Netherlands to restrict admissions of overseas students to address the housing shortage

According to SchengenVisaInfo.com, the Dutch authorities in Amsterdam are requesting that homeowners who have extra rooms to rent them out to the inflow of arriving students. Amsterdam is preparing to act in order to stop the expansion of overseas enrollment in order to address this dilemma. This suggestion was made in an effort to address the housing crisis that Amsterdam faces every September as a result of rising demand for rental spaces, according to the research. 

The University of Amsterdam published a notice on their website that read, “Attention: The UvA strongly advises you not to come to Amsterdam for your studies unless you have arranged suitable housing due to the ongoing housing crisis in the Netherlands. For non-EU students, an apartment is especially crucial because maintaining your residence permit requires you to record your location with the municipality. The UvA cannot arrange housing for every incoming overseas student because Dutch universities lack their own housing facilities. In the end, students are in charge of their own accommodations. 

According to the city, landlords who rent to students would gain since they won’t need a special permit and won’t have to pay tax on their annual rental income (up to 5,881 euros). There were 115,068 international students in the Netherlands in 2022, according to data from Nuffic, the Dutch government agency responsible for internationalization in education. This represents a 12% increase over 2021 estimates.  

In an April letter to the House of Representatives in The Hague, Dutch Minister of Education, Culture, and Science Robbert Dijkgraaf stated that 40% of first-year university students are international. Dijkgraaf wrote in the letter that while he thought it was excellent that Dutch students could study abroad, it should also be feasible to control the flow of students into the Netherlands.