Voorburg: four minutes from Den Haag Centraal, and priced accordingly

Four minutes.

That is how long the train from Den Haag Centraal takes to reach Voorburg station, and it is the number that explains why a town of 43,198 people carries an average WOZ value of 458,888 euro, a fifth above the Hague figure of 383,000.

You are paying for proximity, and the proximity is real.

The oldest bit of urban Netherlands, arguably

Voorburg makes a claim that annoys several other Dutch towns: that it is the oldest city in the country.

The evidence is Forum Hadriani, a Roman settlement founded after the emperor Hadrian’s visit to the region around 121 CE, raised to Municipium Aelium Cananefatium around 161 and made the capital of the Cananefates.

It was abandoned around 270 CE.

Archaeology puts habitation on the site from roughly 2700 BC, and the name resurfaces as Foreburg in a property list compiled between 777 and 866.

None of that is visible from a tram window, which is the honest part.

What is visible is the Herenstraat, the old core, protected as a beschermd stadsgezicht, with the Oude of Martinikerk from around 1200 standing in it and a market along the street on Saturdays.

It is a genuinely pretty piece of town of a sort The Hague itself has very little of.

The other thing worth seeing is Hofwijck, Constantijn Huygens’s country house of 1640, now a museum, sitting where the Vliet meets the railway.

Huygens built it to escape the court in The Hague.

People are still doing the same thing, on a longer commute and a smaller plot.

The money

Average WOZ value 458,888 euro in 2025.

Sixty-one per cent of homes are owner-occupied, 20% rented from housing corporations and 18% privately, so the owner share is well above Rijswijk and the corporation share well below it.

Thirty-five per cent of the stock predates 1945, which is high for the region and is the reason the streets look the way they do.

Sixty-seven per cent is classed as flats, but read that the way you read it in The Hague: it counts upstairs and downstairs halves of terraced houses, not tower blocks.

Detached villas exist here in numbers, particularly towards Park Leeuwenbergh and the Vliet.

Average income was 42,702 euro per resident and 52,149 per earner in 2024, comfortably above both Den Haag and the Leidschendam-Voorburg municipal average of 40,400.

This is a prosperous, settled, largely owner-occupied town, and the market behaves accordingly: little turnover, few listings, and agents who work through their own books.

Registering directly with estate agents matters more here than watching the portals, for the reasons set out in renting in The Hague.

Population density is 6,963 per square kilometre, higher than Rijswijk, higher than Leidschendam and higher than most Hague districts.

Voorburg is small and full.

That is part of the charm and all of the price.

Getting to Den Haag

Station Voorburg opened on 1 May 1870 and moved to its present position on the Marianneviaduct in 1988.

The Sprinters that call there run from Den Haag Centraal towards Gouda, Utrecht, Geldermalsen and on to Tiel or ‘s-Hertogenbosch, so Voorburg is one stop out of the terminus and the journey is about four minutes.

Two qualifications, and they matter.

It is a Sprinter station only, and a fairly quiet one: an average of 1,291 boardings, alightings and transfers a day in 2025.

And the service pattern is awkward at the edges, with one series running only after 18.00 and at weekends, another only in weekday peaks, and the main weekday service ending at 18.00.

Check the actual times for the hours you travel rather than assuming a clockface pattern, using the advice in the train article.

RandstadRail fills the gaps.

Lines 3 and 4 call at Voorburg ‘t Loo and at Leidschendam-Voorburg, running into the centre of The Hague and out to Zoetermeer, which gives the town a high-frequency light rail service the railway does not.

Trams proper have been gone since 9 November 1961.

The whole network is described in the tram and bus article.

Who lives there

21,270 households at an average size of 1.99, so slightly smaller households than Rijswijk despite the larger houses, which is the signature of an older population with grown children.

Sixty-one per cent of residents were of Dutch origin in 2025, 13% of European origin and 26% from outside Europe.

Registered crime was 50 per thousand inhabitants in 2025 against 69 for Den Haag.

