Furnished rental, utilities included

01What do furnished, part-furnished and unfurnished mean?

When you rent a house for your staff in the Netherlands, listings use three Dutch words. They tell you how much is already in the house when you get the keys.

Kaal (unfurnished). Just the property, often without flooring, curtains or lights. You furnish everything yourself.
Gestoffeerd (part-furnished). The basics are in place: flooring, window coverings and usually lighting. No furniture, beds or kitchenware.
Gemeubileerd (furnished). Furniture and appliances are included. For a fully furnished house for workers, you would expect beds with mattresses, wardrobes, a table and chairs, an equipped kitchen and a washing machine.

There is no legal list that defines what ‘fully furnished’ means. Two providers can use the same word for very different things. So always ask for an inventory list per room and attach it to the tenancy agreement. Anything not on the list is hard to prove in a dispute.

For a staffing agency or employer, renting furnished has clear benefits. You can place people quickly, you do not need furniture storage and you pay nothing up front for furnishing. The downside: you pay for the furnishing through the rent, often for years, and the quality is not in your hands. So look not only at the price but also at what is there and what state it is in.

02What does a house for staff need as a minimum?

If you house labour migrants and want to meet the SNF standard, a few furnishing requirements are firm. The table below comes from the SNF set of requirements as included in 2025 in the policy note of the municipality of Deurne. Always use the current SNF text; numbering can differ between versions.

Topic	Requirement in the standard	Weight
Bed	A bed with a mattress of at least 80 × 200 cm for each resident	Major
Wardrobe and chair	A wardrobe of at least 0.36 m³ plus a chair for each resident	Major
Wardrobe outside the bedroom	Must be lockable	Minor
Bedroom	At least 3.5 m² of floor space per person	Major
Cooking	A hob with at least 4 rings (studio for max. 2 residents: 2 rings plus microwave or oven)	Major
Fridge and freezer	30 litres of fridge and freezer space per person	Minor
Fire blanket	At every cooking facility	Major
Boiler, gas heater, water heater	Demonstrably checked every two years	Major

An oven or microwave is listed as a recommendation. The text we reviewed says nothing about washing machines, bedding, pans and crockery or internet. That does not mean you can skip them: without a washing machine, pans and a table to eat at, a house for six workers is not liveable in practice, and residents will soon complain.

A practical checklist for a furnished house for staff, on top of the standard: mattress protectors, blackout curtains (for night shifts), enough sockets in every bedroom, a washing machine and a way to dry clothes, a vacuum cleaner, pans and crockery for the number of residents, and a lockable place for personal belongings. Read more about the full standard in The SNF standard explained, and about renting a certified house in Renting SNF-certified housing.

03What is included in all-in rent with gas, water and electricity?

With all-in rent you pay one amount a month. The Dutch government describes it like this: the basic rent and the service charges are not shown separately in the contract. If they are shown separately, the rent is the basic rent and the rest are service charges. With an all-in price, the tenant can ask the landlord to split the rent.

Gas, water and electricity (in Dutch ‘gas, water, licht’ or GWL) only count as service charges if the tenant gets the energy through the landlord. If you as tenant have your own contract with an energy supplier, the energy falls outside the service charges. With utilities included, the energy runs through the landlord, which raises one question: who pays if use is higher than expected?

What else can be in all-in rent? Check item by item. Common ones are:

gas, water and electricity;
internet and possibly TV;
use of furniture and appliances (the inventory);
cleaning of shared areas;
garden maintenance, window cleaning and small repairs;
municipal charges that fall on the user.

Under the current rules, service charges are settled once a year. According to the Dutch government, the tenant must receive the annual statement by 1 July at the latest. For tenancy agreements signed from 1 January 2027, the Service Charges Modernisation Act applies. From then on, only eight types of service charge may be passed on: heating and cooling; electricity, gas and water; movable goods; small repairs; supervision, security and waste; signal supply; insurance and reserves; and administration costs. Fixed costs for gas, water and electricity are then split equally between the units, and the variable part by measured use.

