Minister Keijzer: “The housing shortage is significant throughout the Netherlands. All municipalities have a housing construction task. With the Realization Stimulus, we support every municipality that builds affordable housing. We have set up a low-threshold scheme for this and will start this year.”

Municipalities can register affordable housing units for which construction starts this year from the spring of 2026. They will receive the contributions in the autumn of 2026. The minister will inform municipalities later this year about the registration of the housing units. The last contributions from the Realization Stimulus will be provided in 2030 for affordable housing units for which construction started in 2029. Approximately € 2.5 billion is available until 2030 for this.

With the Realization Stimulus, the cabinet aims to stimulate the construction of affordable housing throughout the Netherlands. Discussions with municipalities and other stakeholders have shown that linking the contribution to the start of construction best contributes to this. Thus, the Realization Stimulus encourages the acceleration of housing construction and the inclusion of more affordable housing in the programming of housing construction projects by municipalities.

Additional support is available for specific construction tasks that incur higher costs, and thus a higher unprofitable top. The minister therefore reserves € 900 million - from the approximately € 2.5 billion - for additional contributions to further support municipalities. The extra support is available for housing construction in vulnerable areas, for creating suitable and clustered housing, and for strengthening municipal implementation capacity. The amount of additional contributions will be announced later this year.

Housing units realized by better utilizing existing buildings are also eligible for the Realization Stimulus. This includes housing units that arise from splitting, adding floors, or transformations. The same applies to flexible housing units.

Housing units for which municipalities have previously received a contribution from the national government are not eligible for the Realization Stimulus. The principle is that those projects are already financially covered.

The Realization Stimulus is part of a package of financial arrangements aimed at supporting municipalities and regions in their housing construction tasks. In addition to the Realization Stimulus, it includes the Housing Construction Impulse, the Area Budget, and the Land Facility. Additionally, several existing arrangements will continue in the coming period. These include the Regulation for Housing Attention Groups, the Stimulus Scheme for Flexible and Transformation Housing, and the Regulation for Compensation for Relocation of Flexible Housing Units.

Letter to Parliament on financial instruments for housing construction | Document | Rijksoverheid.nl