Buying a Second Property in the Netherlands: Buy-to-Let, Second Homes, and Tax

Transfer tax on a home that is not your main residence fell to 8% in 2026, but the property also moves into Box 3, loses mortgage interest relief, and needs a different kind of loan. What a second property actually costs.

Most people arrive at this question from one of two directions: they already own a home and are wondering whether to keep it and rent it out when they move, or they have savings sitting in an account and are wondering whether Dutch property is a better place for them. The Netherlands treats both the same way once the dust settles — and it treats them very differently from the home you live in.

This article is about what changes the moment a property is not your main residence. It is deliberately unenthusiastic: the rules tightened considerably over the past few years, and the arithmetic works far less often than it used to.

Three situations, one tax treatment

The three common cases are financed differently but taxed identically:

• You move house and keep the old one to rent out. Financially the most tempting, legally the most likely to go wrong — see the section on your existing mortgage below.
• You buy a second or holiday home for your own use. No rental income, but every tax consequence still applies.
• You buy a property purely to let. The only case the lending market is genuinely set up for, and the one that needs the most cash.

In all three, the property is not your hoofdverblijf (main residence). That single fact drives everything that follows.

Transfer tax: 8% in 2026

Transfer tax (overdrachtsbelasting) has three rates, and which one you pay depends only on whether you will live in the property yourself:

• 0% — the starter exemption, if you are under 35, have not used it before, and the price is at or below €555,000
• 2% — you will live there as your main residence
• 8% — you will not

The 8% rate is new for 2026. Until the end of 2025 the same category was taxed at 10.4%, so this is a genuine reduction, introduced to make renting out property more attractive and increase rental supply. It is still four times the owner-occupier rate.

On a €400,000 property that is the difference between €8,000 and €32,000 — €24,000 more, payable in cash at the notary, and not deductible against anything. If you would have qualified for the starter exemption, you are comparing €32,000 against zero.

The Transfer Tax article covers the owner-occupier rates and the starter exemption in detail.

The property moves from Box 1 to Box 3

This is the change people underestimate. The home you live in sits in Box 1 of Dutch income tax, which is what makes hypotheekrenteaftrek possible. A property that is not your main residence sits in Box 3, taxed as wealth.

The consequences are blunt:

• No mortgage interest deduction. None. The relief explained in Hypotheekrenteaftrek simply does not apply, and for a lot of buyers that relief was doing much of the work in the owner-occupier sums.
• You pay tax on the asset every year, whether or not it earns anything. In 2026 the deemed return on assets other than bank deposits is 6%, taxed at 36%. Your tax-free allowance is €59,357, or €118,714 with a fiscal partner.
• The mortgage on the property reduces the taxable base, which softens the bill, though debts are counted using their own percentage rather than the 6%.

For a rough order of magnitude on a property valued at €400,000 with a €280,000 loan against it: around €120,000 of net wealth, most of it above the allowance, at 6% deemed return and 36% tax lands in the region of €2,500 a year. Treat that as an order of magnitude and not a quote — the real computation splits assets and debts across different percentages, and a property that is rented out on a permanent lease can be entered at a reduced value.

One more detail that surprises people: a property in Box 3 is entered at its WOZ value, not the price you paid.

You cannot use an ordinary mortgage

A normal Dutch mortgage is contractually tied to living in the property. To let a property out you need a verhuurhypotheek — a rental mortgage — and the terms are noticeably harder:

• Lower borrowing limits. Where an owner-occupier can borrow 100% of the appraised value, rental mortgages typically stop somewhere around 70–85%.
• A different valuation. Lenders value the property in let condition (waarde in verhuurde staat), which is lower than what it would fetch empty. The percentage is applied to the smaller number, so the cash gap is wider than it first looks.
• No NHG. The National Mortgage Guarantee is for owner-occupiers only, so neither its protection nor the interest discount it usually brings is available. See What is NHG?.
• Higher interest rates, because the lender's risk is higher.

Stack the deposit, the 8% transfer tax and the usual buying costs together and it is normal to need 20–40% of the total investment in your own money.

Renting out the home you already own

If you are thinking of moving and keeping your current home as a rental, start by reading your mortgage contract rather than a spreadsheet.

Almost every Dutch owner-occupier mortgage requires you to live in the property and forbids letting it without the lender's written consent. Lenders do not always grant it, and when they do they may reprice the loan or require you to refinance onto rental terms. Renting out quietly is a breach of contract that can make the whole loan repayable — and it tends to surface via the municipal registration of your tenants.

There is a tax consequence as well: once the property stops being your main residence it leaves Box 1, so the interest deduction stops with it.

What you are legally allowed to charge

This is the part that most often breaks an otherwise plausible calculation. Since 1 July 2024 the points system (woningwaarderingsstelsel) sets a legal maximum rent for a large share of the housing stock. A property is scored on size, energy label, facilities and other features, and the total decides which segment it falls in:

• 0–143 points — social housing, strictly capped
• 144–186 points — the mid-rent segment, capped at €1,228.07 per month in 2026
• 187 points and above — the free sector, where you may set the rent yourself

You cannot assume your property lands in the free sector. Score it before you buy, not after. Municipalities enforce these caps and can fine landlords up to €100,000 per dwelling.

Does the arithmetic work?

Sometimes, but the honest answer for most people reading this site is no — and it is worth seeing why in one place. Against the owner-occupied home you would otherwise buy, a second property gives up the 2% or 0% transfer tax rate, gives up mortgage interest relief entirely, gives up NHG, borrows less at a higher rate, needs far more cash up front, pays wealth tax every year regardless of income, and may be capped on what it can legally charge.

That is a lot of headwind for a rental yield to overcome. It can be overcome — with enough capital, a property that scores into the free sector, and a long horizon — but it is a different activity from buying a home to live in, and it should be entered with advice from someone who does it professionally.

If you are still choosing between owning and renting a home for yourself, the buy vs. rent projection is the more useful tool.

Where to go next

• Transfer Tax (Overdrachtsbelasting) 2026 — the owner-occupier rates and the starter exemption
• Deep Dive: Hypotheekrenteaftrek — the relief a second property does not get
• What is NHG? — why it does not apply here
• First-Time Home Buyer in the Netherlands — if you are buying to live in it after all