What a square metre of underfloor heating starts at in 2026
Milling pipes into the floor you already have, casting them into a new screed, or laying electric mats under tile. Three routes, three starting points, and a set of costs that never appear in the per-metre figure.
Underfloor heating is sold by the square metre, which makes it look like a simple sum. It is not. Ask three Dutch installers to price the same ground floor and the quotes will land far apart, because each one puts different work inside that per-metre number. One includes levelling the floor afterwards. One does not. One counts the manifold separately. One folds it in. Before you compare anything, you have to know what you are comparing.
The published Dutch guides for 2026 do not start in the same place either. Vloerverwarming-advies opens milling into an existing floor at €30 per m² excluding VAT. Offerteadviseur opens the same job at €40 per m², quoted including VAT. Installatie-shop starts at €36 including VAT. Put them all on the same basis and milling an existing floor starts at about €40 per m² including VAT, laid and connected, with the floor covering still to buy. Everything after that sentence is about what moves the figure up.
The four systems, and what actually separates them
The choice is usually made for you by the floor you already have.
| System | Price per m² | Suits |
|---|---|---|
| Milled into an existing screed (infrezen) | from €40 | A sound concrete or anhydrite floor that stays where it is |
| Cast into a new screed (nat systeem) | from €30 | New build, an extension, or a floor coming out anyway |
| Dry build panels (droogbouw) | from €35 | Wooden floors and upper storeys where weight is limited |
| Electric mats | from €60 | A bathroom, a hallway, one small room |
The droogbouw figure is the one to treat with care. It buys the pipework. A finished, insulated panel floor is a different product at a different price, and a quote that quietly uses the cheaper build under the more expensive name is the commonest way a low price stops being low.
Electric heating is cheap to install and expensive to run. It converts electricity to heat one to one, with no boiler or heat pump multiplying the effect, so it earns its place in a bathroom you want warm underfoot for an hour a day and loses badly as a whole-house system.
What sits outside the per-metre price
Every quote carries fixed costs that do not scale with area. On a small floor they can add a quarter to the bill.
- Manifold (verdeler): from €250, rising with the number of circuits it feeds.
- Connecting to the existing system: from €150.
- A thermostat, or rewiring the one you have: from €75.
- Dust control and waste removal: from €50. Milling a concrete floor produces a great deal of both.
- Levelling afterwards: from €8 per m², and often left out of the headline price.
Offerteadviseur breaks the per-metre figure down further: the milling itself from €10, laying the pipe from €8, labour from €15, levelling from €8. Add the starting figures alone and you are at €41 per m² before anyone has touched the manifold. A quote that lands under €40 per m² is usually one that leaves the levelling and the finishing to somebody else.
A worked example: 85 m² on a Zaandam ground floor
A terraced house, concrete ground floor, one manifold, existing boiler staying in place, every line at its starting rate.
- Milling and laying, 85 m² at €40: €3,400
- Levelling, 85 m² at €8: €680
- Manifold, six circuits: from €250
- Connection to the boiler and pump group: from €150
- Thermostat: from €75
- Dust extraction and waste: from €50
That is €4,605 with nothing going wrong and nothing added. What moves it: a screed that needs repair before the pipes go in, more circuits than the six assumed here, a covering that demands a flatter finish than standard levelling gives, a manifold cupboard that has to be built, and the floor covering itself, which is on top of all of it. Published project estimates start in the same territory: from €2,000 for an apartment of 40 to 60 m², from €3,000 for a semi-detached house of 70 to 100 m².
The boiler question decides more than the floor does
Water in an underfloor circuit runs at around 35 °C. Radiators run at about 65 °C. That gap is the whole point of the system, and it is also the reason a floor alone rarely delivers the saving people expect.
A standard HR boiler will heat a floor. It will do it inefficiently, cycling at a temperature it was not built for, and the fuel bill will barely move. The efficiency arrives when the low water temperature meets a heat source that likes low water temperature, which means a heat pump. Installers start at €2,000 for a new condensing boiler and at €7,500 for an air-to-water heat pump. Suppliers claim roughly 20 percent lower consumption against radiators, though that number assumes the house holds its heat in the first place.
