Expat guide for moving in Amsterdam
House Insurance
House insurance will be a concern of yours if you are considering purchasing your own home; this will cover the risk of fire, storm, flood and theft, and this is likely to be required by your lender if you have a mortgage on the property. If you are renting an apartment, it is certainly not a bad idea to confirm that your landlord has this insurance, and if your personal property will be covered by the landlord’s policy. Although the Netherlands has a low crime rate, burglaries are not particularly uncommon (while burglar alarms are nearly extinct), so you might want to consider the available options for protecting your personal belongings.
Popular insurers include:
Gas/Electricity/Water
When you are looking to rent an apartment, you will notice if it is advertised as inclusive (incl.) or exclusive (excl.) of these utilities in terms of your monthly rent. If you move into an apartment for which these are part of your rent, you will not have to worry about paying for them since your landlord will handle the bills for the building. However, in the case of apartments where these are excluded from your monthly rent, you will have to pay these bills separately, and therefore, you will be responsible for making necessary arrangements or staying in contact with your building’s gas and electricity providers, who will likely contact you shortly after you move in and register at your address.
Water
For water, in the Netherlands, there is a single provider, Waternet. They will contact you, usually quarterly, with a bank giro to the value of the amount owed for services and taxes which you can pay at the bank or online.
Waternet – Call 0900 93 94
http://www.waternet.nl/
Power
The 3 main power (electricity and gas) companies are:
NUON – Call 0900 0808 to arrange a new account.
http://www.nuon.nl/
Essent Groene Stroom
http://www.essent.nl
OXXIO
http://www.oxxio.nl
Even if power is excluded from monthly rent, rarely a house in the real estate market is not connected to power. You will need to contact one of the above providers or just ask the landlord to do so (when renting an apartment, the landloard is obliged to provide a power contract). In any case, your landlord will know which company you should choose, since each district is usually dominated by one of the 3 main companies, making the connection period less than a couple of days. If you buy your own home, or your landlord has no preexisting account with an energy provider you might consider contacting Groene Stroom?Ja Graag! (Green energy? Yes please!) who advise Amsterdammers on the various energy company’s green energy levels. http://www.groenestroomjagraag.nl/
Postal Services
When you register with the municipality all of your official mail (including health insurance, conveniently) will be automatically redirected to that address. The municipality are not always fast to act on this so it is still advisable to let your insurance company know. You will need to make the bank aware of a change of address and they will usually ask for a signed letter. You will also need to let other providers – such as your cell phone provider – and doctors and dentists aware of the move.
You do not however need to register with a post office or alert anyone else to your presence. For locations and hours visit http://www.tntpost.nl which is the main website of the postal service. Services provided by this site include a post office locator and a moving (verhuis) service to forward post from your last address to your new one.
Fedex, although not as popular to Dutch citizens, is available at the following address:
Breguetlaan 25
1438 BD Oude Meer
Tel: 0800 0222 333
Fax: 020-5005-610
Shipping Companies
The White Van Man is popular among expats and has a good reputation as a moving company. They will also take care of international moves. They can be found at
If you need a truck of any size to move things around, or even go shopping for furniture, you can rent your own here:
