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Where to get furniture in Maastricht without spending a fortune

14 August 2026 · 5 minute read

Most rooms in Maastricht come furnished or semi-furnished, which usually means a bed, a desk and a wardrobe. Everything that makes a room liveable is on you.

Start with kringloopwinkels

Kringloop shops are Dutch charity second-hand stores and they are the cheapest sensible option. Expect to pay a few euro for kitchenware, €10 to €40 for a chair or small table, and to visit more than once, because stock changes constantly and the good things go the day they arrive.

Go on a weekday morning if you can. Saturday is when everybody else goes.

Facebook groups, with a caution

Maastricht has active student marketplace groups, especially in June and July when graduating students empty their rooms, and again in late August. Whole rooms get sold as a bundle for very little, because the alternative is carrying it to the tip.

The caution: the same groups are full of housing scams. A person selling you a desk is fine. A person offering you an apartment sight-unseen and asking for a deposit by bank transfer is not.

IKEA, and how to get there without a car

There is no IKEA in Maastricht. The nearest are across the borders in Belgium and Germany, and both are reachable by public transport with some patience. Delivery to a Dutch address is usually the better answer once you add up the day it costs you.

What is worth buying new

• A mattress, if your room does not include one. Second-hand mattresses are a false economy and occasionally a bedbug problem.
• Pillows and duvets, for the same reason.
• A desk chair, if you will sit in it for a thesis. Your back is cheaper to protect than to repair.

What to leave behind

Do not ship furniture from home. Do not buy a sofa in your first month. Rooms here are small, contracts are often twelve months, and the thing you buy in week two is the thing you cannot get rid of in month eleven.