Which is the part homeowners skip. A floor at 35 °C cannot heat a room that leaks. In a pre-1975 Dutch house with an uninsulated floor and single-glazed windows, underfloor heating installed on its own will feel cold in January and the bill will go up, not down. Floor insulation, and often wider insulation work, belongs in the same job, or in the one before it.
Where VAT sits, and what ISDE does not cover
Two rules catch people out, and both are worth knowing before the quote arrives.
The Dutch reduced VAT rate of 9 percent applies to five kinds of work on homes older than two years: insulating, painting, plastering, wallpapering and cleaning. Installing underfloor heating is not on that list, so the work carries 21 percent. If floor insulation goes in during the same job, the labour on the insulation part does fall under 9 percent, while the insulation material itself stays at 21. An installer who separates those lines is doing you a favour, and one who bills the whole job at a single rate is not reading the rule. Our note on VAT during a renovation sets out the boundaries in more detail.
The ISDE subsidy pays towards heat pumps and insulation. It does not pay for the pipes in your floor. Underfloor heating qualifies only as part of a heat pump installation that meets the scheme’s conditions, which is a different application with different paperwork.
Floor coverings, drying time and the two expensive mistakes
Heat has to reach the room. Every floor covering resists it, and the resistance is measured in m²K/W. Tile and natural stone pass heat almost freely. Engineered wood works if it is specified for the job. Thick carpet, underlay stacked on underlay, and some vinyl builds insulate the room from its own heating, and the result is a floor that runs hot, costs more and still leaves the room cool. Ask for the resistance figure of the covering before you buy it, not after. Our page on laying flooring covers the combinations that work.
The second mistake is time. A new screed needs weeks to dry before a covering goes down, and the heating has to be brought up in stages rather than switched on. Rushing it cracks the screed or curls the boards, and the repair costs more than the wait would have.
How to compare two quotes without guessing
Ask these before putting two totals side by side.
- Are the figures including or excluding VAT? Dutch guides use both, and so do installers.
- Is levelling in the price, or a line you will meet later?
- How many circuits, and is the manifold counted separately?
- What water temperature is the design based on, and does the current heat source deliver it?
Adding zone control to the design is a separate decision with its own economics, and we have written about room-by-room zoning elsewhere.
The realistic position for 2026
Milling underfloor heating into an existing Dutch floor starts at €40 per m² including VAT, plus around €600 of fixed costs, plus the floor covering. A whole ground floor of 80 to 100 m² starts near €4,500 and goes up from there with the condition of the floor, the number of circuits and the covering you choose. Casting pipes into a new screed during other building work is cheaper per metre and always will be, which is why the cheapest moment to install underfloor heating is while the floor is already open.
LucKey Construction lays underfloor heating in Zaandam, Amsterdam and the surrounding towns, and quotes it line by line: milling, pipework, manifold, levelling and connection separately, so the 9 and 21 percent portions are visible and nothing hides inside a round number. Where floor insulation belongs in the same job, it appears as its own line with its own rate. See underfloor heating installation, or the wider house renovation work it usually forms part of.
Disclaimer: every figure in this article is a starting point, not a price and not a ceiling. They are national market indications for 2026, drawn from published Dutch price guides and observation of the Amsterdam region, and they describe where work of this kind begins when nothing unusual is found. They are not a quotation, a price list or an offer, and no figure here can be relied on for any particular project. What the work actually costs depends on the property, the condition and construction of the existing floor, the number of circuits, the heat source and the region, and it is fixed only in a written quotation after a property visit and a full calculation. That quotation is the only figure that binds anyone. Labour rates and material prices change, and the figures here reflect the position in September 2026. Rules on permits, subsidies and VAT change: check anything here that affects a permit, a subsidy or a tax rate with the body responsible for it, which means your municipality and the Omgevingsloket for permits, RVO for the ISDE, and the Belastingdienst for VAT. Responsibility for permits and applications rests with the homeowner, not with the contractor.
