For contracts signed since 1 July 2023, Dutch law caps a rental deposit (borg) at two months' bare rent, and your landlord has 14 days after the tenancy ends to hand it back (30 if they deduct costs), per Rijksoverheid's deposit rules. The professional end-of-tenancy clean that takes the most common deduction off the table works out at roughly €150–€420 depending on the size of the home — our estimate from Trustoo's published €25–€35 hourly rates for registered cleaning companies.
A deposit measured in thousands against a clean measured in hundreds — and cleaning is the one deduction that is entirely avoidable. If your inspection date is already set, our price calculator will give you a fixed number for your home.
What Dutch landlords can and can't deduct from your borg
Four things can lawfully come out of your deposit: unpaid rent, unpaid service charges, the energy performance fee (energieprestatievergoeding), and damage for the tenant's account beyond normal wear and tear. Worn carpet in the walkway, faded paint, a few small nail holes: those are traces of living, and the landlord carries them. A shower screen frosted white with limescale or an extractor filter glued shut with grease is another matter — in practice, a home returned dirty beyond its check-in state is treated as a shortfall the landlord can charge to put right.
The money rules themselves are unusually concrete. For contracts signed on or after 1 July 2023, the deposit is capped at twice the bare monthly rent (contracts from before that date may hold up to three months). And the landlord doesn't get to sit on it.
Source: Rijksoverheid's deposit (waarborgsom) rules.
Deducting costs stretches the deadline to 30 days, and obliges the landlord to itemise every euro withheld.
The check-in report decides everything
The decisive document in any deposit argument is the inspection report — the inspectierapport, sometimes called the beginstaat — drawn up when you received the home, ideally signed by both sides and backed by photos. At checkout, the home is judged against that document. Not against the landlord's memory, not against the standard the next tenant was promised: against the paper.
Keep your copy where you can find it, because it cuts both ways. It's the landlord's evidence for a genuine shortfall, and it's your shield against being billed for the scuffed floor that was already scuffed. If no report was ever made, build the record yourself: Rijksoverheid's advice is to get the fullest possible condition report at handover, and failing that, dated photos of every room are your next best evidence.
Where the Huurcommissie fits
The Huurcommissie settles disputes about rent levels, maintenance and service charges, chiefly in the social and middle (regulated) segments. A withheld deposit itself is a matter for the courts: Rijksoverheid's advice is to demand the money back in writing first, then claim it via de rechter. But deductions have a habit of arriving dressed up as a final service-charge settlement, and on a regulated rental that is exactly the Huurcommissie's door. We clean homes for a living; we don't give legal advice. For a contested deduction, get free legal advice before you sign anything away.
The cleaning standard at handover: as received, not as new
The standard is the condition the check-in report records, minus normal wear and tear — not showroom condition. In practice, though, checkouts fail on a short, predictable list: the six spots where neglect is easiest to see and easiest to bill.
| Deposit hotspot | Where the inspection catches it | What passing looks like |
|---|---|---|
| Limescale | Shower glass, taps, shower head, toilet rim — hard tap water leaves a white film fast | Glass transparent, chrome wiped dry with no white film |
| Oven and extractor | Inner door glass, racks, the grease filter in the hood | Glass see-through, racks grease-free, filter degreased or replaced |
| Grout and silicone seals | Mould spotting along bathroom and kitchen seals | Seals wiped clean; blackened silicone often gets billed as damage |
| Window frames and tracks | Inside faces of frames, sliding-door tracks, sills | Tracks vacuumed and wiped, frames clean to the touch |
| Kitchen cupboards | Crumbs inside, the grease film on top of wall units | Shelves emptied and wiped, tops degreased |
| Floors and skirting | The rectangles where furniture stood, scuffs along skirting boards | Edge-to-edge vacuum and mop once the rooms are empty |
Room by room, the full task list is the one in our move-out cleaning checklist — written for the US market, but grime doesn't read contracts, and the room order transfers one to one. And if you're mid-tenancy with an oven already past a weekend job, a one-off deep clean now is cheaper than a dispute later; on a long lease, a recurring plan means checkout day inherits a maintained home instead of a five-year backlog.
What professional end-of-tenancy cleaning costs
Dutch cleaning is priced by the hour. Registered companies charge €25–€35 per hour and private cleaners hired directly €17–€25, according to Trustoo's price guide; one-off jobs quoted through Werkspot run €16–€30 per hour, a range that folds in private individuals at the bottom. Checkout cleans are deadline work booked once, so expect quotes at the one-off end of those ranges, not the loyal-customer end.
