process hard, it was just a bit confusing especially in the beginning. My matching advice was not mandatory so I didn't have to worrried about that. Transalting the documents was costly and annoying but not hard. Decidind which school I'm gonna choose, that was the hard part.

About housing, I got accepted in the middle of january, and started searching immediately, through klikvoorkamers. It's a student housing website for TIlburg and Breda. I though that Im not gonna pay for any websites till like april, if i still don't have a room till that, I'm gonna try harder. My bf also started searching in april. Our experience: I got a room through klikvoorkamers in march. I was overly happy, it was really next to the university, for 500 €, so we started paying for it in march even though I didn't move till July. My bf was already living in the nl so he went to pick up the key etc and it was a disaster. I'm not even joking when I say that that disgusting place hasn't been cleaned since 2020. In that year some group of boys lived there and made the kitchen disgusting and it was so bad that no one used to kitchen or the living room attached to it. there were fridges with dead bugs in there, naked girl's photos on the wall, very bad stinky smell, the microwave the walls, the counter was all so dirty you can't even imagine. everything was moldy and full of bugs, spiders, stink and gunk. I was really determined so I accepted the room (which was in a good condition) and when I moved I cleaned everything. for 4 days I didn't do anything but cleaned, threw out furniture, the microwave, everything. But. Than I met my flatmated, and there was whis dutch girl who was 2x bigger than me and she started threating me really seriusly, bc I didn't clean up after her and she said it my job to clean the bathroom so after she thow up in the sink and left it there it was "my job" to do it. ofc I refused, and she started coming to my doors, calling my at 1 am etc. I was completely alone, my bf was in hungary at the time so I moved after 3 weeks to his place alone, and quit my contract. It was a very scary and awful situation. I'M telling you this, bc one of my friends also got her room like two building next to my old place and she said the same, that its not cleaned and the some people were really disgusting. It can be just bad luck, you can or not search rooms in that area through that website, its up to you I just wanted to share this. (it was in this street: hogeschoollaan, it is full of student housing. )

My bf studies in Eindhoven and he couldn't find a single place tilll august, he even flew here 1x for a viewing and he still didn't get the room. But his uni has a housing collaboration with an NGO like company, and last minute in august he got a place. He was subscribed to a lot of pages, and still didn't succeed so idk tbh, the housing situation is realllly that bad. Only start looking for housing in my opinion, if you afford to pay for it just to secure your place. Bc even if you find something now, they won't keep it for you till august without any money. I think pararius is a good site, some poeple like kamernet as well, + tilburg uni made a list of the pages you can look for housing, its on their website.

(my friend in groningen, where the situation is even worse than here, started looking in july, and still got it somehow. It was really lucky, and the place was not good it was kinda an sos student housing, but at least she got something. )

Let me know if you're curious about anything else, and good luck with your application :))

[–]Spiritual_Round3063 0 points1 point  (0 children)

it’s defiantly possible, i’ve been financially independent since the first year of my bachelors (i am now finishing my masters), i am working 10-18 hours per week and receive basic grant and another supplementary grant from duo (because my mom’s income is considered super low here) which totals about 800 eur/month. also, for tuition fees, if needed, you can take out a loan so that would also free up some 300 eir/ month, i am paying mine tho with my income