Cabinet extends rent allowance: age limit lowered and maximum rent disappears

The housing benefit will be simplified and will become available to more people with a low income, according to a bill by De Jonge. For example, the maximum amount that may be paid in rent in order to still qualify for the allowance will be abolished. Until now, people who paid more than 750 euros in rent were not entitled to rent allowance.

Young people will also be eligible for rent allowance from the age of 21 instead of the age of 23. The income limit will remain, says De Jonge.

About 1.5 million households now receive rent allowance. After the introduction of this law, 116,000 people will be added, who will benefit an average of 172 euros per month. For one million people, the rent benefit will be reduced by an average of ten euros per month.

It was agreed in the coalition agreement that the allowance system would be phased out. One of the first steps would be that from now on rent allowance would no longer be based on the rent that people actually pay, but on average amounts. This was met with a lot of criticism, including from the Council of State. This plan has therefore been scrapped in the new bill.

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The Council of State warned at the end of last month that the bill as De Jonge presented it last summer would be insufficient to achieve the government’s goals, namely improving the purchasing power of more people. The National Institute for Budget Information (Nibud) had calculated that two-thirds of everyone receiving housing benefit would lose out. As a result, the law has now been amended, although this goes against the coalition agreements.

“We need to simplify the benefits system, but that is easier said than done,” said De Jonge after the Council of Ministers. The renovation of the rent allowance was conceived as an intermediate step, but ‘it turned out to be no simpler at all’.

However, the order for a different allowance system remains and we are working hard on that, De Jonge emphasizes. “The various allowances have the advantage that you help people with a low income and the disadvantage that they are very complicated and that there are too often refunds that can get people into serious trouble.”

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