Starting with 1st July, life will get a little bit more expensive here in the NL. Full article about the changes can be found at nltimes.nl.
But let's focus on the main ones:
1. Rents
Social rents are frozen for another year. And for the private sector as follows:
And free sector rent increases are limited to 1 percent plus inflation, which means this year's maximum rent increase is 2.4 percent.
That leads to an inflation estimated at 1.4%. Which is the official number and obviously for anyone related to real life, calculated in such a way that will always yield small numbers. But for the sake of argument, let's stick with that and assume it's right, since we're continuing with ...
2. Minimum wage
For persons aged 21 and older, the new number will be €1701.80 (gross per month, full-time contract - that means roughly €1592 net. For younger persons, the salaries are smaller.
The new minimum salary has an increase of €17. That means 1% over the old value, not even equal with the official (smaller) number of inflation! Therefore, the minimum salary increased only in nominal terms, but it's losing buying power. Which is needed since we have more ...
3. Price increases
The energy will become (again) more expensive! We don't have an exact number now, since the contracts are different and the changes will not be seen right away, but I will get back once I have some numbers. My expectation is at least 5%, but let's see.
Also, it looks like the cheaper night rate will disappear and only one single rate will be used (the more expensive one).
The shopping on aliexpress.com will also become more expensive, since the Dutch VAT (21%) will be applied for all the shopping there (at the moment that's not the case for products up to €22).
There are more interesting changes taking place, go ahead and have a read of the article.