Whether and how these rules apply to a contract between a landlord and a company renting the house for its staff depends on your situation. This article is not legal advice: consult a lawyer before you sign. How to pass on energy costs fairly to residents is covered in Passing on energy costs to tenants.

See where the energy goes in an all-in house

eyesonrooms measures temperature and humidity per room and flags a likely plug-in heater or mould risk, in one overview every morning.

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04Who carries the energy risk with all-in rent?

An all-in price feels safe: you know what you pay each month. But someone carries the risk if use goes up, and in a house with many residents that can happen fast. Three causes come up in almost every staff house.

Many people, many showers. Six or eight adults who all shower, cook and wash after their shift use more hot water and electricity than a family.
Plug-in heaters. Anyone who feels cold adds a heater. A 2 kW heater running four hours a day uses 8 kWh. At the average electricity price for September 2026 (CBS, provisional: supply rate €0.1487 plus energy tax €0.1109 per kWh, including VAT, together about €0.26), that is just over €2 a day per heater. More in What does a plug-in heater cost?
Windows open with the heating on. Ventilating is good and needed against damp, but hours with a window open and the radiator on full burns a lot of gas. In September 2026 gas cost on average €0.6618 per m³ plus €0.7268 energy tax (CBS, provisional, including VAT).

Broadly, there are three ways this risk ends up in a contract:

Fixed all-in price with no limit. The landlord carries the risk. Landlords price that in, so you pay a margin, even in months with low use.
All-in with a fair-use clause. Everything is included up to an agreed annual use; above that you pay extra. This can be fair, as long as the limit is concrete (for example in kWh and m³), the meter readings are recorded at the start and the end, and you get to see them along the way.
Advance payment with a settlement. You pay an advance and, after the year, the actual use. You carry the risk, but you pay no margin either.

Also check the energy label. According to RVO, a valid energy label is required when an existing home is newly let, and since 29 May 2026 also when a tenancy agreement is extended or renewed. A label is valid for ten years. Ask for it: a home with a poor label costs more under all-in rent, and with an advance and settlement you will see it in your own bill.

05How do you compare offers: per bed or per house?

Providers of staff housing charge in two ways: per bed per week or month, or per house per month. That makes the amounts hard to compare directly. Convert them to the same unit, then look at what is and is not included.

Question	Why it matters
How many beds are allowed under the standard and the permit?	A price per house is only cheap if you are allowed to fill all the beds, and can.
Do you pay per bed even when the bed is empty?	Empty time between two placements is often at your cost with per-bed prices.
Are utilities included, and if so up to what limit?	Without a fair-use limit the landlord carries the risk; with one, you need to know where it is.
Which service charges are in the price?	Cleaning, internet, garden and municipal charges can make a real difference each month.
Who handles maintenance and repairs, and how fast?	A broken boiler in January costs you working days if nobody comes quickly.
What is on the inventory list?	‘Furnished’ without a list is not an agreement.
Is the house SNF-certified or ready for inspection?	Without enough quality you cannot deduct housing costs from the minimum wage.

Work out the same figure for every offer: what does one resident cost per month at the occupancy you realistically expect, including energy and service charges? That number, not the advertised price, is the real comparison. An overview of the whole route is in Renting housing for staff: the guide and on Renting staff housing. If you only rent for a few weeks or months, also read Short stay and flexible rental.

06Why an inventory list and check-in and check-out with photos?

With furnished rental, the condition of the furnishing matters as much as the condition of the house. Dutch civil law makes the difference large. Under Article 7:224 of the Civil Code: if a description of the property was made at the start of the lease, the tenant returns it in the state described. If no description was made, the tenant is presumed to have received the property in the state in which he returns it, unless the opposite is proven. In 2023 the Supreme Court confirmed how the burden of proof works in that case (ECLI:NL:HR:2023:1059).

For you as the tenant of a staff house, this means two things. Towards the landlord, a good check-in report protects you against claims for damage that was already there. Towards your own residents, you need the same list to show what happened during their stay.

