Over one in four Dutch households living in rent-controlled accommodation last year earned too much to actually qualify for social housing, according to new research from the national statistics office CBS.

Since last year, new European Commission rules mean only people with an income of less than €33,000 are eligible to live in rent-controlled property. This means, 609,000 of the 2.2 million social housing units in the Netherlands are lived in by people who break this limit, the CBS said.
The rent-controlled property sector covers flats and houses with a monthly rent of up to €652.52 a month.
Urban areas
Most people who earn too much to technically qualify for social housing live close to the big cities in the central urban belt, the CBS said.
Last year, just over 170,000 properties in the social housing sector came up for rent, compared with almost 182,000 in 2010 – a drop of 6.3%. In 2006, turnover was around 9%. One reason is the new income limit which is discouraging people from moving house.
The government plans to allow landlords to increase social housing rents more sharply if tenants earn more than €43,000 a year, in an effort to get people to move to the private sector or buy a home. The higher limit is considered by ministers to be more reasonable than the European Commission ceiling.

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