Published on and written by Cyril Jarnias
Commercial real estate in the Netherlands is going through a pivotal phase. After a sharp slowdown in 2023, the market has entered a new cycle where recovery, polarization, and stricter regulations coexist. For investors able to read these mixed signals, the country today offers a rare entry point in Europe: a relatively stable macro environment, recovering volumes, yields that have become attractive again, and a massive need for capital to finance the energy transition and the renewal of the building stock.
Volume invested in the Dutch real estate market in 2024, up 38% year-on-year.
In this changing landscape, three structural forces shape opportunities: the search for stable cash flow in core segments, exploiting discounts and dysfunctions in value-add assets, and value creation through ESG upgrades and changes in use.
A market recovering, but under constraints
The recovery in investment volumes is based on a set of macroeconomic and financial factors. The European economy has shown resilience, inflation is gradually normalizing toward 2% by 2026, and financing conditions are stabilizing, even though rates remain well above pre-2021 levels. The 5-year IRS swap rate is still around 230 basis points above 2019–2021 levels, and forecasts only expect a marginal increase of about 10 basis points in 2026.
The rise in interest rates and construction costs led to an average price drop of 13% between 2022 and end-2023, with declines of up to 40% in some segments compared to the peak in early 2022. Rents, meanwhile, have generally kept pace with inflation. This correction has normalized the risk premium and made real estate competitive again for large investors.
The evolution of the capital structure illustrates this turning point. The share of foreign capital in investment volumes fell from 58% to 35% in 2024, amid fiscal tightening (abolition of the Fiscal Investment Institutions regime with 25% taxation on real estate income from 2025, transfer tax raised to 10.4% for commercial properties) and a proliferation of rental regulations, particularly in residential. This relative retreat of international investors has opened space for domestic players: insurers, Dutch pension funds – with nearly 14% of assets allocated to real estate – and private investors have taken the lead, boosted by a marked improvement in the perception of the risk/return profile.
The dynamics by asset type show a multi-speed market.
| Segment | Share of investment volume 2024 | Estimated 2025 volume | Main trend |
|---|---|---|---|
| Residential (living) | 37% | ~€4.5 billion | Dominant market, focused on existing stock and privatizations |
| Logistics & Industrial | 27% | ~€3.1 billion | Active market, premium for hotspots and modern assets |
| Offices | 14.9% | ~€2.0 billion | Slow recovery, strong qualitative polarization |
| Retail | 10.4% | ~€1.3–1.4 billion | Selective rebound, premium for prime locations and neighborhood centers |
| Healthcare | n.d. (2024) | ~€0.8 billion | Market catching up, untapped potential |
| Hotels | n.d. (2024) | ~€0.48 billion | Recovery, but fiscal risk (VAT increase on overnight stays) |
| Data centers | n.d. (2024) | ~€0.1 billion | Very tight market due to lack of product |
This table masks another underlying trend: the growing importance of ESG and climate constraints, which are redrawing the boundary between truly defensive “core” assets and “brown” assets threatened with regulatory or functional obsolescence.
Logistics and industrial: a resilient foundation, widening yield gaps
The logistics and industrial segment is one of the pillars of commercial real estate in the Netherlands. It represents about one quarter of investment volumes and benefits from a rare combination: geostrategic position (Port of Rotterdam, Schiphol, multimodal corridors), weight of foreign trade (the Netherlands alone handles 18% of EU imports and 16% of its maritime flows), the structural rise of e-commerce, and the reorganization of supply chains.
In 2024, investments in logistics and industrial rebounded to approximately €3.1 billion, compared to €2.4 billion in 2023, an increase of nearly 30%. The logistics segment alone saw volumes rise by 74%, driven by the return of large portfolio transactions and growing appetite for urban logistics and light industrial. In 2025, a similar volume of around €3.1 billion is expected, still driven by significant deals.
After a collapse to 2.1 million m² in 2023 (-42% year-on-year), user demand in the logistics real estate market recovered in 2024, reaching about 4.75 million m², driven notably by 3PL players. In 2025, activity remains high with 2.35 million m² recorded in the first nine months, dominated by the logistics segment (about 57% of volumes in the first quarter). However, this dynamic masks limited net expansion by companies: the observed movements are mainly strategic relocations to more efficient buildings, particularly on criteria of automation, accessibility, and energy performance.
