People buying a second home in Amsterdam will need a permit from the beginning of 2026, according to a proposed revision of housing rules.

The new policy is intended to cut the number of empty second homes in the city – currently estimated at 2,500 to 3,000 – and help combat homelessness, according to city head of housing Zita Pels.

The new rules mean anyone who owns another property elsewhere but keeps a pied-à-terre for occasional use in the Dutch capital will need a permit.

People who buy a new second home from January 2026 will only be given permission if they fulfill strict conditions. They must work at least two days a week in the city for at least six months, care for an Amsterdammer for at least eight hours a week or have lived in the city for at least three years before moving abroad.

Those who currently have a pied-à-terre will be granted a one-year permit, said Pels in a council meeting on Wednesday.

“This permit system will ensure that in two years, there aren’t 4,000 homes empty in our city because they are second homes,” she said. “It costs a lot of money for us as a society to build these kinds of homes, so please let us make optimal use of the ones that are already there.”

Suleyman Aslami, housing spokesman for D66, said the new rules should allow room for personal situations such as divorce and give clarity to current second home users after the first year. The party intends to draw up a motion on these concerns for a council meeting in December, when the policy will be put to a vote.

Pels said that there would be a “flexibility” clause in the rules for special situations to give civil servants room to respond to unforeseen circumstances, and that the intention was not to change legitimate existing situations – but to crack down on largely unused holiday homes.

“When I went on one visit with the enforcement team, one of my favourite parts of my job…we rang at the door of a home in Amsterdam Oost,” she said in a meeting on Wednesday morning. “Nobody opened the door, and then the standard practice is to call at the neighbours to ask if they know any more about the situation. These neighbours said immediately: ‘a family from China lives there, and maybe once every three years, they enjoy their summer holiday here’.”

She said that – in her view – homes are for city dwellers and for living in. “If you want to stay here for a short period of time, that’s what hotels are for. Houses are for Amsterdammers and everyone who wants to come to our city and is looking for a home,” she said.

Formal public reactions to the proposal were largely positive, said the city in a report, although some people claimed it would encroach on property rights, was a “symbolic” measure for just 0.5% of the housing stock and would “discriminate” against homeowners who are not permanent residents.

Crackdown

Christian democratic councillor Rogier Havelaar said that it would be more efficient to ban the sale of houses worth less than €623,000 as a second home. Amsterdam already has rules banning renting out cheaper new-build homes for the first four years after purchase.

The aim of the permits for second homes, however, is to make it easier to crack down on properties that are empty long-term and compel owners to rent them out. Across the Netherlands, an estimated 90,000 houses stand empty, while just over 400,000 people are looking for a home.