€1 to confirm your spot
One euro proves you are serious and lets us securely verify your card. It is not an extra cost. It comes straight off your fee the day you sign a lease.
Student housing · Netherlands
Free until you have the keys.
You already know the market. A hundred students chasing one room, landlords who screen you out before they even read your name, agencies that take your money and wish you luck. We built FastKeys to end that. We search, view and negotiate for you at no cost, and we only get paid once you are holding a set of keys we found you.
€1 today confirms your spot and verifies your card. Nothing else is ever charged unless we get you a home.
Ten platforms, three languages, a scam in every other inbox.
Renting in the Netherlands is hard enough with a Dutch passport and a local phone number. From abroad, in a second language, screened out because you are not the tenant a landlord pictured, competing with a hundred other students for the same room, it stops being a search and becomes a full time job. FastKeys takes the whole fight off your hands, and we do not charge you a cent to do it.
The FastKeys deal
You do not pay until you are holding the keys.
€1 today. Nothing else, ever, unless we get you a home.
We work for free
The search, the viewings, the negotiation, the contract check. All of it, for as long as it takes, at no charge to you.
Pay only when you move in
Our fee is half a month's rent, charged only once you have signed a lease we found you. Split it into monthly instalments if that suits your budget better.
Our guarantee
If we never find you a place to live, our fee is zero. Not discounted, not refunded later, zero. The most you will ever pay if it does not work out is the €1 confirmation.
Optional extras
Cannot get to the viewing? We will go instead.
Most places go within days, and landlords rarely wait for someone still abroad. We attend in person, put you on a live call while we walk the rooms, and ask your questions on the spot. You pay only for viewings you ask for, and nothing if we cannot make it.
See how viewings work →€50Online viewing
live video, same-day summary
live video, same-day summary
€100Express viewing
attended within 24 hours
attended within 24 hours
What we do
Four things stand between you and a front door.
We take all four, and none of it costs you anything until you sign.
The search
You send one message with your city, budget, dates and must-haves. We work through the listing sites, the agencies and the landlords we already know, and come back with a shortlist that actually fits, not forty links you have to filter yourself.
Viewings, without the flight
Still in your home country? We go instead. Video walkthrough of the room and the shared spaces, honest notes on damp, noise, the state of the kitchen, bike storage, and how long the ride to campus really takes.
The Dutch paperwork
We read the huurovereenkomst before you sign it: notice period, deposit rules, service charges, what happens if you leave early, and whether you can register at the address. Then we explain it to you in English, in plain words.
Move-in day
Key handover, meter readings and a photo record of the room's condition, so your deposit comes back at the end. After that we point you at the first practical things: your gemeente appointment, internet, insurance, a bike.
How it works
From first message to front door.
Four steps, in this order. Free until the last one, and you only ever deal with one person.
01
Tell us what you need
City, monthly budget, move-in date, how long you're staying, and the things you won't compromise on: your own bathroom, a quiet street, registration at the address.
02
We search and shortlist
You get a handful of real options with photos, the full monthly cost written out, and an honest note on what's good and what isn't about each one.
03
We view and verify
We visit in person, check the landlord is who they say they are, read the contract, and confirm you can register. Anything that doesn't hold up, we drop.
04
You get the keys
You sign, you pay the landlord directly on that signed contract, and you move in. Only now does our fee apply, half a month's rent, split into instalments if you need that. We stay reachable for the first weeks in case something comes up.
Where we work
Student cities across the Netherlands.
We're based in Limburg and work hardest in the south, but we take requests nationwide.
Maastricht
Eindhoven
Heerlen
Sittard
Venlo
Nijmegen
Tilburg
Rotterdam
Utrecht
Groningen
Amsterdam
Somewhere else? Ask anyway
How we keep it safe
The rules we don't bend.
Housing scams target international students because they're far away, in a hurry, and can't verify anything. These four rules are how we make sure that isn't you.
No deposit to hold a room
Nobody, not us, not a landlord, should ask you to transfer money before you've seen a contract. If someone does, that's the end of the conversation.
You pay the landlord, not us
Rent and deposit go straight to the landlord on a signed contract, in your name, to an account we've checked.
Registration checked first
An address you can't register at costs you your BSN, your bank account and your health insurance. We confirm it before we recommend anything.
We tell you when it's bad
If a listing looks wrong, we say so, even when saying so costs us the placement. You get our honest read, not a sales pitch.
What students say
In their own words.
Anyone can promise a placement. These are the people it actually happened to.
I applied to eleven rooms from home and heard back from none of them. FastKeys viewed three places in one week and sent me video of each one. I signed before I even landed.
The contract was eleven pages of Dutch. They went through it with me line by line and told me which two clauses to ask the landlord about. I would have signed both without noticing.
A landlord asked me for two months' deposit by bank transfer before any viewing. FastKeys told me to walk away. The listing disappeared a week later.
Finding homes for internationals coming to the Netherlands.
Questions
The things everyone asks first.
Nothing, until you have a signed lease. Getting started costs €1, which confirms your spot and verifies your card. From there we search, view and negotiate for you at no charge, for as long as it takes. Once you sign a lease we found you, our fee is half a month's rent, and you can split it across several months if that helps your budget. Rent and deposit always go straight to the landlord, never to us.
Then you do not pay our fee. That is the whole deal: we only get paid when you do. The €1 confirmation is the most you will ever pay us if things do not work out, and it comes off your fee anyway if they do.
Two reasons. It confirms you're a real, committed applicant rather than one of dozens who disappear halfway through, which is what lets us spend real time on your search for free. And it lets us securely save your card with Stripe so that, if and only if you sign a lease, we can charge our fee without you having to fill out payment details again mid move. FastKeys never sees or stores your card number.
That's the situation we're built for. We view rooms in person on your behalf, film them, and send you the walkthrough the same day. You can sign and arrange everything from your home country.
We check this before we recommend a place. Registration with the gemeente (the BRP) is what gets you a BSN, and without a BSN you can't open a Dutch bank account, take a part-time job or arrange health insurance. Some landlords don't allow it, those places don't make our shortlist unless you specifically tell us you don't need it.
Usually one or two months' rent, paid to the landlord after the contract is signed. Anything above two months, or any request for money before a contract exists, is a warning sign. We photograph the room's condition at handover so there's evidence when you ask for the deposit back.
Typically a passport or ID, your proof of enrolment from the university, and proof of income or a guarantor, often a parent. Some landlords ask for a bank statement. We'll tell you exactly what a specific landlord wants before you apply, so nothing stalls at the last step.
Only for self contained homes (your own front door, kitchen and bathroom), and only under income and rent limits set each year. A shared student room almost never qualifies. If a place might qualify, we'll flag it, but the application is yours to make with the Belastingdienst.
Earlier than feels necessary. For a September start, the good rooms move between April and July, and the last weeks of August are the worst time to be searching. If you're already inside that window, message us anyway, we work with what's left and we know where to look.
Get in touch
Tell us where you're going.
Start with the application. It costs €1 to confirm, it is the whole service, and it takes about five minutes.
Ready when you are
One form, and we start today.
Your budget, your dates, and a little about who you are. We turn it into the letter Dutch landlords actually reply to, and we start applying on your behalf, for free.
- About five minutes to fill in
- You see the letter build as you type
- Nothing beyond €1 is ever charged unless you get a home
€1 today. Our fee, half a month's rent, only once you have the keys, in instalments if you need them. Payments handled by Stripe.