Contained vacancy, but regional fractures
The logistics vacancy rate has risen to around 4–4.5% in 2024–2025, still low by European standards (the European average is around 5.2%). Vacancy is concentrated in “alternative” regions developed under pressure from land scarcity in historical hotspots. Conversely, the major nodes such as Rotterdam, Amsterdam/Schiphol, the Tilburg–Oosterhout–Waalwijk triangle, Venlo, Eindhoven, and Western Brabant (Breda–Moerdijk–Roosendaal) remain tight, with limited supply and rising prime rents.
Recent market data illustrate this valuation differential:
| Logistics location | Indicative prime rent (modern warehouses) | Prime initial yield |
|---|---|---|
| Rotterdam (region) | ~€105/m²/year | ~4.5–4.75% |
| Amsterdam/Schiphol | ~€125/m²/year (Q3 2025) | Close to 4.5% |
| Tilburg/Oosterhout/Moerdijk/Waalwijk | €75–85/m²/year | Slightly above national prime |
| Venlo | €65–85/m²/year | Prime around 4.75–5.0% |
Prime initial yields, which peaked at around 5.0–5.5% in 2023 due to rising rates, began to compress, returning to 4.5–4.75% by end-2024 and stabilizing at that level in 2025. At the same time, the yield gap between tier 1 prime assets (established hotspots) and tier 2 prime (emerging hubs) widened to about 50 basis points. For secondary assets or those outside major corridors, the risk premium is even more pronounced, reflecting risks of structural vacancy and rental pressure.
Investment opportunities: from secured core to regional value-add
Several pockets of opportunity are emerging in logistics:
Record average annual growth rate of logistics rents in hotspots between end-2022 and end-2024.
– Core+ and value-add in secondary regions: in markets where vacancy is rising, a price discount has materialized, and sellers have sometimes extended their holding periods due to misaligned yield expectations. For investors able to invest in modernization (automation, energy improvement, strengthening electrical capacity for charging and photovoltaic production), these assets can be repositioned as credible alternatives to hotspots that have become too expensive for some users.
In 2024, several large logistics platforms were bought back, notably by foreign family offices accepting net returns of around 4% on major assets. This trend toward portfolio transactions is expected to intensify in 2025-2026, coinciding with the end of holding periods for some private equity funds. The geographic and qualitative fragmentation of these assets creates opportunities for selection and arbitrage strategies.
– Urban and multi-story logistics: the rise of last-mile delivery, combined with urban densification, is leading to growing pressure to integrate logistics functions in cities, sometimes through multi-scale projects or conversions of existing assets (parking lots, small obsolete warehouses). High rents can offset higher construction and land costs, especially when the asset offers excellent accessibility and sufficient energy capacity for electric fleets.
In the short term, risks mainly relate to geopolitical uncertainties (trade tensions, Chinese slowdown, German industrial weakness) that weigh on demand from large users, and difficulties connecting new sites to the power grid. But from 2026 onward, the combination of expected recovery in European trade and continued e-commerce development should support a new growth phase for Dutch logistics.
Offices: extreme polarization and conversion potential
The Dutch office market is often cited as the archetype of a two-faced market. On one side, green, connected, and well-served buildings where vacancy remains below frictional levels, prime rents are rising, and large users compete fiercely. On the other, an aging stock on the outskirts or in poorly accessible locations, exposed to structurally declining demand with the generalization of hybrid work.
Nationally, vacancy stood at around 7.9–8% at the start of 2025, a historically low level in 25 years, despite a period of increase to 12.3% in some measures including the broader stock in 2024. But this average masks deep disparities: in the five largest cities (Amsterdam, Rotterdam, Utrecht, The Hague, Eindhoven), rates are well below 6%, while many secondary cities have declining office stock, sometimes with vacancy well above 10%.
Hybrid work and changing demand
The Netherlands is a European champion of telework: in 2023, more than half of workers worked from home at least occasionally, and 65% of office workers report teleworking more than in 2019. However, the average number of teleworked days fell from 2 to 1.3 days per week between end-2020 and 2023, which relativizes the scenario of total office desertion.
The average surface area per full-time equivalent in major French cities (G5) is currently about 16.5 m².
This change combines with a specific feature of the Dutch market: an already low historical ratio of workstations per employee (about 0.6–0.7), whereas many Anglo-Saxon markets still operated with a ratio close to 1 before the pandemic. The quantitative adjustment is therefore more gradual than in the United States, but the qualitative adjustment is radical.
