Building and renovating in the Netherlands in 2027 and 2028: rules, money and trends

The Netherlands is heading into two years in which the rules of building and renovating change faster than at any point since the Omgevingswet came into force. Net metering for solar panels ends. Municipalities get the legal tools to switch neighbourhoods off gas. Energy labels change format and, in 2030, scale. Rental homes with a poor label lose their right to be rented. Vans without a plug lose access to the centre of Amsterdam. At the same time the sector is short of tens of thousands of workers, building costs rise around 5% a year and the electricity grid in Noord-Holland has a waiting list.

This article is our outlook for 2027 and 2028, written for homeowners, landlords and housing associations in Amsterdam and Noord-Holland who are planning a kitchen, bathroom, extension, window replacement or a full energy retrofit. It is based on more than thirty sources: laws published in the Staatsblad, ministry timelines, the EIB, CBS, the major banks, the Municipality of Amsterdam and the trade press. Where something is still a proposal rather than law, we say so. The article reflects the situation on 16 September 2026, the day after Prinsjesdag, and we will update it as decisions are taken.

The short version: dates to put in your calendar

• 1 January 2027: net metering (salderingsregeling) for solar panels ends in one step. Until 2030 suppliers must pay a reasonable fee of at least 50% of the bare supply tariff for electricity you feed back. Adopted law (Staatsblad 2025, 17).
• 1 January 2027: expected entry into force of the Wet gemeentelijke instrumenten warmtetransitie (Wgiw). Municipalities must adopt a heat programme by 31 December 2027 and may designate areas and dates for switching off natural gas. The Wet collectieve warmte (Wcw) for heat networks is expected on the same date.
• 1 January 2027: new non-residential buildings larger than 250 m² must generate solar energy; existing non-residential car parks with more than 20 spaces need one charging point per 10 spaces.
• 1 January 2027: Euro 5 vans lose access to zero-emission zones, including the centre of Amsterdam. Full enforcement of the Wet DBA on self-employed workers resumes and the Wtta certification for temp agencies takes effect.
• 31 March 2027: the collective labour agreement Bouw & Infra expires; the last scheduled wage step is 1.5% on 1 January 2027.
• 1 July 2027: third tranche of the EPBD IV implementation, with minimum energy performance standards for non-residential buildings (details still to be laid down in the Bbl).
• 2027: national evaluation of the Wet kwaliteitsborging voor het bouwen (Wkb), which decides whether renovations and larger buildings come under mandatory quality assurance.
• 1 January 2028: new public buildings must be zero-emission; existing public buildings larger than 2,000 m² need solar; on public-sector building sites light equipment under 56 kW must be emission-free. Amsterdam plans to extend its zero-emission zone to the A10 ring (not yet a final decision).
• 1 January 2029: rental homes with label E, F or G may no longer be let; the new coalition wants a smart hybrid heat pump as the standard when a boiler is replaced; the regulator ACM proposes time-dependent grid tariffs for households.
• 1 January 2030: energy labels are reset to an A to G scale, all new buildings must be zero-emission and new homes must have solar.

What the forecasts say about the market

The Economisch Instituut voor de Bouw (EIB) expects total construction output to grow 2.5% in 2026 and 4.5% in 2027, with housing completions rising from 68,000 in 2025 to around 80,000 in 2026 and 84,000 in 2027. ING is more cautious with roughly 71,000 and 74,000 completions, Rabobank sees almost no growth at all (0.2% in 2026, 0.7% in 2027). The one segment every forecaster agrees on is renovation: the EIB puts repair and renovation at around 3% growth a year, driven by energy retrofits and an ageing housing stock. The Nationaal Warmtefonds lent 46% more money for home energy improvements in the first eight months of 2026 than a year earlier.

