Buying a House as an Expat: Mortgages, Overbidding, and Kosten Koper

Yes, expats can get Dutch mortgages — often up to 100% of the purchase price. What actually decides your case is permit type, the cash you need for kosten koper, and how much overbidding the local market still demands in 2026.

The Dutch housing market has a strange reputation among internationals: simultaneously impossible ("you'll be overbid by €50,000") and suspiciously generous ("they gave us a mortgage for the entire purchase price"). Both halves are roughly true. This guide lays out how buying works here as a foreigner — who can borrow, how much, what the 30% ruling does to the math, what overbidding actually looks like in 2026, and where the cash costs hide. One thing this guide is not: financial advice. Mortgage products differ enormously per lender and per personal situation, so everything here is the general picture; an independent hypotheekadviseur (mortgage adviser) is the person who turns it into your specific numbers.

Can expats get a Dutch mortgage at all?

Yes, and the deciding factor is your residence permit, not your passport.

EU, EEA and Swiss nationals are treated exactly like Dutch citizens by lenders. Non-EU nationals generally need an indefinite (permanent) residence permit, or at minimum a permanent employment contract; with a temporary permit and a fixed-term contract, many lenders want extra buffers — a longer employment track record, a lower loan relative to the home's value, sometimes a guarantor. Individual lenders draw these lines differently, which is one of several reasons expat buyers tend to end up talking to an adviser who knows which desks say yes to which situations.

On how much: Dutch lending caps are set nationally each year, based on the budget institute Nibud's tables. For 2026 that works out to roughly 4.3–4.5x gross annual income for most earners — the table isn't perfectly linear, and energy-efficient homes get a bit of extra room. A partner's income counts in full since 2023. Loans up to 100% of the property's appraised value are standard, which explains the absent down-payment culture that surprises Americans and Brits.

The catch, and it's a real one: the mortgage covers up to the home's value, but the buying costs on top — the famous kosten koper — must come from savings. More on that below, but budget roughly 4–6% of the purchase price in cash, plus any gap between what you bid and what the home appraises for, since overbidding above appraised value is also your money, not the bank's.

You'll need a BSN (citizen service number) for the whole process, and in practice a Dutch bank account for the monthly payments — if you're early in your move, see registering with the gemeente for your BSN and opening a Dutch bank account.

The 30% ruling and your borrowing capacity

If you have the 30% ruling — the expat tax facility that makes part of your salary tax-free — it affects your mortgage math, but not in one predictable direction, because lenders treat it differently.

Some lenders effectively gross up your income, counting the tax-free allowance as if it were regular taxed salary, which raises your maximum loan. Others use only your post-ruling taxable income and ignore the benefit entirely. A few sit in between. There's no rule of thumb for which lender does what, and their policies shift year to year.

The time limit is the other half of the story. The ruling runs at a flat 30% for up to five years, and from 2027 the rate drops to 27% for everyone still in the scheme. Your net income falls when the benefit shrinks or expires; your mortgage payment doesn't. Some lenders explicitly factor your remaining runway into what they'll offer, and it's a sensible stress test to run on your own budget regardless of what any lender approves.

This is a corner of the market where comparing lender policies genuinely changes the outcome, which is exactly what independent advisers and comparison platforms exist for.

Overbidding in 2026: what the data says

Overbidding — paying above the asking price — became normal during the frenzied years, and in 2026 it's cooling but far from gone. The estate agents' association NVM's Q1 2026 figures: 67% of homes sold above asking, with the average winning bid about 3.7% over — down from 5.2% in the last quarter of 2025. The data platform Huispedia puts it slightly higher, around 71% of sales at roughly 4.7% over ask. Reasonable people can average these differently; the direction is what matters.

The spread by location is enormous. In Amsterdam, something like three-quarters of apartments still sell above asking; in smaller cities and rural areas, list price often is the price, and homes that sit for a while go under it. So national averages are trivia — what you want is recent sold prices (not asking prices) for your target street and property type. Funda shows sold prices, the Kadaster records the official transaction sums, and a local agent will know which listings are priced to spark a bidding war versus priced to sell.

Practical consequence for your budget: asking price is an invitation, not a price. In competitive segments, buyers work backwards — maximum affordable total first, then look at homes listed enough below it to leave overbidding room.

Kosten koper: where the cash actually goes

Kosten koper (buyer's costs) is why "100% mortgage" doesn't mean "buy with zero savings." The label on Dutch listings — "€450.000 k.k." — means these costs are yours, on top of the price. The main items:

All in, people typically budget 4–6% of the purchase price in cash. The bankgarantie deserves a word: when you sign the purchase contract, you typically owe the seller security of around 10% of the price. You can deposit that in cash with the notary or pay a bank a fee (commonly around 1% of the sum) to guarantee it. It's security, not an extra cost of that size — you only lose it if you walk away without a valid reason after the legal deadlines.

The under-35 starter exemption — yes, it applies to expats

The one large discount in the system: buyers aged 18 through 34, purchasing their first home ever and moving in as their primary residence, pay no transfer tax at all. On a €400,000 home, that's €8,000 kept.

