We are an independent advisor, not a reseller, and Amsterdam is where we work by choice. Here is the honest case for putting your racks in Amsterdam, and the cases where we would send you somewhere else.
If your users and your staff are all in Germany, if a UK-only footprint is a regulatory requirement, or if you need megawatts at short notice, another metro fits better and we will say so. Same if a few servers in a shared rack is honestly what you need: that is a real product, some parties do it well, and we will tell you who to call. Amsterdam is our focus, not a script, and if another metro fits better we can help you there as well.
Read the full processAmsterdam limits new datacenter build. The municipality and Haarlemmermeer paused new permits in 2019. Haarlemmermeer now allows new build only on four designated business parks, Schiphol-Rijk among them, under a ceiling of 750 MVA that runs to 2030. In June 2025 Amsterdam banned new datacenters and expansions above 2,000 m² and 5 MVA, with rare exceptions, and makes no grid room for them before 2035; projects filed before 28 December 2023 can still go ahead.
The grid and the market say the same. TenneT has no capacity for new large users in large parts of Noord-Holland before 2031 to 2036, and names datacenters among them. Vacancy in Amsterdam colocation is 6.5 to 9.4 percent (JLL, CBRE), and rents rose 18 percent year on year in the first quarter of 2025. Existing halls are not going away, but the pipeline behind them is thin.
What that means for a buyer: the good halls fill first, and power is the constraint long before floor space is. Racks in the low kW range are usually available somewhere in the metro. Higher density, or more than a handful of racks at once, needs a plan and a hall that can carry it.
So we check availability per hall before we introduce you, and we ask for lead time. If a campus cannot carry your growth in year two, we would rather tell you before you sign year one than find a second site for you afterwards. It is also why an expansion option on adjacent racks is worth asking for at signature.
Capacity in Amsterdam in 2026: the permit stop, the grid queue and what is left
Not by a wide margin, and the rack fee is rarely what decides it. Power price, committed kW, cross-connect charges and IX ports move the total far more than the metro does. Compare offers on the total monthly cost, not on the rack line.
No. Remote peering is sold from plenty of metros. You come to Amsterdam when you want the port in your own rack, your own cross-connects, and nobody else in the path.
It depends on whether peering, power ceiling or physical separation matters most to you. We tell you which hall and why, with what it has free, before anyone quotes you.
We say so, and on request we help you in the market that does fit. The same goes for 1U, half racks and shared racks: not our end of the market, and we will name someone who does it well.
Send racks, power per rack and connectivity. You get a campus, a reason and an honest read on availability, within one business day.