Costs are the other constant. The CBS building-cost index for housing rose 5.0% year on year in June 2026, with labour up 5.4% and materials 4.6%. The construction labour agreement added 4% on 1 January 2026 and adds another 1.5% on 1 January 2027. UWV counted 28,600 open vacancies in construction in the second quarter of 2026 and reports that 71% of them are hard to fill, the highest share of any sector. Electricians, plumbers, insulation fitters and roofers are the scarcest trades. Over 10,000 people leave the sector every year through retirement or incapacity.

For Amsterdam specifically, house prices are cooling while the rest of the country rises: NVM agents put the median sale price in the city at about 588,000 euros in the second quarter of 2026, 2.9% lower than a year earlier, with 27% more homes on offer. Rabobank expects prices in Groot-Amsterdam to rise only around 2% in 2026 against 4.2% nationally. Grid congestion is the city's main bottleneck: since 1 July 2026 even small consumers can end up on a waiting list at Liander, which had 7,300 customers waiting in June 2026, and the Diemen substation upgrade has slipped to the end of 2037.

What this means for a private renovation: the good contractors will stay booked months ahead, prices will not come down, and any project that needs a heavier electricity connection (all-electric heat pump, induction, EV charger) needs the grid question answered before the design is finished.

Quality assurance: the Wkb stays away from renovations, for now

The Wkb has applied since 1 January 2024 to new buildings in consequence class 1 only, mainly single-family homes and small buildings. The extension to renovations, originally planned for 2025, was postponed indefinitely in December 2024 because the costs of an independent kwaliteitsborger were considered too high for small jobs. A national evaluation is planned for 2027; only after that will the government decide about renovations and about consequence classes 2 and 3 (schools, libraries, hospitals). For 2027 and 2028 a typical kitchen, bathroom, roof or extension project in Amsterdam will therefore almost certainly not need a kwaliteitsborger. What you should still expect from a contractor is a proper dossier: drawings, product declarations, photos of hidden work and test reports. That is what the Wkb will eventually formalise, and it is what a buyer or insurer asks for anyway.

The technical rules that already apply to your renovation

Many homeowners are surprised that the Besluit bouwwerken leefomgeving (Bbl) sets minimum values for renovation work today, regardless of subsidy:

• When you replace or renew an insulation layer, the new layer must reach at least Rc 2.6 for floors, 1.4 for facades and 2.1 for roofs. Everything else is governed by the level you had before, with a floor of Rc 1.4.
• Replaced windows, doors and frames must have a U-value of 2.2 W/m²K or lower. In practice that rules out old-style double glazing; HR++ or triple glass is the norm.
• A heat pump or air-conditioning outdoor unit may produce at most 40 dB at the property boundary at night (19:00 to 07:00) and 45 dB(A) by day. This has applied since 2021 and also covers units fitted to existing homes, which decides where the unit can go in a terraced house.
• With a major renovation or a complete replacement of the heating system, a minimum share of renewable energy is compulsory, with exceptions for heat networks, payback periods over ten years, unsuitable roofs and monuments.

Since 1 July 2026 the environmental performance requirement (MPG) uses a new calculation method with 19 impact categories. It applies to new buildings and permit applications, not to renovations, but it changes which products manufacturers push: timber, biobased insulation and repairable products score better under the new weighting.

Energy labels, solar and charging: the EPBD IV timeline

The Netherlands is implementing the European Energy Performance of Buildings Directive in three tranches. The first came into force on 29 May 2026 and introduced a new energy label format that shows CO2 emissions and includes monuments. From 1 September 2026 advisers are being trained to issue renovation passports, a step-by-step plan to a zero-emission home. The label scale itself is reset to A to G on 1 January 2030, so a label issued today will be re-expressed then.

The solar obligations are staged: new public and non-residential buildings over 250 m² from 1 January 2027, existing public buildings over 2,000 m² from 1 January 2028, new homes from 1 January 2030. Owners of existing private homes are not obliged to add panels. Charging infrastructure follows the same logic: new non-residential car parks with more than 5 spaces need one charging point per 5 spaces plus cabling for half of them; existing non-residential car parks with more than 20 spaces need one point per 10 spaces from 1 January 2027; new residential buildings with more than 3 spaces must be pre-cabled.