The translation of this polarization into value is spectacular. In Amsterdam, overall vacancy may have risen to around 9% at end-2024, but the Zuidas axis – the reference business district – remains well below 5%, with prime rents on the order of €500 to 575/m²/year, and even up to €625/m² for certain prestige spaces in Amsterdam-Zuid. Nationally, office rents for buildings immediately adjacent to a train station are on average more than 30% higher than those of buildings in the same city but far from transport, and still 13% higher in the group of five major cities.
In Rotterdam, the country’s third-largest office market with 3.6 million m², the situation is even more contrasting: overall vacancy of 15.1%, more than a third of the stock over 40 years old, but a Grade A stock of about 920,000 m² where vacancy was around 8% as early as 2018, with prime rents stabilized at €220/m²/year and a prime yield around 5%. Top-category buildings there command rents on average 35% higher than other buildings in prime locations.
| City / segment | Approx. vacancy | Indicative prime rent | Prime initial yield |
|---|---|---|---|
| Amsterdam – Zuidas | < 5% | €500–575/m²/year (up to €625/m²) | ~4.8–5.0% |
| Rotterdam – CBD (Grade A) | ~8% | ~€220/m²/year | ~5.0–5.7% |
| G5 overall (average) | ~5.5–6.5% | ~€325/m²/year (avg prime) | ~5.3% |
For investors, the central question becomes: what does “core” still mean in a context where energy regulations and tenant ESG expectations are evolving rapidly? Since January 2023, any office building over 100 m² must have at least an energy label C (maximum 225 kWh/m²/year fossil consumption) to remain operable. By 2030, the bar will rise further with the transposition of the European EPBD IV directive, which prepares for a general standard of Zero Emission Buildings. At the same time, the revision of the energy label system planned by 2029 will reserve label A for truly low-energy and decarbonized buildings.
Office space whose leases expire by 2030 for companies where two-thirds of current spaces are not aligned with their carbon neutrality targets.
This tension creates a clear value premium in favor of the most sustainable and best-connected offices. A perception survey reveals that about 53% of tenants are willing to pay a premium to occupy a net-zero building, and large groups anticipate rising rents in this segment as the gap widens with assets lagging in the transition.
Where are the opportunities in offices?
In this context, three investment axes emerge.
First, green core in A-locations, which combines:
To ensure the resilience of a real estate investment, three factors are essential: strong rental liquidity, characterized by very low vacancy and a solid pipeline for the most in-demand products; the ability to index and renegotiate rents upward, particularly in Central Business Districts (CBDs) well served by transport; and better ESG acceptability with financiers, knowing that about half of European lenders now require a minimum environmental performance threshold at the asset level before granting credit.
These assets are currently trading with yields around 4.8–5.3%, representing a premium of 200 to 300 basis points over Dutch 10-year government bonds.
Second, ESG value-add on obsolete stock. The office stock includes a vast pool of buildings from the 1970s–1990s, often on the outskirts, energy-intensive, and unsuitable for hybrid work (rigid floor plates, low flexibility, lack of services). Their value has fallen, sometimes sharply, and investor concerns center as much on the cost of upgrades (CapEx for facades, glazing, HVAC, digitalization) as on uncertainty about exit values in 5–7 years and future regulatory standards. But for those who can bear this risk, the arbitrage can be interesting: the current discount opens the way to high risk-adjusted returns, especially if the strategy includes partial reconfiguration into housing or mixed-use functions in areas with acute residential demand.
Third, the conversion play. Between 2010 and 2023, about 3.2 million m² of offices have already been transformed into housing or hotels in the five largest cities. The Dutch government has reinforced this movement by announcing a support scheme (Transformation Facility) worth €70 million until 2032 to help transform offices into housing, with a target of about 35,000 new homes. The tension in the residential market, with an estimated deficit of nearly 900,000 homes to be built over 15 years, and municipal policies encouraging functional mix in city centers, increase the attractiveness of these operations. Investors able to identify well-located but obsolete buildings, technically convertible and supported by favorable urban planning, thus have a powerful value creation lever.
Retail: selective rebound and return of large transactions
Long considered the weak link in commercial real estate, Dutch retail has shown a noteworthy catch-up trajectory since 2024. Investment volume reached nearly €1.2 billion in 2024, up more than 12% year-on-year, and is expected to be between €1.3 and €1.4 billion in 2025 (+20% approximately). The first half of 2025 already recorded €700 million in investments, boosted by the return of deals over €20 million, particularly on large shopping centers.
