Rijswijk: ten minutes from Den Haag Centraal and 25,000 euro cheaper

Rijswijk is cheaper than The Hague and ten minutes from it by train.

That is the whole argument for living here, and for a lot of people it is enough.

The average WOZ value in 2025 was 358,000 euro against 383,000 for Den Haag, and the gap is wider than that sounds because Rijswijk’s stock is newer and larger for the money.

What it actually is

A town of 61,857 people in 2026, wedged between The Hague and Delft with no green gap on either side.

It has been a separate municipality since long before either neighbour grew into it, first named in writing in 1267, and it has spent the last seventy years making sure it stays separate.

The reason it stays separate is a burgemeester.

Under A.

Th.

Bogaardt, in office from 1950 to 1970, Rijswijk built 15,000 homes and pushed its population to about 54,000.

The point of that building was to make annexation by Den Haag politically impossible, and it worked.

The cost was most of the old town: what survives is Oud Rijswijk, a small historic core around the Herenstraat, and not much else.

The Peace of Rijswijk was signed here in 1697, at Huis ter Nieuburch.

The house is gone.

The old town hall is not: it reopened in 2023 as the Huis van de Stad, with the library and cultural institutions inside it, and it is the best building in the town by a distance.

The money

Average WOZ value 358,000 euro in 2025.

Forty-nine per cent of the homes are owner-occupied, 32% are rented from housing corporations and 19% from private landlords, which is an unusually even three-way split and it is the most useful thing to know about the market here.

Compared with The Hague, where the corporation stock is concentrated in particular districts, Rijswijk’s is spread through the town.

Seventy-three per cent of the housing is flats.

Only 14% predates 1945.

If you want a pre-war house with a stained-glass fanlight, this is the wrong town and Voorburg is the right one.

If you want a 1960s or 1970s flat with a balcony and a lift and a parking space, Rijswijk has thousands of them and they are the cheapest decent flats within ten minutes of Den Haag Centraal.

Average income was 36,000 euro per resident and 45,200 per earner in 2024, both very slightly above the Den Haag figures.

This is a solidly ordinary town financially, which is worth saying plainly because the price advantage over The Hague is not a discount for deprivation.

Registering with estate agents and watching the portals works the same way as it does in the city, and the approach set out in renting in The Hague transfers directly.

One thing does not: municipal charges are set by Rijswijk, not by Den Haag, so the rubbish and sewerage figures in the cost of living article do not apply to you here.

Check the Rijswijk rates before you budget.

Getting to Den Haag

Rijswijk station is underground and has been since 1996, when the railway through the town was buried in a tunnel of about 650 metres with two island platforms roughly 350 metres long.

It is one of the few genuinely handsome stations in the region, with glass pyramids in the roof dropping daylight onto the platforms, and burying the line removed a barrier that had cut the town in half since the station opened in 1965.

Sprinters run from Den Haag Centraal through Hollands Spoor and Moerwijk to Rijswijk, then on to Delft, Rotterdam and Dordrecht.

Journey planners put Den Haag Centraal to Rijswijk at about ten minutes.

Note what does not stop here: no Intercity.

The fast trains run through the tunnel without opening their doors, so a trip to Amsterdam means changing, usually at Den Haag HS or Rotterdam.

Trams cover the rest.

Line 17 has run through Rijswijk since 1999 and line 15 since 2002, both linking the town to central Den Haag, and bus 22 runs from Duindorp across the whole city to Rijswijk De Schilp.

The full picture is in the tram and bus article, and the train article explains why Hollands Spoor is often the better interchange.

The A4 and A13 both run past.

That is genuinely useful if you drive and it is the reason the offices are here.

The Plaspoelpolder problem, and what is being done about it

Rijswijk has an enormous office district.

The Plaspoelpolder holds the European Patent Office, TNO, the Biomedical Primate Research Centre, the CBR that issues your driving licence, and a Rijkswaterstaat water management division.

Shell ran a research laboratory here from 1961, announced its closure in 2017 and was out by 2018.

Large single-purpose office parks age badly, and the town knows it.

The response has been to build housing instead, in two places at once.

RijswijkBuiten, on the old glasshouse land towards Delft, has been going since 2013 and the municipality’s own figure is more than 3,500 sustainable homes by 2032, across Sion, Parkrijk and Pasgeld.

The Raad van State cleared roughly a thousand more at Pasgeld-West.

It is new-build family housing of the kind The Hague itself has almost nowhere left to put, and it is why young families keep leaving the city for here.

The second is stranger and more interesting.

In de Bogaard opened in 1960 as the first large covered shopping centre in the Netherlands, was a national landmark for a decade, and then slowly emptied as retail moved online.

