You moved to the Netherlands, found a house, and discovered the kitchen was installed around the year you were born. You want to fix it. Then you ask what it costs, and the answers come back in Dutch, in ranges so wide they are useless, from companies whose quotes you cannot compare because you cannot read them.
This guide fixes that. Real numbers, what drives them, what the Dutch rules require, and where internationals most often lose money. Some of what follows is not in my commercial interest to tell you. I am telling you anyway, because a client who understands the numbers is a better client than one who does not.
The short answer
In 2026, a full kitchen renovation in the Netherlands sits in these bands:
| Type of project | Typical range | What you get |
|---|---|---|
| Cosmetic refresh (doors, worktop, handles) | €900 – €2,500 | Existing carcasses stay; new fronts and top |
| Standard replacement kitchen | €10,000 – €25,000 | Retail kitchen, standard appliances, installed |
| Higher-end / brand kitchen | €25,000 – €60,000 | Better materials, integrated appliances, showroom brand |
| Architect-designed custom | €35,000 upward | Bespoke design, custom joinery, premium systems |
Two Dutch-specific cost drivers most guides bury:
Plumbing and electrical relocation adds €1,500 to €3,500. Dutch houses, especially pre-war city homes, put the kitchen where the pipes are, not where the light is. Moving the sink two metres is not a design decision here, it is a construction decision.
Where you live changes labour cost by up to 15%. Amsterdam and Utrecht labour runs at the top of the national scale; regional cities sit several percent below it. The same kitchen genuinely costs more in Amsterdam Zuid than in Nijmegen.
Why internationals pay more than locals for the same kitchen
Not because anyone is cheating you. Because of four structural disadvantages.
You cannot compare quotes. Dutch quotes use conventions that do not translate literally: what is included as stelpost (a provisional sum that will change), what is exclusief BTW (excluding 21% VAT), what “montage” covers. Two quotes that look €4,000 apart are often identical once you decode them.
You have no inherited network. A Dutch homeowner has an uncle who knows a good installer. You have Google, which shows you whoever bought the most ads.
You are in a hurry. Expats decide faster than locals, usually because there is a relocation date, a lease ending, or a partner arriving. Speed is expensive in construction.
Nobody expects you to negotiate. In the Netherlands, quoted prices for renovation work are more negotiable than most internationals assume, particularly on installation and on lead times.
The practical defence: get three quotes, ask every supplier to itemise materials, labour and appliances as separate lines, and ask explicitly which numbers are stelposten. Any supplier who resists that request has told you something useful.
The rules: permits, VvE, and what you can actually do
Here is where internationals are most often either needlessly frightened or dangerously relaxed.
A standard kitchen renovation usually requires no municipal permit. Replacing a kitchen in its existing location is normally permit-free work in the Netherlands. You can verify any specific plan through the government’s Omgevingsloket, the national environment desk where all permit checks and applications run.
But if you live in an apartment, your VvE matters more than the municipality. The Vereniging van Eigenaren (owners’ association) exists in every Dutch building split into separately owned apartments, and you became a member automatically when you bought. For a kitchen replaced in place, you generally do not need VvE permission. You do need it when the work touches anything shared or structural: removing or altering a load-bearing wall, changing shared pipes or electrical risers even where they pass through your own apartment, or moving the kitchen to a different position in the flat.
Two things worth knowing: VvE rules apply even when the municipality calls the work permit-free, and a VvE can legitimately require drawings, a method statement and confirmation of liability before you start. Budget two to eight weeks for that approval depending on how often your VvE meets. This timing, not the building work, is what most often delays apartment renovations in Amsterdam.
If you rent, ask, but ask specifically. Many landlords refuse a fitted kitchen and accept freestanding furniture, because nothing is permanently altered. This distinction is worth understanding before you assume the answer is no.
Financing: the part nobody explains in English
Dutch mortgage rules allow renovation costs to be included in a mortgage, and it is common practice here in a way it is not in many countries. If you are buying, ask your mortgage advisor about a verbouwingsdepot, a renovation deposit held by the lender and released against invoices as work progresses.
If you hold the 30% ruling, note two things. Lenders treat that tax advantage differently from one another when calculating what you can borrow, so the same financial situation produces materially different mortgage offers depending on which bank you approach. And the scheme is changing: the rate remains 30% through 2026, but from 1 January 2027 it drops to a fixed 27% for the remaining term. If your renovation budget depends on that net income, model it at 27%, not 30%.
I am not a mortgage advisor, and you should confirm all of this with one. But knowing the words verbouwingsdepot and stelpost before your first meeting will change how that meeting goes.
The question specific to your situation: how long are you staying?
This is the calculation almost no kitchen supplier will raise with you, because the honest answer sometimes costs them the sale.
A fitted kitchen is a permanent improvement to a building you may not own in five years. Dutch appraisals do reward a good kitchen, but never by the full amount you spent. If you install €40,000 of kitchen and move to Singapore in four years, a meaningful part of that money is a gift to the next owner of your house.
Three honest options:
Staying long-term, or you love the house permanently. Build in. A fitted kitchen is the right answer, and this whole concern is irrelevant.
Genuinely uncertain, which describes most internationals here. Consider unfitted or freestanding solutions. Freestanding kitchen furniture and modular systems that disassemble are now a mainstream design direction rather than a compromise, and they are among the most important interior trends of 2026 precisely because flexibility became valuable. Practically, they let you invest properly in something you keep.
Renting, or here for under three years. Do not renovate. Buy one excellent freestanding piece, keep the landlord happy, and take it with you.
I build kitchens in all three categories, so I have no incentive to push you toward one. But if you are in the second group and nobody has explained the freestanding option to you, you have not been given the full picture of what is available in this market.
A realistic timeline
- Design and decisions: 4 to 10 weeks
- VvE approval, if applicable: 2 to 8 weeks, can run in parallel
- Production: 6 to 12 weeks for custom or imported work
- Installation: 1 to 3 weeks
- Total: roughly 4 to 6 months for a serious project
If a supplier promises a fully custom kitchen in six weeks, either it is not custom, or it is not going to happen in six weeks.
What to do next
Before you speak to anyone, write down three things: what you would do in the kitchen on a perfect Saturday, how long you realistically expect to be in this house, and the number above which you would say no. That last one is not weakness, it is the fastest way to make every subsequent conversation honest.
Then get quotes, in English, itemised, and ask the awkward questions.
Samer Chalfoun is an architectural designer based in Breukelen, working across the Netherlands in English, Dutch, Italian, French and Arabic. He is the exclusive Alpes Inox dealer for the Netherlands and the maker of the Trestle freestanding kitchen island.
→ Custom kitchens for internationals in the Netherlands, designed in English