When an application falls just short of a landlord's income bar, adjusting a payslip can look like a small and victimless shortcut. What that actually counts as under Dutch law, and what legitimate routes exist for applicants whose paperwork does not fit the standard template, are worth knowing before the temptation arrives.
Don't. Altering or fabricating a payslip is document fraud (valsheid in geschrifte), and landlords increasingly cross-check via UWV records or ask direct bank confirmation, so it's a worse bet than it used to be. If it surfaces after you've moved in, you're looking at a voided contract, eviction, a damages claim, and a reference that follows you to the next application. Legitimate routes that actually work: a garantsteller who meets the income test on your behalf, offering to prepay a few months' rent if the landlord's open to it, widening your search to smaller units or a shared house where the bar is lower, or simply asking the landlord to weigh savings and a freelance track record instead of a single payslip — plenty are more flexible than the listing text suggests once you actually talk to them.