The third tranche, planned for 1 July 2027, brings minimum energy performance standards for non-residential buildings: the worst 16% must be improved by 2030 and 26% by 2033. The exact thresholds are still being written into the Bbl, so treat this as a direction rather than a rule.

1 January 2027: the end of net metering changes the economics of solar

From 1 January 2027 you no longer offset the electricity you feed into the grid against what you consume. Your supplier pays a fee for surplus electricity that must be at least 50% of the bare supply tariff, excluding taxes, until 2030, and may only charge feed-in costs that reflect real costs, supervised by the ACM. The consequence is simple: electricity you use yourself is worth roughly twice as much as electricity you export.

For a renovation this changes priorities. A heat pump that runs on your own solar power during the day, a hot-water buffer, induction cooking and an EV charger that follows the sun all raise self-consumption. A home battery does not automatically pay off: an analysis of 1,300 consumption profiles by Jeroen.nl and Solar365 concluded that after 2027 a battery pays back mainly in households with high night-time consumption such as an EV or a heat pump; a small plug-in battery of around 5 kWh pays back in 6 to 7 years, larger systems anywhere between 6.5 and 22 years according to CE Delft. The market is growing anyway: 87,600 home batteries were expected to be installed in 2025. On top of that the ACM has proposed time-dependent grid tariffs for households from 1 January 2029, which would reward using power at cheap hours.

Heat: the gas exit gets a legal framework

The Wgiw gives municipalities the power to designate areas where natural gas will be switched off, on the condition that an affordable alternative is available and residents have been consulted; owners keep the right to choose their own alternative such as a heat pump. Municipalities must adopt a heat programme by the end of 2027. The Wcw regulates heat networks with a majority public shareholding and cost-based tariffs phased in over 2027 and 2028. Both laws are adopted and expected on 1 January 2027, the exact date depends on the royal decree.

In Amsterdam the picture is sobering. To be gas-free by 2040 the city would need to disconnect around 27,000 homes a year; in the four years to 2025 it managed roughly 4,000. Heat network connections require 70% consent among residents and Vattenfall's fixed charge has risen from over 500 to around 800 euros a year. In January 2025 the city adjusted its plan and now also backs fast CO2 reduction through hybrid and all-electric heat pumps with simplified permits, next to a public heat company. For the average canal-side or 1930s home that means the realistic route in 2027 and 2028 is insulation first, then a hybrid or all-electric heat pump, not waiting for a network.

The obligation to install a hybrid heat pump when replacing a boiler, planned for 2026, was scrapped by the previous cabinet. The coalition agreement of January 2026 brings it back from 2029 as a smart hybrid standard where a heat network is not the best solution, but there is no bill yet. Heat pump sales grew 13% in 2025 to 126,000 units (excluding air-to-air), although hybrid sales fell. The ISDE subsidy budget for 2027 is 499 million euros for heat pumps and insulation; the ministry has proposed cutting the heat pump subsidy from 225 to 120 euros per kW while raising the bonus for the most efficient units, so 2026 may be the more generous year to buy.

Landlords: label D by 2029

From 1 January 2029 a rental home with label E, F or G may no longer be let; the requirement is being written into the Bbl in 2026, with exceptions for monuments and small detached homes. Non-residential buildings follow from 2030. If you rent out an apartment in Amsterdam with a poor label, 2027 is the year to plan insulation, glazing and ventilation, because contractor capacity will tighten as the deadline approaches. The Wet betaalbare huur already links the number of rent points to the label, so the same investment can also raise the permitted rent.

