Do I still owe rent after I move out?

As long as your name is on the lease, you are a tenant, even if you live somewhere else, and you have to keep to the lease, for example by paying the rent (Juridisch Loket). Get your name off the lease, in writing, before you stop paying.

Who pays the rent for the empty room?

The tenants who are on the lease. !WOON puts it plainly: the group owes the rent for the empty room to the landlord, so the rest pay more when there are fewer of you. If your lease makes you jointly and severally liable, the landlord can claim the whole rent from any one of you (BW 6:7).

Can we choose the new housemate ourselves?

Only if your lease or your landlord's own practice gives you that right. Some leases have a coöptatie clause that lets the remaining tenants pick the next one. Without one, a landlord who has accepted the residents' choice for years can have created the same expectation: in March 2025 a Rotterdam judge, in a provisional ruling, sided with the tenants of a student house whose landlord had accepted their nominations for more than ten years. Otherwise the landlord decides whether someone new joins the lease.

Is a housemate on a joint lease always liable for the whole rent?

Not automatically. Dutch law makes spouses and medehuurders admitted by the landlord or a court jointly and severally liable (BW 7:266, 7:267); for friends who simply co-sign, we found no article that does the same. The general rule starts from equal shares unless the contract, custom or the law says otherwise (BW 6:6). So read the liability clause in your lease, and if the word hoofdelijk is not in it, do not assume you owe only your share: ask the landlord or the Juridisch Loket.

When a Housemate Leaves the Joint Lease (Netherlands)

Q: Can one housemate end a joint lease on their own?

Not on their own. When several people signed one lease (samenhuur), the lease ends only when all the tenants give notice together. One of you can ask the landlord to leave alone, but needs the other tenants' consent, and the landlord does not have to agree (Juridisch Loket).

11 October 2026 · Panagiotis Pelardis

The short answer: if several of you signed one lease, the lease ends only when all of you give notice together. One of you can ask the landlord to leave alone, but needs the others' consent, and the landlord does not have to agree. Until your name is off the lease, you stay responsible for the rent.

Sources: Juridisch Loket, medehuur and samenhuur; Burgerlijk Wetboek, art. 6:6, 6:7, 7:266 and 7:267; !WOON, woningdelers en huurderswissels. All read 11 October 2026. General information, not legal advice.

Question	Short answer	Source
Can one of us end the lease alone?	No; a joint lease ends when all tenants give notice	Juridisch Loket
Can one of us leave anyway?	With the other tenants' consent, and only if the landlord agrees	Juridisch Loket
Do I owe rent after moving out?	Yes, while your name is on the lease	Juridisch Loket
Who pays for the empty room?	The tenants still on the lease	!WOON
Can we pick the next housemate?	With a coöptatie clause in the lease, or a long-standing practice of the landlord accepting your choice	!WOON; Rechtbank Rotterdam, 2025

First: what kind of lease do you have?

Everything below depends on whose name is on the contract.

Everyone signed one lease. The Juridisch Loket calls this samenhuur, or contractual medehuur: two or more people are named as tenants in the contract, for example friends sharing a house. This article is mostly about this case.
One person rents and the others rent from them. That is onderhuur, and the others' position runs through the main tenant. Our guide to finding a huisgenoot sets out what article 7:244 BW says about it.
You live there, but your name is on nothing. Then, as the Juridisch Loket puts it, if the main tenant's contract ends, for example because they give notice, you have to leave too.

Who owes what while someone is leaving

The starting point is in the Civil Code. When two or more people owe one performance, each owes an equal share, unless law, custom or the contract makes them liable for unequal shares or hoofdelijk, jointly and severally (BW 6:6). If you are hoofdelijk liable, the landlord can claim the whole amount from any one of you (BW 6:7).

