My rent has become too high, can I keep my rent benefit?

From 2026, your rent may be high and you can still receive rent benefit. However, whether you receive rent benefit and what the amount will be depends on a combination of your rent, your family composition and your income, among other things. You always pay part of the rent yourself.

Do you want to know how much rent benefit you can receive?

Make a test calculation(only available in Dutch)

Things worked differently until the end of 2025

If your rent was higher than the rent threshold, you could not receive rent benefit. But there was an exception. If your rent exceeded the threshold, but you did already receive rent benefit for the same home before, you were still entitled to rent benefit. This is called established right (verworven recht).

If you had established right, but temporarily did not meet the other conditions

Did you have established right, but did you no longer meet the other conditions for rent benefit? This could happen if, for example, your income became too high. In that case, you no longer received rent benefit.

Did you meet the additional conditions again later, for example, because your income decreased? Then you could receive rent benefit again, if you still lived in the same home as before.

If we had enough information about you, you would automatically receive rent benefit again. Did you not automatically receive the rent benefit even though you were entitled to it? Then you could apply for it yourself.

Did you lose your rent benefit in the past even though you had established right? That may have been unjust. Please contact the Tax Information line. We will be happy to help you.

Read more about the rent benefit amount (only available in Dutch)