Rather than prop it up, Rijswijk is converting it into a town centre with people living in it: the Beatrixblok with more than 300 homes, The Minister with over 300 apartments, The Beatrix with 188 rental flats, and The Orchard delivered in July 2026.

It is now called Bogaard stadscentrum and it is a live building site.

Who lives there

Household size averages 2.03, almost identical to The Hague’s, so this is not the family suburb the new-build districts might suggest.

Fifty-six per cent of residents were of Dutch origin in 2025, 12% of European origin and 32% from outside Europe, a more international mix than Wassenaar or Zoetermeer and close to the Hague average.

Population density is 4,343 per square kilometre, well under Den Haag’s, and registered crime was 56 per thousand inhabitants in 2025 against 69 for the city.

Safer and less packed, in other words, without being quiet.

The honest drawback

There is not very much of a town here.

Oud Rijswijk is charming and it is about four streets; Bogaard is a shopping centre becoming a neighbourhood and will be scaffolding for years; the rest is housing estates and offices arranged along arterial roads.

Nobody moves to Rijswijk for Rijswijk.

They move here because it is ten minutes from somewhere they do want to be, and then they go back into the city on Saturday.

The second drawback is noise and air.

Being wedged between two motorways, a mainline railway and a flight path into the region has a price, and it is paid unevenly street by street.

Visit at six in the evening with the windows open before you sign anything.

So is it worth it

Yes, if your reason for being in the region is work in The Hague, Delft or the Westland and you want more square metres than your budget buys in the city.

It suits couples who have outgrown a Hague flat, families who want a garden and a new-build with proper insulation, and anyone who commutes south.

It does not suit someone who wants to walk out of the front door into a city.

For that, the district comparison is the better place to start, and buying a home as a foreigner covers the mechanics either way.

Sources

• AlleCijfers, gemeente Rijswijk (CBS and Kadaster data): 61,857 inhabitants in 2026; 29,579 households at an average of 2.03 persons; average WOZ value 358,000 euro in 2025; 49% owner-occupied, 32% corporation rental, 19% private rental; 73% flats; 14% built before 1945; average income 36,000 euro per resident and 45,200 per earner in 2024; population density 4,343 per km2; 56 registered crimes per 1,000 inhabitants in 2025; origin 56% Netherlands, 12% Europe, 32% outside Europe in 2025
• AlleCijfers, gemeente Den Haag: average WOZ 383,000 euro in 2025, 69 registered crimes per 1,000 inhabitants in 2025
• Dutch Wikipedia, Rijswijk (Zuid-Holland): first written mention 1267; the Peace of Rijswijk signed in 1697 at Huis ter Nieuburch; burgemeester A. Th. Bogaardt 1950 to 1970, 15,000 homes built and population raised to about 54,000, with much historic fabric lost and annexation by Den Haag averted; the Plaspoelpolder with the European Patent Office, TNO, the Biomedical Primate Research Centre, the CBR and Rijkswaterstaat; Shell research laboratory opened 1961, closure announced 2017, vacated 2018; the old town hall reopened in 2023 as the Huis van de Stad; the Herenstraat in Oud Rijswijk; tram line 17 since 1999 and line 15 since 2002; the A4 and A13
• Dutch and English Wikipedia, Station Rijswijk: opened 30 May 1965, placed underground with the rail tunnel in 1996, tunnel approximately 650 m with two island platforms of about 350 m, glass pyramids admitting daylight, Sprinter series 5000, 5100 and 5200 between Den Haag Centraal and Dordrecht via Den Haag Moerwijk and Delft, no Intercity call
• Gemeente Rijswijk, RijswijkBuiten project page: “tot 2032 ruim 3500 nieuwe duurzame woningen gebouwd”, in “drie delen: Sion, Parkrijk en Pasgeld (waaronder Pasgeld-Oost en Pasgeld-West)”, under way since 2013
• Rodi, Rijswijk: the Raad van State declared the appeal against the Pasgeld-West zoning plan unfounded, clearing about 1,000 homes
• Gemeente Rijswijk, Bogaard stadscentrum project page: In de Bogaard was “het eerste grote overdekte winkelcentrum van Nederland” in 1960; the Beatrixblok with more than 300 homes, The Minister with over 300 apartments, The Beatrix with 188 rental apartments, The Orchard I and II delivered 15 July 2026; project status ongoing at 21 July 2026
• HTM: bus 22 runs between Duindorp and Rijswijk De Schilp
• Rome2Rio journey planner, September 2026: Den Haag Centraal to Rijswijk by train, about ten minutes