Renting your Amsterdam home to tourists is legal, and the permit that makes it legal costs €76 a year.
Doing it without one costs €1,500 on a first offence, and the city checks against its own population register rather than waiting for a complaint.
Two numbers govern everything else: thirty nights a calendar year, and four guests at a time.
From 1 April 2026 the night figure halves to fifteen in three central neighbourhoods, the first real tightening since the permit system began.
Who Can Legally Host in Amsterdam
You have to live in the home you are letting and be registered there in the Basisregistratie Personen, the municipal population register.
Everyone else named on the permit has to be registered at that address too, which is what makes the permit unusable by a friend, a tenant or a management company.
A home owned by a housing corporation can never be let to tourists, whatever your own contract says.
If you rent privately you need the owner’s permission, and if your building has a VvE - the owners’ association - you may need its consent as well.
The permit covers the home and nothing beside it.
Garden houses, tents and boats moored alongside sit outside it, and letting those is a separate breach rather than a grey area.
You also cannot run a bed and breakfast at the same address as a holiday rental.
They are two legal categories with two permits, and the city does not allow both on one address.
Registration, Permits, And Pre-Booking Requirements
Three separate obligations apply, and most hosts who get fined had one or two of them rather than none.
The first is the vergunning vakantieverhuur, the holiday rental permit, which costs €76 and arrives by email within five days.
It expires on 1 April of the following calendar year no matter when you apply, so a permit bought in November buys you five months.
It is also published in the municipal announcements, which is how neighbours usually find out.
The second is the registratienummer toeristische verhuur, a registration number that has to appear in your advertisement or be entered into the field Airbnb and Booking provide for it.
Advertising without one is a €1,500 fine in its own right, independent of whether you hold a permit.
The third is a report filed before every stay at toeristischeverhuur.nl, giving the arrival and departure dates.
The system returns a confirmation email with a report number and shows how many nights you have used and how many remain, which is the only running count an enforcement officer will accept.
Night Limits, Guest Caps, And Rental Type Rules
The standard ceiling is thirty nights per calendar year across the city.
From 1 April 2026 it drops to fifteen in Grachtengordel-West, Grachtengordel-Zuid and Burgwallen-Nieuwe Zijde.
Hosts in those three areas who had already let fifteen nights or more between January and the start of April 2026 cannot let at all for the remainder of the year.
Bookings already accepted that no longer fit have to be moved or cancelled at whatever the platform’s terms cost you.
Four guests is the ceiling per stay, counted as people rather than beds.
The nights attach to the address rather than to you, so if you moved in during the year, nights let by the previous occupants come off your thirty.
Holiday rental means the whole home while you are somewhere else.
Letting one room while you sleep in the flat is a bed and breakfast, which needs a €572,80 permit, is capped by district, limits you to 61 square metres and four sleeping places, and obliges you to keep a night register of every guest.
Taxes, Property Rules, And Enforcement Risks
Tourist tax is 12.5 percent of the overnight price excluding VAT, charged to the guest and passed to the city.
You register once, then file a return each year and receive a final assessment against it.
The fine schedule is published in full, which makes the downside easy to price before you list.
For a private host, a first offence costs €1,500 for advertising without a registration number, €1,500 for letting without a permit and €1,500 for failing to report a stay.
Overrunning the night cap is charged separately at €2,500 for up to five extra nights and €5,000 for five or more.
Breaching the conditions of a permit you do hold reaches €5,000, and every figure roughly doubles if the city treats the letting as commercial.
Fire safety is a permit condition rather than a recommendation.
So is nuisance: you are expected to brief guests and warn the neighbours in advance, and to leave a phone number that someone answers at night.
Frequently Asked Questions
The questions below are the ones that decide whether a listing is legal, and the answers are the current 2026 figures.
Do I need a permit or license to rent out my place short-term in Amsterdam?
Yes, and three things rather than one: the €76 holiday rental permit, a tourist rental registration number in the advert, and a report filed before each stay.
Missing any one of them is €1,500 for a private host on a first offence.
How many nights per year can I legally rent out my home to guests in Amsterdam?
Thirty nights per calendar year in most of the city, and fifteen from 1 April 2026 in Grachtengordel-West, Grachtengordel-Zuid and Burgwallen-Nieuwe Zijde.
If you moved in partway through the year, the nights the previous occupants let count against your allowance.
What are the registration and reporting requirements for hosting guests in Amsterdam?
Your registration number goes into the listing or the platform’s registration field, and every stay is reported at toeristischeverhuur.nl before the guests arrive.
The confirmation email carries a report number, and the portal shows the nights you have left.
Which neighborhoods or building types have extra restrictions on holiday rentals in Amsterdam?
Grachtengordel-West, Grachtengordel-Zuid and Burgwallen-Nieuwe Zijde run on fifteen nights from 1 April 2026 rather than thirty.
Housing-corporation homes are barred outright, and a VvE can forbid holiday rental in its own rules whatever the city permits.
What safety rules and minimum standards do Amsterdam short-stay rentals have to meet?
The home has to be fire safe, and you have to leave a contact number so that you or someone acting for you can step in if guests cause a disturbance.
Telling the neighbours before a let, and telling guests how the rubbish works, are both written into the permit conditions rather than left to goodwill.
What happens if I break Amsterdam’s short-term rental rules, and what are the common fines?
A private host pays €1,500 for a first offence on registration, permit or reporting, €2,500 for up to five nights over the cap and €5,000 beyond that.
A host the city judges to be operating commercially pays €3,000, €5,000 and €10,000 for the same three.
