Status-holder households make up growing share of first-time movers into Dutch social housing

A growing share of people moving into newly vacated Dutch housing-association homes for the first time are households with at least one person granted asylum, according to Statistics Netherlands (CBS). In 2024, they accounted for 21% of these first-time movers, up from 9% in 2018.

The 2024 figure represents about 8,800 households. The overall number of first-time movers into these homes was broadly similar to 2018: 41,700 compared with 38,500.

Across all households moving into newly vacated housing-association homes in 2024, just under 8% included someone with refugee status — about 13,150 homes, roughly the same as the year before. The figures refer to households, not the share of individual new residents: CBS says 9% of people moving into the homes were status holders.

Most of the status-holder households moving into these homes were starting out in the housing market. In 2024, 67% were first-time movers, compared with 22% of households without a status holder. The CBS figures also show that 16% of status-holder households left a home behind when they moved, against 54% of other households.

The share varied substantially by region. Flevoland had the highest proportion of newly vacated housing-association homes allocated to status-holder households, at 12%; Het Gooi and Vechtstreek followed at 11%. In Delfzijl and surrounding areas, the share was below 1%.

At the end of 2024, status-holder households lived in 2.4% of the Netherlands’ 2.2 million housing-association homes, up from 2.2% in 2023. Including former status holders who have since become Dutch citizens, the figure was 8.1%.