How to go about it:

At the start: walk through the house with the landlord. Record per room what is there and its condition, with the date and photos. Also note the gas, water and electricity meter readings.
At every change of resident: a short room check with photos, so damage can be linked to a person.
Periodically: a fixed round, for example every quarter, using the same list. This fits with the maintenance log SNF asks for.
At the end: the same list, the same photo positions, and the meter readings again.

A step-by-step approach to good inspections is in Check-in, check-out and inspections.

07Internet, TV and municipal charges: who pays what?

Internet is no luxury for workers from abroad: it is their line home. In an all-in offer it is usually included. Ask about the speed and whether the signal reaches every bedroom. In the new service charge rules from 2027 this item is called ‘signal supply’.

Waste collection charge (afvalstoffenheffing) is levied on the user of a property, according to the association of Dutch municipalities (VNG), under Article 15.33 of the Environmental Management Act. Whoever makes separate parts of a home available, as with room rental, can be treated as the user. In some cases the municipality then charges the landlord rather than the residents. The charge may not exceed the cost.

Sewerage charge (rioolheffing) differs by municipality. According to the VNG, a municipality can charge owners, users or both, and this is set in its own sewerage charge regulation.

What does this mean for your contract? Agree in writing who receives and pays the assessments, and whether they are included in the all-in price. Check the regulation of the municipality where the house is; the rules and rates really do differ by place. If an assessment arrives later in your company's name that you thought was included in the price, it is hard to recover.

08How do you keep an all-in deal under control?

An all-in contract works best when both sides can see what is happening. A few simple habits help:

Record meter readings monthly. With a photo of the gas, water and electricity meters on a fixed day, you see a rise within weeks, not at the annual settlement.
See where the heat goes. A bedroom that keeps getting much warmer in the evening than the rest of the house often points to a plug-in heater. A room that never gets warm points to a radiator that does not work or a poorly insulated wall.
Keep an eye on damp. Heating without ventilating leads to damp rooms and, in time, mould. Mould costs more than energy: damage, complaints and problems at an inspection.
Inform residents in their own language. Explain why 20 degrees on the radiator is enough and why a plug-in heater is not allowed. A short explanation works better than a fine.

This is where measuring per room helps. eyesonrooms places a temperature and humidity sensor in every room, with one gateway per house. The system flags a likely plug-in heater, a room that is too cold, heating that does not seem to work and mould risk, and sends an overview every morning at 07:30. There are no cameras, microphones or motion sensors. In the eyesonrooms housing management software you can also keep track of residents, beds, contracts and inspections with photos. How much you save depends on the house and the residents: any saving is an estimate, not a promise.

That way a fair-use agreement becomes something you can both steer by, rather than a surprise at the end of the year. See the SNF package or housing management software for details.

09Frequently asked questions

What is the difference between furnished and part-furnished?

Part-furnished (gestoffeerd) usually means flooring, window coverings and lighting are in place. Furnished (gemeubileerd) means furniture and appliances are there too, such as beds, wardrobes and kitchen equipment. There is no legal definition, so always ask for an inventory list.

Is all-in rent with gas, water and electricity cheaper?

Not necessarily. With a fixed all-in price the landlord carries the energy risk and usually adds a margin for it. With an advance and settlement you pay the actual use. Which works out cheaper depends on how much energy the house uses.

Can I ask for the all-in rent to be split?

According to the Dutch government, a tenant with all-in rent can ask the landlord to split the basic rent and the service charges. Whether this also applies to your business tenancy agreement is best checked by a lawyer.

Who pays the waste collection charge in a staff house?

The waste collection charge is levied on the user. With room rental, the landlord can be treated as the user. What applies in your case is set in the municipality's regulation; agree in the contract who pays.

Which furniture does the SNF standard require?

Under the SNF requirements, every resident has a bed with a mattress of at least 80 × 200 cm, a wardrobe of at least 0.36 m³ and a chair. There are also requirements for cooking rings, 30 litres of fridge and freezer space per person and a fire blanket at every cooking facility.

Renting a furnished house for staff with utilities included