Voorburg is not where things happen, in either sense.

The honest drawbacks

The first is administrative and it catches people out.

Voorburg is not a municipality.

It merged with Leidschendam in 2002 to form Leidschendam-Voorburg, and everything official happens under that name: your address registration, your waste charges, your parking permit, your school catchment.

If you are moving from The Hague, none of the Den Haag rules follow you, and the registration article describes a process you will be doing at a different counter.

The second is that there is very little here in the evening.

The Herenstraat closes.

There are cafes and a handful of restaurants and that is the extent of it, and the answer to a Friday night is a four-minute train back into a city you just paid a premium to leave.

Younger internationals routinely find this out in year one.

The third is supply.

A small, old, owner-occupied town with almost no development land produces very few homes for rent at any given moment, and what appears goes quickly and expensively.

If you need something within six weeks, Voorburg is a bad bet and Rijswijk or Zoetermeer are better ones.

So is it worth it

Yes, for a specific person: someone with a settled job in The Hague, a budget above the city median, children or the intention of them, and a preference for a quiet old street over a lively new one.

It is the closest thing in the region to living in a small historic town while working in a capital, and nothing else on this list combines the two as well.

It is a poor fit for a single person in their twenties, for anyone who needs to move fast, and for anyone whose social life is the point.

Those people should read which district suits which life first and look inside the city, and should weigh the numbers in the cost of living article against a Leidschendam-Voorburg tax bill rather than a Den Haag one.

Sources

• AlleCijfers, woonplaats Voorburg (CBS and Kadaster data): 43,198 inhabitants in 2026; 21,270 households at an average of 1.99 persons; average WOZ value 458,888 euro in 2025; 61% owner-occupied, 20% corporation rental, 18% private rental; 67% flats; 35% built before 1945; average income 42,702 euro per resident and 52,149 per earner in 2024; population density 6,963 per km2; 50 registered crimes per 1,000 inhabitants in 2025; origin 61% Netherlands, 13% Europe, 26% outside Europe in 2025
• AlleCijfers, gemeente Leidschendam-Voorburg: average income 40,400 euro per resident in 2024, average WOZ 443,000 euro in 2025
• AlleCijfers, gemeente Den Haag: average WOZ 383,000 euro in 2025, 69 registered crimes per 1,000 inhabitants in 2025
• Dutch Wikipedia, Voorburg (Zuid-Holland): habitation on the site from about 2700 BC; Forum Hadriani founded after Hadrian’s visit around 121 CE, raised to Municipium Aelium Cananefatium around 161 CE as capital of the Cananefates, abandoned around 270 CE; recorded as Foreburg in a property list compiled between 777 and 866; Delft held the feudal rights from 1615 to 1828; Constantijn Huygens’s Hofwijck of 1640, now a museum; the Oude of Martinikerk of around 1200; the Herenstraat as historic core with a Saturday market and a beschermd stadsgezicht; an independent municipality from 1811 until the merger with Leidschendam in 2002; the last tram ran on 9 November 1961
• Dutch Wikipedia, Station Voorburg: opened 1 May 1870, rebuilt as a viaduct station on the Marianneviaduct in 1988, architect Koen van der Gaast, one island platform and two tracks, an average of 1,291 boardings, alightings and transfers a day in 2025; Sprinter series 6000 (Den Haag Centraal to ‘s-Hertogenbosch, after 18.00 and Friday to Sunday only), 6800 (Den Haag Centraal to Gouda Goverwelle, weekday peaks Monday to Thursday only) and 6900 (Den Haag Centraal to Tiel, weekdays until 18.00)
• Dutch Wikipedia, RandstadRail: line 3 Den Haag Loosduinen to Zoetermeer Centrum West and line 4 Den Haag De Uithof to Station Lansingerland-Zoetermeer, calling at Voorburg ‘t Loo and Leidschendam-Voorburg
• Rome2Rio journey planner, September 2026: Den Haag Centraal to Voorburg by train, about four minutes