Several factors support this turnaround. On one hand, physical store sales have recovered after the pandemic, even if the number of stores is declining and selling space is being rationalized in favor of larger, more experiential formats. On the other hand, prices have largely factored in the structural risks of e-commerce and chain bankruptcies, offering direct yields higher than those of residential or healthcare in many sub-segments.
Yield data illustrate this attractiveness:
| Retail sub-segment | Indicative gross initial yield (H1 2025) |
|---|---|
| Supermarkets | 4.8–6.5% |
| Quality shopping centers (prime) | 5.25–6.25% |
| High streets A-locations | 4.0–7.0% (depending on city and street) |
| Secondary shopping centers | 8.5–12.5% |
On the most sought-after shopping streets, the rent correction of 25–35% observed since 2015 seems to be nearing its end. On PC Hooftstraat in Amsterdam, prime rents have even rebounded by about 15% in 2.5 years to reach €3,000/m²/year, while Kalverstraat stabilizes around €2,250/m²/year, down from the peak of €3,000/m²/year in 2019 but with few new declines expected.
Retail polarization and format transformation
As with offices, the retail market is highly polarized.
Increase in footfall in Dutch city centers in the first quarter of 2025 compared to 2024.
The best streets and prime centers show vacancy below the national average (about 5.8% overall vacancy at the start of 2025, down from over 6.6% a few years earlier), and are beginning to see slight rent increases. The scarcity of good spaces of at least 250 m² in prime locations in major centers reinforces the appeal of these locations.
Peripheral shopping centers and streets in medium-sized towns are particularly affected by the closure of major chains (e.g., V&D, Blokker, Bristol) and competition from e-commerce. For some sites, possible solutions include conversion (into housing, offices, health spaces, or public facilities) or, failing that, demolition.
Between these extremes, one segment stands out: neighborhood centers dominated by supermarkets. They demonstrated remarkable resilience during the health crisis and remain driven by regular footfall, long indexed leases, and sustained demand from food retailers. Increasingly, these centers incorporate non-retail services (healthcare, social services, co-working, fast food) and play a role as social hubs at the neighborhood level.
Who is investing, and where are the opportunities?
The investor profile is undergoing a major shift. In the first half of 2025, real estate funds (Dutch and international) became the leading category of buyers with 31% of transactions, ahead of private investors (28%). French SCPI-type funds, already very active in 2024 across the Dutch market, massively targeted supermarkets, neighborhood centers, and retail parks with a food anchor, attracted by gross yields often above 5.5% and long firm leases.
Large international institutional investors favor investments in major shopping centers and multi-asset portfolios. Their strategy is to focus on the nine main cities where market depth and future liquidity are highest and safest.
Three pockets of opportunity stand out:
– High streets in major cities: after several years of correction, most risks (bankruptcies, omnichannel reconfiguration) are priced in. Current values offer medium-term revaluation prospects, especially in the G4 cities where rents are starting to rise again. High-street oriented portfolios can generate attractive direct yields, with potential for rent growth as the economy and consumption consolidate.
– Neighborhood centers with a food anchor: they combine stable footfall, tenant resilience, and indexed leases. Supermarkets play an anchor role, and the ongoing consolidation in the food sector strengthens the bargaining position of major chains, but does not diminish the appeal of these assets for investors seeking secured cash flow.
– Assets to transform: in medium-sized towns, the contraction of available retail space (excluding supermarkets) in favor of new uses helps to clean up the remaining market. Investors able to structure mixed-use projects combining retail, housing, offices, and leisure, in co-design with municipalities, can create both financial and social value, provided they integrate ESG requirements and local needs from the outset.
Rental housing and alternative assets: the power of megatrends
Even though residential rental housing partly falls under housing, it weighs heavily in the Dutch commercial real estate universe and strongly steers capital flows. In 2024, this segment captured 37% of investment volume, i.e., more than €4.1 billion, and is expected to reach about €4.5 billion in 2025. This weight is explained by the structural housing shortage, ongoing urbanization, and demographic dynamics (estimated needs of 900,000 new homes and 100,000 additional care places over the next 15 years).
The Affordable Rent Act, in effect since July 2024, extends rent regulation to the mid-range segment and grants a 10% premium over 20 years for new dwellings of this type whose construction begins before 2028. A future law in 2026 will require that two-thirds of new homes be ‘affordable’. These measures, combined with local ‘buy-to-let’ bans and heavier taxation for investors, make rental investments in new builds less attractive and instead favor the privatization of existing housing stock.
