Servicekosten is an advance, not a second rent — ask for the statement before 1 July

Something I keep having to explain to House Hunter users moving into their first Dutch flat: the €175 line on your contract labelled servicekosten is not a second rent. It's a monthly advance (voorschot) against costs the landlord actually has to incur — cleaning of the stairwell, a shared garden, electricity in common areas, sometimes gas/water/electric if it's not on your own meter, furniture in a furnished place.

The key word is actually. Dutch law is blunt about this: a landlord can only pass on costs that were really made, that are reasonable, and that can be proven with invoices. A landlord is not allowed to make a profit on service costs. Full stop.

That's why the annual statement matters. By 30 June every year, the landlord has to send you an itemised breakdown of what you actually consumed and what the building actually cost over the previous calendar year, and then settle the difference with your advances. Paid too much? You get money back. Used more? You pay the gap.

If you never got that statement, you've essentially been paying a flat fee with no accountability. Which is exactly what the law is designed to prevent.

I'm not going to pretend this is neutral. Expats and international students are the group most likely to be overcharged on servicekosten, and every tenancy lawyer I've spoken to in Amsterdam and Utrecht says the same thing.

The mechanics are simple. A new arrival signs in a panic because they've been outbid on four places already. The contract says '€1,650 kale huur + €200 servicekosten'. Nobody questions the €200. A year later, nobody asks for the annual statement. Another year, same thing.

The abuses I see repeatedly on contracts our users send me:

• Flat utility fees with no meter readings attached, even though the apartment has its own meters.
• 'Maintenance' charges that are actually the landlord's own repair obligations (leaky roof, boiler replacement — that's not yours to pay).
• Cleaning fees for a 'weekly staircase clean' in a building where no cleaner has ever been seen.
• Furniture depreciation billed at absurd rates on an IKEA sofa from 2016.

One case I keep coming back to: an Amsterdam tenant paying €200/month servicekosten. After demanding the invoices, only €80 turned out to be justifiable. That's €120 a month — €1,440 a year — that had no legal basis. The refund went through because the landlord couldn't produce paperwork.

Rule of thumb from tenant advocates: if your servicekosten is above €100–€150 per month for a room or a small apartment and you've never seen a breakdown, something is probably off.

The 1 July moment isn't just a calendar note. It's the point where your legal position shifts.

If the statement doesn't arrive, you can stop paying further servicekosten advances until the landlord complies. You don't need permission from the Huurcommissie to do that — the obligation is on the landlord.

If the statement does arrive but the numbers look off, you have the right to request every underlying invoice. Not a summary. The actual receipts. Landlord says no? That strengthens your case enormously if you go to the Huurcommissie.

And the Huurcommissie is genuinely usable. Filing fee is €25, refunded if you win, decisions typically within 3–6 months. For the expat paying €150/month too much, that's a trivial cost against the potential refund.

The thing most tenants miss: there are time windows for challenging the statement once you receive it. If you sit on it for a year, you lose leverage. If you're still in the property, request it now — before 1 July — so you're ready to act the moment it does or doesn't arrive.

A separate pattern I want to call out, because I see it constantly in Rotterdam and Den Haag listings: the all-in price. '€1,400 all-in, including everything.'

Sounds convenient. It's also how landlords hide the split between base rent and servicekosten, which matters because:

• Base rent (kale huur) is what determines whether you're in the regulated sector, whether you qualify for huurtoeslag, and what the Huurcommissie can assess via the points system.
• Servicekosten has to be itemised and justified, separately, every year.

A contract that refuses to split these is a contract that makes it structurally impossible to check either number. Dutch tenancy law actually gives tenants the right to demand a split of all-in rents, and the Huurcommissie can impose one retroactively. When they do, the servicekosten portion typically gets cut hard, because landlords can't produce the evidence to justify what they bundled in.

If you're being offered an all-in deal in Amsterdam, Utrecht or Groningen right now: that's not a feature. That's a red flag.

There's a reason I'm writing this in 2025 and not waiting. The Wet Modernisering Servicekosten (Service Costs Modernization Act) comes into force on 1 July 2026 and it genuinely tightens the rules.

The big shifts:

• A closed, exhaustive list of what can be charged as servicekosten. Today the law has an open standard; after July 2026 only items explicitly named in the Servicekostenbesluit are allowed.
• The old distinction between 'utilities with individual meters' and other service costs is abolished, which closes some creative loopholes landlords have been using.
• The Huurcommissie gets authority to review all categories of servicekosten, not just the utility slice.

One catch worth underlining: the new regime applies to lease agreements signed after 1 July 2026. Existing contracts stay under the current rules. So if you signed in 2024 or 2025, the old framework — including the 30 June annual statement obligation — is still the one you need to work with.

Meaning: don't wait for 2026 to clean up this year's overcharges. You lose that money if you don't act on it now.

What I'd actually do if I were renting in Nederland right now and 1 July was approaching.

Send a short email to your landlord or agency today. Plain text, keep a copy. 'Per artikel 7:259 BW I'd like to receive the annual service costs statement for [year] with underlying invoices before 30 June.' That's it. You don't need to be aggressive; you need to be on record.

When the statement arrives, check three things: does the total of your monthly advances match the sum they list as paid? Are utilities based on actual meter readings (gas/water/electric), not estimates? Is every line item something you actually received — is there really a cleaner, a gardener, a concierge?

Compare notes with neighbours. This is the single most effective tactic I know. If the building has ten flats and everyone's servicekosten statement shows €60/month for 'stairwell cleaning', that's €7,200 a year for one staircase. Someone should be asking where that money went.

If the statement doesn't arrive by 30 June, or arrives without invoices, or shows numbers that don't stack up: contact a huurteam (most big cities have one — Amsterdam, Utrecht, Rotterdam, Den Haag, Groningen, Delft, Eindhoven), or go to the Huurcommissie directly. For expats specifically, tenancy lawyers like Arslan Advocaten and the Steunpunt Huren in Groningen have built a lot of experience with these cases.

And then, just — don't sign anything next year that doesn't split kale huur from servicekosten clearly. When House Hunter pushes a new listing to users, one of the first things I tell people to screen for is exactly that split. An honest landlord has no reason to hide it.

The thing I want internationals to internalise is this: servicekosten in Nederland is not something landlords grant you transparency on. Transparency is the legal default. The invoices, the annual statement, the right to challenge — those are baked into the system.

The reason abuse is so common isn't that the law is weak. It's that a lot of tenants, especially the ones moving here for the first time, never learn the law exists.

You paid in advance all year. Before 1 July, you find out what you actually owed. If there's a gap, it goes back to you. That's the deal.