Rotterdam is home to a growing number of millionaires – but just how many? In recent years, soaring property values and a booming economy have swelled the ranks of the city’s affluent. From elegant villas in Kralingen to sleek penthouses along the Maas, Rotterdam’s millionaires are on the rise, even if they’re still a smaller community compared to some of the Netherlands’ wealthier enclaves.
The rise of millionaire homes
At the end of 2023, the Netherlands counted approximately 197,000 homes valued at over one million euros, representing about 4% of all owner-occupied houses nationwide. This marks a dramatic jump from just a decade ago – in 2013 there were only around 14,000 “million-euro” homes in the entire country. The bulk of this increase occurred during the recent housing boom: between 2020 and 2022, the number of million-euro properties in the Netherlands exploded from roughly 60,000 to 195,000, fueled by surging real estate prices. By 2021 alone, the count jumped almost 80% in a single year, before growth slowed to about 13% in 2022 as the market cooled. In 2023, the trend leveled off – rising interest rates and economic moderation largely paused the million-euro home growth, with only a modest ~1% increase that year.
It’s worth noting that these high-end properties are not confined to mansions or detached villas. An increasing share of million-euro homes are upscale city apartments and townhouses. For example, in Amsterdam, nearly half of the million-euro homes are now apartments (beneden/bovenwoningen) rather than freestanding houses. Luxury living has become more urban, reflecting growing demand for prime location properties. The average value of a Dutch million-euro home in 2023 held around €1.35 million, and while prices per square meter dipped slightly, these homes remain expansive – especially outside the capital. (Among the four major cities, Rotterdam’s million-euro homes offer the most space for the money – about 177 m² per €1M, versus just 125 m² in Amsterdam.)
Rotterdam’s share of millionaire real estate
Rotterdam, renowned for its innovative architecture and dynamic economy, has seen its own surge in high-value homes. As of 2022, the city boasted roughly 5,250 residential properties valued at €1 million or more, a significant +15.6% increase from the year before. This was one of the largest jumps among Dutch cities, underlining Rotterdam’s growing appeal to affluent buyers. By the end of 2023, the total hovered around 5,300 million-euro homes, indicating that Rotterdam accounts for roughly 2–3% of all such properties in the Netherlands – about half the number in The Hague and a quarter of Amsterdam’s total. (Amsterdam alone contains about 20,000 million-euro homes, roughly 10% of the national stock, while The Hague has around 10,000.)
Where are Rotterdam’s priciest homes? The city’s most affluent areas include the leafy villa neighborhoods of Kralingen (notably Kralingen-Oost) and Hillegersberg, as well as pockets of luxury apartment complexes along the river such as Piet Smitkade. In fact, Rotterdam’s single most expensive street remains Vijverlaan in Kralingen, where the average home value is about €1.74 million. This picturesque avenue of historic villas has topped local price charts for years. Other high-end clusters can be found in parts of Schiebroek, ‘s-Gravenland, and the city center (e.g. around the Parklaan area), though overall Rotterdam’s prime real estate is more scattered compared to the concentrated old-money districts of cities like The Hague or suburbs like Wassenaar.
Rotterdam even made headlines by snagging the country’s most lavish apartment sale: by 2023, the Netherlands’ priciest penthouse – nicknamed “The Box” – was sold in Rotterdam’s Katendrecht district. This three-floor, 1,000 m² penthouse in the luxury Bay House development reportedly went for €15–20 million. Spanning the top floors and featuring 12-meter high ceilings with panoramic Rijnhaven views, The Box epitomizes the new level of opulence emerging in Rotterdam’s property market. It underscores that Rotterdam is no longer an outlier when it comes to ultra-high-end real estate – the city is very much on the map for the wealthy.