The details matter:

• It's residence-neutral. Eligibility is about age and first-time-buyer status, not nationality, permit type or how long you've lived in the Netherlands. Expats qualify on the same terms as anyone else.
• "First home" means anywhere, not first Dutch home. If you owned an apartment abroad, you're not a starter in the exemption's eyes — you'll sign a declaration at the notary, so this isn't a corner to cut.
• The price cap is a cliff. For 2026 it's €555,000 (up from €525,000 in 2025). At €555,001 the exemption vanishes entirely — you pay 2% on the whole amount, not just the excess. Around the cap, that makes a €1 difference in price worth over €11,000 in tax, which does strange things to bidding strategy on homes priced near it.
• Once per lifetime. Use it and it's gone, even if you'd technically qualify by age again later.

The notary handles the paperwork as part of the transfer.

NHG: the national mortgage guarantee

NHG — Nationale Hypotheek Garantie — is a national guarantee scheme, available for mortgages up to €470,000 as of 2026 (or €498,200 when the extra finances energy-saving measures). You pay a one-off fee of 0.4% of the loan. In exchange: if you're forced to sell at a loss through defined life events — job loss, divorce, disability, a partner's death — the scheme can cover the residual debt, and because the guarantee lowers the lender's risk, NHG loans generally carry lower interest rates than comparable non-NHG loans.

Whether that trade — an upfront fee against a rate discount and a safety net — works out in a given case depends on the loan size, how long you keep the mortgage, and rates at the time, which is a calculation to run with an adviser rather than settle from a general article. Above the price limit, the question answers itself: NHG simply isn't available, which in the priciest cities rules out a large share of the market.

How the buying process actually runs

From first viewing to keys, the sequence looks like this:

1. Get your borrowing capacity established before bidding seriously — in a market where sellers pick a buyer within days, bids from buyers who don't know their ceiling aren't credible.
2. Decide on an aankoopmakelaar (buyer's agent). Optional, and plenty of people buy without one. What they bring: knowledge of what nearby homes actually sold for, a read on how many bidders you're facing, and process handling. In bidding-war cities their fee competes against the risk of overpaying by more than it costs; in calmer markets the case is thinner. Either way, the selling agent works for the seller — friendliness notwithstanding.
3. View, then bid — usually in writing by a deadline. A bid states your price and your conditions (voorbehouden), the most common being financing (the deal dissolves if your mortgage falls through) and a building inspection. In hot bidding rounds, some buyers drop conditions to look attractive; that's a genuine risk transfer to you — waiving the financing condition means your ~10% security is on the line if the loan doesn't come through — so it's a decision to make deliberately, not under deadline adrenaline.
4. Sign the koopovereenkomst (purchase agreement). You then have a statutory three-day cooling-off period to withdraw without reason or penalty.
5. Finalize the mortgage. The lender needs the valuation report; then the offer becomes final. This is typically also when the bankgarantie is arranged.
6. Transfer at the notary. Final inspection of the home the same morning, then signatures, then keys. The notary settles all the money flows, including the transfer tax or your starter-exemption declaration.

Typical time from accepted bid to keys: two to three months.

Buying versus renting long-term: the honest version

There's no universal answer, only trade-offs that price out differently per person. Owning brings hypotheekrenteaftrek (mortgage interest deduction), which lowers the effective cost of borrowing, and it fixes your main housing cost while rents have been climbing. Against that: several percent of the price is sunk in kosten koper the day you buy, so short stays — under roughly four to five years — make it hard to come out ahead if prices go sideways, and you carry maintenance plus VvE (owners' association) contributions a landlord would otherwise absorb. Renting buys flexibility at the cost of exposure to a thin, expensive private market — though the 2024 rent laws capped a much larger slice of it than most internationals realize.

For a stay of uncertain length — the standard expat condition — the honest framing is that buying is a bet on staying, and the kosten koper is the stake. Running your own numbers, or having someone independent run them, beats any rule of thumb this article could offer.

FAQ

Do I need permanent residency to buy property here? No — anyone can own Dutch property regardless of status. The permit question is about the mortgage: non-EU nationals on temporary permits face more conservative lending, not a ban. Buying outright with cash has no residency requirement at all.

Does the starter exemption work if I owned a home in my home country? No. The exemption is for people who have never owned a home anywhere, and you formally declare this at the notary. Previously owning abroad means paying the standard 2% — still modest by international standards.

Can my foreign savings be used for kosten koper? Generally yes — savings are savings. Expect the notary and lender to ask for documentation of the money's origin under anti-money-laundering rules, and transfer well in advance of the completion date, since international transfers plus compliance checks can take longer than the deadline politely waits.

Is overbidding mandatory? No — it's an outcome, not a rule. A third of Dutch homes still sell at or under asking, mostly outside the big-city hotspots. What is effectively mandatory in competitive segments is deciding your maximum before the bidding deadline, because "one more round" is exactly how people end up owning the most expensive house on the street.