Money in 2027: subsidies and financing

• ISDE 2026 insulation rates per m²: roof 16.25 (32.50 when combining two measures) plus 5.00 biobased bonus; facade 5.25/10.50 plus 1.50; floor 5.50/11.00 plus 2.00; ground 3/6 plus 1. A 400 euro bonus applies to energy-efficient ventilation such as heat recovery when combined with insulation. The 2027 budget is 499 million euros; rates for heat pumps are proposed to drop.
• Amsterdam extra insulation subsidy: 2,500 euros per home (plus 250 euros for biobased materials) for homes with label D to G and a WOZ value up to 666,000 euros; the scheme runs to 30 June 2028 (applications possibly until 1 July 2027). The city also has 2.5 million euros for around 1,000 hybrid heat pumps in 2026 and 2027.
• Nationaal Warmtefonds: energy-saving loans of 1,000 to 29,000 euros, at 0% interest for households with an income up to 60,000 euros; above that 3.66 to 4.33% in early 2026. SVVE for owners' associations runs until 2030 with 32 subsidised advice hours.
• Amsterdam green subsidies: green roofs 30 to 50 euros per m² depending on water retention (minimum 30 m²), removing paving from gardens 15 euros per m² up to 1,000 euros.
• Mortgages: the NHG limit for 2026 is 470,000 euros, or 498,200 euros with energy-saving measures. Banks lend extra depending on the label, from 5,000 euros for C or D up to 30,000 euros for A++++ (40,000 with a guarantee), and several banks give a 0.10 to 0.15 percentage point discount for label A+, worth around 450 euros a year on a 300,000 euro mortgage.

Innovation: what changes on the building site

Prefabrication is the government's answer to the labour shortage: half of new homes should be built industrially by 2030. For renovation the same logic reaches private homes through prefab roof elements, factory-made facade panels and standardised bathroom pods. Timber is the second wave. The share of timber construction in the Amsterdam metropolitan region rose from 0.5% in 2021 to about 5% in 2025 (8% in Amsterdam itself), the 2025 target of 20% was missed, and the Houtbouw Pact 2026-2030 signed by over 110 parties now aims for 20% by 2030 with more than 12,000 timber homes in the pipeline; in 2027 the city considers raising the target to 30%. In renovation, biobased insulation (wood fibre, hemp, cellulose) already accounts for over 11% of private insulation jobs and the national target is 30% by 2030; the ISDE bonus and Amsterdam's biobased top-up make it cheaper than the sticker price suggests.

Product documentation goes digital. The new EU Construction Products Regulation applies since January 2026 with sanctions from January 2027; digital product passports will be phased in per product family, with doors, windows and hardware scheduled for 2028-2029. For you as a client that means a window or door delivered in 2028 comes with a digital declaration of performance, which makes the Wkb-style dossier much easier.

Other innovations are quieter but real: exoskeletons for plasterers and tilers reduce shoulder load by 30 to 40% in TNO tests, 3D concrete printing has found its niche in balcony screens and stairs rather than whole houses, and only 31% of construction firms used AI in 2025, mostly for quoting and 3D design, so expect faster and more precise proposals rather than robots on site.

Glass, windows and ventilation

Triple glazing has become the default for new frames: a U-value of 0.4 to 0.9 W/m²K against 5.8 for single glass, at roughly 4.5% extra cost compared with HR++ in new frames, while the subsidy is about 4.5 times higher. Vacuum glass of about 8 mm insulates like triple and fits the slim rebates of monument frames, which matters in Amsterdam where heritage rules limit what can change on the street side. In the frame market the trend for 2026 and 2027 is towards wood-aluminium and two-tone frames: wood inside, aluminium or a darker colour outside. Tight envelopes need ventilation: from 2026 the ISDE adds 400 euros for a heat-recovery unit when combined with insulation, and in our experience a WTW system is the difference between a comfortable retrofit and a stuffy one.

