Every year, Amsterdam’s combined municipal tax bill (aanslag gemeentelijke belastingen) lands in early-to-mid February, and buried inside it is a single number that decides how much you owe: the WOZ-waarde, the assessed value of the property.
WOZ stands for Waardering Onroerende Zaken -- valuation of immovable property -- and the gemeente uses it to calculate the property tax (OZB) on the annual housing tax bill, alongside waste and sewage charges covered in the wider local taxes guide.
Homeowners paying income tax on the property, or anyone whose mortgage lender references it, will also see the same figure reused elsewhere.
Where the number comes from
The WOZ-waarde on this year’s bill is not today’s market value.
Municipalities set it using a reference date of January 1 of the previous year, based on sale prices of comparable homes in the same area.
That lag is normal and, by itself, is not grounds for an objection -- a higher or lower number than expected only matters if the comparison the gemeente made was wrong.
Check the value before you do anything else
Before objecting, look up the value itself.
The WOZ-waardeloket is the free, official national tool, run on behalf of every Dutch municipality, where anyone can enter an address and see its current and historical WOZ value with no login required.
Because the underlying data is public, the same tool lets a resident check what nearby, comparable homes were valued at -- the single most useful piece of evidence in any objection.
Amsterdam’s own explanation of how the OZB is calculated from the WOZ value, including the current rate, sits on the gemeente’s onroerendezaakbelastingen (OZB) page.
What actually counts as grounds for objection
A valid objection points to a specific, verifiable error, not just a feeling that the bill is too high.
Common grounds include: the size (square meters) or property type on file is wrong; the comparable properties the municipality used to set the value are not genuinely comparable (different type, size or condition); the property had significant damage, structural defects or a fire on the reference date that the valuation ignores; or a factual mistake in the address, ownership or object details.
A renovation completed after January 1 of the previous year is irrelevant to that year’s valuation -- it will show up in next year’s instead.
How and when to file
The objection (bezwaar) must be submitted within six weeks of the date printed on the assessment notice -- not six weeks from when it was opened.
Filing is free; no fee is charged by the municipality for lodging an objection.
Amsterdam’s own step-by-step page for doing this -- including the DigiD-based online form and the postal alternative for anyone without one -- is at amsterdam.nl/belastingen/bezwaar-maken-woz.
The national government’s plain-language explanation of the same right, including what happens if the deadline is missed, is at rijksoverheid.nl.
The objection should state clearly which figure is disputed, why, and what evidence supports a different number -- screenshots or printouts from the WOZ-waardeloket comparing similar properties are the standard evidence non-professionals use.
Rijksoverheid’s guidance also recommends contacting the municipality informally first, since many disputes are resolved by phone or a short exchange without a formal procedure at all.
What happens after filing
The municipality is required to issue a decision within the same calendar year the objection was filed.
It may lower the value, leave it unchanged, or occasionally raise it if the review turns up an underassessment.
If the outcome is still disputed, the next step is a formal appeal to the district court (rechtbank), a more involved process where independent legal advice becomes worth considering -- the free and low-cost legal advice options in Amsterdam are a reasonable starting point for that stage.
A word on paid objection services
Commercial “no cure, no pay” firms advertise heavily around WOZ season, filing the objection for a resident in exchange for a fee only if the value is reduced.
Because the WOZ-waardeloket is free and the objection itself costs nothing to file directly with the gemeente, a resident with a genuine, evidence-backed complaint loses nothing by trying the municipal process first -- the six-week window is generous enough to do the comparison research properly before deciding whether outside help is worth it.