Millionaire households in Rotterdam
Property values aside, how many Rotterdammers are millionaires in terms of net worth? The official definition (used by Statistics Netherlands, CBS) counts a household as “millionaire” if its total assets minus liabilities equal €1,000,000 or more, including home equity. By that measure, Rotterdam still lags some other cities, but its numbers are climbing fast. As of early 2021, approximately 2.1% of Rotterdam households qualified as millionaires. In absolute terms, that is roughly 6,900 households in Rotterdam with net assets over one million euros. Just a year earlier, it was about 1.8% (≈5,900 households), so the share of millionaire families in the city rose noticeably despite the pandemic. In fact, this continues a trend seen over the past decade – for context, back in 2017 only 0.8% of Rotterdam households (around 2,400 in total) were millionaires. By 2019 that had grown to roughly 4,600 households, and the number has roughly doubled since 2017.
Even with this growth, Rotterdam’s millionaire density remains below the national average. Many of the city’s residents have modest wealth (the median household wealth in Rotterdam is among the lowest in the country, under €10k). The roughly 2–3% of households that are millionaires in Rotterdam compares to about 5% of households nationally. In other words, out of all 8+ million households in the Netherlands, around 403,000 were millionaire households as of 1 January 2022. The big increase in 2021–2022 (an addition of ~87,000 new millionaire households nationwide) was largely driven by soaring home equity and investment gains. Rotterdam certainly benefited from this boom, though cities with higher homeownership and pricier real estate saw an even larger upswing.
What does it take to be a millionaire household? On average, Dutch millionaire families have a net worth around €1.5–3 million, vastly higher than the typical non-millionaire household. For example, one analysis found the median millionaire household wealth is about €1.6 million, which is 28 times the median wealth (~€56k) of other households. Many of these millionaire fortunes are not just sitting as cash: roughly two-thirds of millionaires have between €1–2 million, often tied up in business assets or real estate, and only a small elite (about 3% of millionaires) have over €10 million in net worth. In millionaire households, the primary home typically makes up only about 20–25% of their assets (with business ownership and investments playing a bigger role), whereas for non-millionaires the home comprises the majority of assets. In short, most millionaires are “asset-rich” but not necessarily ultra-rich – crossing the €1M mark often involves property and entrepreneurship rather than yachts and private jets.
Rotterdam vs. the wealthiest enclaves
It might surprise some that Rotterdam is not among the top in the Netherlands for millionaire concentration – that distinction belongs to a few small, affluent communities. Wealth in the Netherlands has a geography all its own. The highest density of millionaires is found in municipalities like Bloemendaal and Laren, upscale enclaves in Noord-Holland where nearly 30% of households are millionaires. In these villages, roughly 3 in 10 families enjoy seven-figure net worths, thanks to a combination of expensive real estate and high incomes. Other well-to-do places such as Blaricum, Wassenaar, and Heemstede also have well above 10% of households in the millionaire club. By contrast, Rotterdam’s ~2% looks modest – and even Amsterdam, with all its billionaires and gentrified neighborhoods, has only about 5% of households at millionaire status. Major cities like Amsterdam, The Hague, Rotterdam, and Utrecht actually rank lower in millionaire percentage than many suburbs and rural municipalities. This is because big cities also have large populations of students, renters, and middle-class workers, whereas smaller wealthy towns consist predominantly of high-net-worth families.
That said, Rotterdam holds its own in absolute numbers. With an estimated 7,000–9,000 millionaire households today (2025), Rotterdam likely has the third-highest count of millionaires of any Dutch city, after Amsterdam and The Hague. (For comparison, Amsterdam’s larger population includes somewhere around 15,000+ millionaire households, according to recent estimates.) Moreover, Rotterdam’s millionaire count is steadily growing, even if the city will never be as moneyed as Bloemendaal. As Rotterdam’s economy expands – with its thriving port, multinational companies, and a rising tech and startup scene – the city continues to mint new millionaires each year.
So what's the TL;DR?
Rotterdam is home to thousands of millionaires, though they make up only a small fraction of the populace (a few percent of households). The city’s stock of million-euro homes has multiplied in the last few years, reflecting both the nationwide housing value boom and Rotterdam’s increasing desirability among affluent residents. While Rotterdam may not rival the millionaire densities of Holland’s richest villages, it has firmly established itself as a city where prosperity is on the rise. The number of millionaires living in Rotterdam is on an upward trajectory, and the allure of the city for the wealthy looks set to continue, even as overall wealth remains more modest here than in the wealthiest enclaves of the Netherlands.