Kitchens, bathrooms and interiors: design trends for 2027 and 2028

• Colour: Flexa's colour of the year 2027 is Soulful Sage, a light, silvery sage green under the theme Hello Lightness; WGSN and Coloro chose Luminous Blue, with Energy Orange, Pop Pink, Meadowland Green and Clay as key colours. Expect warm neutrals (sand, taupe, clay, greige, olive) as the base with green and blue accents.
• Kitchens: matte surfaces replace gloss; worktops flow into cabinetry and islands become sculptural; dark woods such as walnut and smoked oak return next to expressive marble; hardware and taps in champagne, bronze and gunmetal; sintered stone, Fenix and Corian for durability; steam ovens and induction as standard; and a clear shift towards repairing and refacing a good kitchen instead of replacing it.
• Bathrooms: kerbless walk-in showers with linear drains, rimless and washing toilets, integrated lighting, water-saving flushes and calm palettes of off-white, sage, wood and stone; wellness at home continues with saunas and infrared cabins, although hard sales data is thin.
• Interiors: tactile materials (linen, wool, stone, ceramics), built-in joinery treated as architecture rather than furniture, daylight and acoustics as design criteria, and personalisation over showroom perfection.
• Gardens: the trade body's campaign Tegels eruit, bloementapijt erin sums it up; Amsterdam pays for de-paving and green roofs, outdoor kitchens and fire pits extend the season, and rain storage becomes part of the plan rather than an afterthought.
• Living longer at home: only 21% of Dutch homes are step-free; the government wants 290,000 extra senior-friendly homes by 2030 and municipalities offer a Blijverslening for adapting your current home. Walk-in showers, wider doors and a bedroom on the ground floor are the practical translation.
• Working from home is stable at around 61% of employees able to do so, so the study, the acoustic partition and a second bathroom stay on the wish list.

Ten recommendations for a project in 2027 or 2028

• Insulate before you electrify. Every subsidy scheme, the Bbl and the physics agree: a heat pump in an uninsulated 1930s home is the expensive way round.
• Design for self-consumption. With net metering gone, size the heat pump, buffer and charger to use your own solar power by day.
• Ask for the grid check first. In parts of Amsterdam a heavier connection can take months or years; a hybrid heat pump or a smart load manager may be the realistic option.
• Landlords: start the label D plan in 2027, not in 2028.
• Get the new-format energy label after the works. It feeds into rent points, mortgage discounts and resale value.
• Plan logistics for zero-emission zones. From 2027 a contractor with Euro 5 vans cannot drive into the centre; ask how materials and waste will move.
• Fix the price. With costs rising 5% a year, a fixed-price contract with a clear scope is worth more than the cheapest quote.
• Choose biobased where it is subsidised: wood-fibre roof insulation and cellulose in cavities now come with a bonus in both the ISDE and the Amsterdam scheme.
• Keep the dossier. Product declarations, photos of hidden work and test reports are what the Wkb will require and what a buyer wants.
• Combine the money: ISDE plus Amsterdam's 2,500 euros plus a 0% Warmtefonds loan plus a label-linked mortgage discount can cover a large part of a retrofit.

How Tommy's Service prepares for 2027 and 2028

We have organised our work around exactly these changes. Our projects start with the building envelope and ventilation, then the installations, then the finishes, because that order keeps the subsidies and the comfort. We build custom furniture and joinery in our own workshop, which shortens lead times when the market is short of trades, and we favour wood and wood-aluminium windows that meet the U 2.2 limit with room to spare. Our logistics are planned for the zero-emission rules in the centre of Amsterdam. Every project is delivered with a dossier of product declarations and photos of hidden work, so a future kwaliteitsborger, buyer or insurer has what they need. And we quote fixed prices for a defined scope, because in 2027 the risk of rising costs should not be the client's problem.

If you are planning a renovation in Amsterdam or Noord-Holland in 2027 or 2028, the best time to start the conversation is now: capacity, subsidies and grid connections all reward those who plan early.