In this complex game, opportunities lie notably in:
Three segments present distinct prospects: student and senior housing, driven by solid demand and fewer regulatory constraints if services and ESG criteria are high; healthcare, with substantial investments expected, driven by structural needs and a supply deficit; and hotels, benefiting from tourism recovery but sensitive to VAT increases and geopolitical instability.
For international investors, these alternative assets offer interesting diversification in a country with a stable legal framework and numerous experienced specialized operators – service residence managers, clinic operators, hotel chains.
ESG, regulation, and taxation: constraints… and value driver
It is impossible to talk about opportunities in the Netherlands without addressing the ESG-regulation-taxation triptych. The energy and digital transition has become a major axis of competitiveness, and authorities and lenders now widely use the regulatory lever to direct capital.
Minimum energy performance requirements for offices (mandatory label C since 2023, moving toward a ‘zero fossil emission’ label A by 2029), the upcoming entry into force of the EPBD IV directive, the arsenal of subsidies and tax advantages (EIA, MIA, Vamil, SDE++), and the growing pressure of the CSRD on large companies (detailed sustainability reporting mandatory from 2027 for a large part of them) are transforming how investors evaluate and finance assets.
The amount in billions of euros of additional investments needed to make ‘Paris Proof’ all current rental housing with label D or below.
On the tax front, the tightening of rules (increase in transfer tax to 10.4% for commercial, abolition of the FBI regime) has weighed on the appetite of some foreign investors and contributed to the decline in their market share. In parallel, targeted incentives (deduction for energy investments, subsidies for renewable energy production, enhanced depreciation schemes for environmental expenses) improve the net profitability profile of many ESG-intensive projects.
For investors able to integrate these parameters into their modeling, ESG thus becomes a value creation factor rather than a simple cost center.
Investors integrating ESG parameters
– assets aligned with net-zero trajectories better maintain their value in a context of regulatory tightening;
– they benefit from broader and cheaper access to financing (green bonds, green loans, improved bank margins);
– they capture stronger rental demand, particularly from large users subject to non-financial reporting obligations.
A market at a crossroads: how to position oneself?
At the dawn of 2026, commercial real estate in the Netherlands combines a set of characteristics rarely brought together: volumes recovering but still below peaks, value correction already largely completed, yields competitive again, exacerbated polarization between winners and losers, and a clear regulatory agenda, even if demanding.
In this context, the most promising investment strategies rely less on betting on a strong expansion of multiples than on a fine-grained reading of fundamentals:
– Prioritize locations and connectivity: whether for logistics (multimodal corridors, access to labor, electrical grid connection capacity), offices (proximity to train stations, urban centrality, functional mix), or retail (local purchasing power, pedestrian flow, centrality role), location is once again the primary factor of resilience.
To comply with labels, the CSRD timeline, and stakeholder expectations, it is crucial to anticipate, for each real estate asset, the necessary investments (CapEx), the risks of discount or illiquidity, as well as the potential capital gains for properties already aligned or easily adaptable to future standards.
– Exploit the value-add window: the combination of rising yields, corrected prices, repositioning needs (secondary logistics, B/C offices, retail to transform), and public support for transformation (offices into housing, renewal of city centers) creates a favorable environment for opportunistic and value creation strategies, provided one accepts longer holding horizons and manages implementation risks well.
Faced with increasing regulatory complexity (tax, rental, urban planning) and negotiations with municipalities, it is crucial to collaborate with experienced Dutch operators (developers, asset managers, specialized managers). These local partners secure, structure, and execute projects effectively. The foreign funds that best weathered the market correction are precisely those that had established such strategic partnerships.
The year 2026 will not be a triumphant return to 2019 volumes. But it is shaping up to be a decisive arbitrage moment: for investors ready to direct their capital toward truly resilient assets – green offices in central locations, well-served logistics hubs, housing and healthcare assets meeting structural needs, neighborhood retail and selected high streets – the Netherlands today offers an investment field that is both demanding and rich in long-term opportunities.
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Cyril Jarnias is an independent expert in international wealth management with over 20 years of experience. As an expatriate himself, he is dedicated to helping individuals and business leaders build, protect, and pass on their wealth with complete peace of mind.
On his website, cyriljarnias.com, he shares his expertise on international real estate, offshore company formation, and expatriation.
Thanks to his expertise, he offers sound advice to optimize his clients' wealth management. Cyril Jarnias is also recognized for his appearances in many prestigious media outlets such as BFM Business, les Français de l’étranger, Le Figaro, Les Echos, and Mieux vivre votre argent, where he shares his knowledge and know-how in wealth management.