Nobody we can cite publishes end-of-tenancy totals. So the bands below are our own sums: plausible hours for an emptied home, multiplied by Trustoo's €25–€35 company rate. Use them to sanity-check a quote, not to argue one down.
| Home | Typical hours (emptied home) | Our estimate at Trustoo's €25–€35/hr |
|---|---|---|
| Studio or 1-bed flat | ~6 hours | €150–€210 |
| 2-bed apartment | ~8 hours | €200–€280 |
| Family house | ~12 hours | €300–€420 |
For a cross-check, the nearest published total is Trustoo's €250–€850 band for a one-off deep clean; we read that band as pricing lived-in homes, and an emptied home usually cleans faster, which is why our bands start lower. Our own end-of-tenancy cleans start at €185 for a one-bedroom apartment, squarely inside the studio band. In Amsterdam, expect quotes toward the top of each band — our Amsterdam cost guide runs the city's numbers in full.
Now set those hundreds against the deposit. The legal cap is two months' bare rent: on a €1,400 flat, up to €2,800 sitting in your landlord's account. Even the top of our family-house band, €420, is about a seventh of that. This is the cheapest insurance in the whole moving budget.
Four questions in our price calculator and you have a fixed number for your checkout clean — instant, no email, no callback.
Calculate my price or call +31 615 098864DIY vs professional: when the maths favours booking
Doing it yourself is a perfectly sound plan in the right circumstances: a small, kept-up flat, a few free days between homes, and a shopping basket of descaler, degreaser and oven product. Six focused hours and a studio hands over clean. We'd tell you to save your money.
The maths flips when the empty-home window is short: the clean has to happen after the movers and before the inspection, and if those are the same day there's no slot for DIY. It flips again with size — twelve hours is not a Saturday, it's a lost weekend at the exact moment you're setting up a new address. And it flips for old backlogs: years of limescale and baked-on grease resist household products, and a half-result can still cost you the deduction you were trying to avoid.
A spotless home also changes how any real damage reads: isolated, rather than part of general neglect. Our end-of-tenancy service is scoped to the hotspots above — appliance interiors, limescale, grout, glass and drains — and if you'd rather sort both ends of the move at once, move-in/move-out cleaning gets this deposit back and the new place ready in the same booking.
Timeline: booking around your final inspection
Deposit-ready is as much scheduling as scrubbing. The sequence that works:
- A month out. Give notice the way your contract requires, dig out the check-in report, and reread what it actually records. Ask whether your landlord or agency offers a pre-inspection (voorinspectie): a written list of points to fix, delivered while there's still time to fix them, is the final inspection's answer key.
- Book the clean for after the movers, before the inspection. Empty rooms clean faster and better — nobody can descale a shower around a bathroom full of boxes. Leave a buffer of at least a day in case something needs a second pass.
- On handover day. Photograph every room in daylight, note the meter readings, and get the key handover confirmed in writing. Walk the inspection yourself and don't sign a checkout report you disagree with — note your objection on the document instead.
- After handover. The legal clock now runs: 14 days for the full deposit, 30 days with an itemised specification if anything is deducted. If a deadline passes silently, chase it in writing the next day — politely, with the dates and the rule in the same sentence.
Frequently asked questions
How much does end-of-tenancy cleaning cost in the Netherlands?
No Dutch price list we can verify publishes end-of-tenancy totals, so we estimate from plausible hours for an emptied home at Trustoo's published €25–€35 per hour for registered companies: a six-hour checkout clean on a studio or one-bed comes to €150–€210, and a twelve-hour family house to €300–€420. Trustoo's €250–€850 band for a one-off deep clean is the nearest published total. Treat all of these as estimates until a company has seen the property.
Can my landlord keep my deposit for cleaning in the Netherlands?
Only to cover a genuine shortfall. Rijksoverheid lists damage for the tenant's account, beyond normal wear and tear, among the lawful deductions, and in practice a home returned dirty beyond the state the check-in report records is treated as exactly that. The deduction must be itemised, and the remainder of the deposit still has to be returned within 30 days.
How long does a landlord have to return a deposit in the Netherlands?
Within 14 days of the end of the tenancy if nothing is deducted, and within 30 days with an itemised specification if costs are withheld, according to Rijksoverheid. For contracts signed on or after 1 July 2023 the deposit itself is capped at two months' bare rent. If a deadline passes silently, chase it in writing the next day.
What if there was no check-in inspection report?
Build the record yourself. Rijksoverheid's advice is to get the fullest possible condition report at handover, and failing that your own dated photos are the next best evidence: photograph every room on your last day, keep emails about the home's condition, and hand the keys over in writing. Get free legal advice before accepting any deduction.
Does the Huurcommissie handle deposit disputes?
Not directly. The Huurcommissie rules on rent levels, maintenance and service charges, chiefly in the social and middle (regulated) segments. For the deposit itself, Rijksoverheid's advice is to demand the money back in writing and then claim it through the courts. But when a deduction arrives dressed up as a service-charge settlement on a regulated rental, the Huurcommissie is the right place to take it.
If you're pricing the wider market before you book, our Amsterdam and Rotterdam cost guides run sourced hourly rates and totals city by city. And once your inspection date is in the calendar, the calculator will put a fixed price on your checkout clean — so the only open number left on moving day is the one coming back to you.