The law expressly makes some co-tenants jointly and severally liable: spouses and registered partners, and medehuurders whom the landlord or a court has admitted (BW 7:266, 7:267). For friends who simply co-signed, we found no article that does the same. Start with your lease and look for the word hoofdelijk in the liability clause. If it is not there, do not assume you owe only your share; ask.

What the group owes does not shrink when someone leaves. !WOON, a tenants' advice service, says it directly: the group owes the rent for the empty room to the landlord, and the rest pay more when there are fewer of you.

If you are the one leaving

Talk to your housemates first. Under samenhuur you need their consent to leave alone, so the conversation is not optional.
Ask the landlord, in writing, whether you may end your part of the lease or be taken off it. The landlord does not have to agree. The Woonbond, writing about partners on a joint lease, notes that landlords usually agree; the exception it names is when the person who stays clearly cannot pay the rent alone (Woonbond, 31 July 2023).
Get what you agree on paper, as the Juridisch Loket advises people who stop living together. Until your name is formally off the lease, says !WOON, you are still responsible for the rent.
Report your move within five days to the gemeente of your new address. Your registration follows where you live; see how many people can live at one address.
Settle the deposit between you. The deposit sits between the landlord and the tenants on the lease, so agree in writing among yourselves who gets what back, and when. That is our own advice.

If you are the ones staying

Finding the next housemate is not automatically your call. Some leases have a coöptatie clause that lets the remaining tenants choose the next one. Without such a clause, !WOON describes a second route: a landlord who has accepted the residents' choice for years can have created a fixed practice (a bestendige gedragslijn) that tenants may rely on, and which the landlord can only end with reasonable notice. In March 2025 a Rotterdam judge, in a provisional ruling (kort geding), sided with the tenants of a student house whose landlord had accepted their nominations for more than ten years (ECLI:NL:RBROT:2025:4022). That was about one landlord's own practice, not a rule for every house. Without a clause or such a practice, the landlord decides whether anyone new joins the lease.

Do not let someone move in on a handshake. Whoever moves in should end up either on the lease or in an arrangement the landlord has agreed to in writing. Until that is arranged, the tenants on the lease still owe the rent. Also our own advice.

Run the evening properly. If the landlord leaves the choice to you, our guide to running a hospiteeravond as the house covers the ad, the evening and the message to the people you did not pick.

When you cannot agree

Sometimes the person leaving and the people staying disagree about who keeps the lease. In the same piece about couples, the Woonbond writes that contractual co-tenants who disagree about who continues the lease can ask the court to decide. For advice on your own case, start with the Juridisch Loket: the phone line is free, and it gives personal legal advice to people with a low income and little savings.

Some leases are built for this

Some landlords use Friends-contracten for house-shares. Aedes, the association of housing corporations, describes the core: one home let to several single people on one joint lease, where the tenants arrange the total rent themselves and find new tenants themselves (Aedes, 30 November 2023). If you are offered one, read how it handles a tenant who leaves; replacing tenants is built into the format.

Settle it before anyone signs

The cheapest moment to agree what happens when someone leaves is before the lease exists. Three questions, one conversation, written down between yourselves:

Who finds the replacement, and how long do they have?
Does the rest of the house have a say in who it is?
How much notice does the one leaving give the others?

Where Vond fits

We start with Roommates. Vond opens soon in Utrecht, and the first thing that opens is a way to find people to live with.

A Roommates profile describes a person: how you live, when you get up, how you feel about guests. It carries no price, no address and no availability: a profile has no field for any of them. It is free in beta. A house cannot use it to fill a free room.

For rooms that come onto Vond, we speak to whoever is letting the place and build the listing with them. We do not verify identity, we do not check a register, and there is no verification badge on Vond, so read every profile with the care you would give a stranger's message anywhere else.

The waitlist is at vond.house.

The short version

On a joint lease, nobody leaves alone without the others and the landlord. Until your name is off it, you still owe the rent. Ask in writing, get the answer in writing, and agree the leaver rule before you sign the next one.