How much money is lost to rental scams in the Netherlands each year?

There is no clean published national total for rental fraud specifically. National fraud damage reported to the Fraudehelpdesk reached tens of millions of euros in 2025 across all fraud types, and local samples — such as 223,075 euros across 244 reports in The Hague in 2024 — show the rental slice is substantial. Anyone quoting an exact national rental-only figure is likely repeating an unsourced number.

Are international students really targeted more?

They are structurally more exposed: searching from abroad, under deadline, often paying before they can view. The LSVb student-union hotline logged 263 housing-fraud help requests this year, against a severe room shortage — the conditions scammers exploit.

What is the single most effective way to avoid a rental scam?

Never pay before an in-person or live viewing and a signed contract, and pay only to a Dutch IBAN in the contract's name. Before a deposit to a private landlord, confirm ownership against the land registry — a match / no-match check that no listing platform runs for you.

Can I reuse these figures?

Yes — the numbers are public institutional data and each links to its source. Please cite the original institution (Fraudehelpdesk, CBS, Kences, LSVb) and, if useful, this dated report. It is a risk-awareness resource, not a guarantee about any individual listing.

Data report · 2026 edition

Netherlands Rental Scam Report 2026

Last updated: 22 July 2026 · 2026 edition

Rental fraud in the Netherlands is rising alongside a housing shortage that hits international students and expats hardest. This report gathers the verified numbers in one place, each traceable to its institutional source: how much fraud is reported, how much money is lost, how tight the student-housing market has become, and where renters are most exposed. It is a snapshot, not a scoreboard — the figures below are the ones we could verify against a named public source, and the gaps are stated openly.

Key numbers, ready to quote

Every figure links to the institutional source it was verified against. Fraud figures cover all fraud types reported nationally, not rental fraud alone — a clean national rental-fraud total is not published, which is itself part of the story.

101,734: fraud reports to the Fraudehelpdesk in 2025(Fraudehelpdesk)
€68.5M: total reported fraud damage in 2025(Fraudehelpdesk)
244: rental-fraud reports in one city sample (The Hague, 2024)(Fraudehelpdesk via Den Haag Centraal)
17%: of people aged 15+ were victims of online crime in 2025(CBS Veiligheidsmonitor)
21,500: national shortage of student rooms in 2025(Kences)
263: housing-fraud help requests to the student union hotline this year(LSVb via DutchNews)

How large is fraud in the Netherlands?

According to the Fraudehelpdesk's own year reviews, reports climbed sharply through 2025, and the reported financial damage rose with them. These totals cover every kind of fraud the desk logs — investment, purchase, phishing and rental — so they set the backdrop rather than measure rental fraud on its own.

The national picture from CBS, the Dutch statistics office, is steadier: in 2025, 17 percent of people aged 15 and over said they had been a victim of one or more online offences. Online fraud is not a rare event that happens to other people; it is a routine risk for a large share of the population.

How much of this is rental fraud?

A clean, national rental-fraud total is not published — the reason match/no-match verification and honest reporting matter so much. What exists are local windows into the problem. In a single city sample from The Hague in 2024, victims filed 244 rental-fraud reports for a combined 223,075 euros — from one city, in one year.

Scale that pattern across every student city in the intake peak and the shape is clear even where the exact national number is not. The people filing these reports are disproportionately newcomers: internationals arriving without a Dutch network, under deadline pressure, paying a deposit before they can view.

Why are international students the most exposed?

The exposure is structural, not a matter of naïveté. According to the student union LSVb, its housing-fraud hotline took 263 help requests this year, against a backdrop of roughly 129,764 international students. Demand vastly outruns supply: Kences puts the national shortage of student rooms at 21,500 in 2025.

When thousands of people compete for too few rooms from abroad, before they arrive, the scammer's core move works: a below-market listing, a landlord who cannot do an in-person viewing, and a deposit demanded now to 'hold' the room. Scarcity is the scammer's best accomplice.

Searching from abroad, so an in-person viewing feels impossible — exactly the pressure a scammer engineers.
Under a hard deadline (enrolment, a job start), which makes 'pay now to reserve' feel reasonable.
Without a Dutch bank, network or reference points to sanity-check an IBAN, a name or a price.

What actually protects a renter?

The behavioural rules do more than any platform badge. Never pay a deposit or rent before an in-person or live viewing and a signed contract. Pay only by bank transfer to a Dutch IBAN in the name on the contract — never crypto, gift cards or a cash pickup. For contracts signed from 1 July 2023, the deposit may not exceed two months of bare rent, so a larger demand is a warning in itself.

One check no platform runs for you is ownership. Before a deposit to a private landlord, confirm the person collecting the money is the person on the deed — a match / no-match answer against the land registry. Pair that with the behavioural signals above and the two hardest scam moves — the fake owner and the pay-before-viewing push — both lose their grip.

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Official resources

If you suspect fraud, act through the official channels below. Reporting fast — the bank first, within 24 hours — gives the best chance of recovering a transfer.

Methodology and honest limits

Every figure in this report is drawn from a named institutional source (Fraudehelpdesk, CBS, Kences, LSVb via DutchNews) and links to the exact page it was verified against; the underlying figures live in our verified statistics dataset.
National fraud totals cover all fraud types, not rental fraud alone, because a clean national rental-fraud total is not published. Rental-specific figures are local samples and are labelled as such — they illustrate the pattern, they do not measure the whole.
This edition reports only verified third-party figures. We do not publish first-party aggregates from our own checks unless and until the sample is large enough to be meaningful and can be shown without any personal data; where that point is reached, it will be added with its sample size stated.
Widely circulated but unsourced figures (for example a headline 'billions lost to rental scams') are deliberately excluded. A number we cannot trace to a source does not belong in a report about avoiding deception.

FAQ

How much money is lost to rental scams in the Netherlands each year?: There is no clean published national total for rental fraud specifically. National fraud damage reported to the Fraudehelpdesk reached tens of millions of euros in 2025 across all fraud types, and local samples — such as 223,075 euros across 244 reports in The Hague in 2024 — show the rental slice is substantial. Anyone quoting an exact national rental-only figure is likely repeating an unsourced number.
Are international students really targeted more?: They are structurally more exposed: searching from abroad, under deadline, often paying before they can view. The LSVb student-union hotline logged 263 housing-fraud help requests this year, against a severe room shortage — the conditions scammers exploit.
What is the single most effective way to avoid a rental scam?: Never pay before an in-person or live viewing and a signed contract, and pay only to a Dutch IBAN in the contract's name. Before a deposit to a private landlord, confirm ownership against the land registry — a match / no-match check that no listing platform runs for you.
Can I reuse these figures?: Yes — the numbers are public institutional data and each links to its source. Please cite the original institution (Fraudehelpdesk, CBS, Kences, LSVb) and, if useful, this dated report. It is a risk-awareness resource, not a guarantee about any individual listing.