30 Percent Ruling Netherlands
The 30 percent ruling means that 30 percent of your salary is paid out on a tax free basis for a period of five years. Want to know if you are eligibel for the 30% ruling? Do you want a second opinion after your 30% ruling was denied? Did your 30% ruling come to an end? Contact our tax advisors to see how we can help you.
Applying for the 30 percent ruling
A well-structured and timely presentation is essential in the request to the Tax Service. Our specialized tax consultants know how to make sure your situation is well presented to the Dutch Tax Authorities. This will increase the chance your application is accepted. We have also achieved good results for internationals who came to us for a second opinion after their first application was denied.
Once the 30 percent ruling is granted the ruling will have to be processed and applied to both Wages Tax return and Income Tax return.
30 ruling requirements
In order to obtain this 30 ruling in the Netherlands you are required to show a particular scarce skill or expertise and have to be recruited by a Dutch employer from abroad. Here you find the list of specific requirements:
- The specific expertise requirement is mainly based on a minimum salary requirement of € 41,954 in 2023 (€ 39.647 in 2022) taxable salary plus the 30 percent allowance, which means about € 56.639 in 2022 (€ 55.659 in 2021) gross salary (including the 30 percent tax free part);
- Prior to your employment in the Netherlands you need to have lived further than 150 kilometers from the Dutch border during the last 16 months out of 24 months;
- Specific regulations apply to graduates and research scientists. If PhD graduates are offered a job in the Netherlands after they graduate, they are not obligated to have lived abroad before accepting the job. The minimum taxable salary needs to be € 31,891 in 2023 (2022: € 30.001). For research scientists there is no minimum salary;
- Periods in which you have lived and/or worked in the Netherlands will be deducted from the 30 ruling period. (Dutch people are obliged to have lived at least 25 years abroad before being recruited to be counted as an expat);
- If you change jobs you need to be unemployed for a maximum period of 3 months otherwise you will lose the 30 percent ruling.
30 ruling Netherlands: opt for partial non-domestic taxation
After you have been granted the 30% ruling it is important that you opt for partial non-domestic taxation which releases you from the obligation to pay taxes on your worldwide wealth in box 3. On top of this you will be exempt from tax on income from savings and investments, as well as taxation on dividends from substantial shareholdings, with some exceptions. Along with some other practical advantages, such as an easier procedure for acquiring a Dutch driving license, this makes the 30 ruling a very favourable arrangement for expatriates.
30 ruling for starting businesses
If you wish to start a business in the Netherlands, it is very worthwhile to investigate whether you could qualify for the 30%-ruling as employed by your company. In this case the company and payroll will need to be set up before you start working.
Contact us now
If you would like to know what the possibilities are in your case or seek advice how to apply the 30 ruling, please do not hesitate to contact us.
Examples of 30% ruling situations
You have recently moved to Netherlands and started working in the beginning of 2020. Before you came to the Netherlands you have been working in Spain for the last 3 years. You are planning to apply for the 30% ruling and would like to seek assistance from a tax consultant. You are wondering if it is a problem that you signed your job contract on the first day of work, a week after you arrived in the Netherlands. However, you were hired from abroad since your employer applied for your visa and work permit with IND. You have a copy of the letter from IND stating that your employer applied for my work permit. Also you have bank statements with your Spanish address on them.
In your case it is crucial that your situation is presented correctly to the tax office. To qualify for the 30% ruling you need to be recruited from abroad. This makes it important that you sign your Dutch job contract before actually living in the Netherlands. In your case however this might not be an issue since you have proof of being recruited from abroad like the IND letter and bank statements. And probably you can also show a job offer in writing prior to the contract. We would be happy to present your situation correctly to the tax office to prevent the 30% being denied.
You are relocating from Dublin to Amsterdam within a few months. You would like to receive expat related tax advice. Your company is organising the application for the 30% tax ruling, but you want a general overview of how the Dutch system works and where advantages can be found. Also you have some specific questions about Dutch tax consequences for your existing assets in Ireland and your home country.
If the 30% ruling is granted and the tax return filed correctly there should be no tax consequences for your worldwide assets. The maximum period for the 30% ruling is 5 years. We will be glad to help with a correct and advantageous tax return next year, making use of all tax deductions possible. We can also help with the 30% ruling; you only have once chance to get this right. If you do not qualify when you enter the country you will not qualify either at a later stage.
You are moving to The Hague after signing a new contract at your company. Your employer does not have a presence in the Netherlands yet and you will be the only employee in the Netherlands. Your company is willing to create opportunities for you to qualify for the 30% ruling, for example setting up a payroll for you in the Netherlands. You do earn over the threshold for the 30% tax free ruling.
To qualify for the 30% ruling in the Netherlands you need indeed to be paid via the Dutch tax system. We can certainly set up your employer as a Dutch withholding agent which means they can run a Dutch pay roll. You will then be paid via the Dutch tax system as well as insured via NL. In most cases it is also a good option to run the salary through a payroll company in that situation. The payroll company will then make sure that the correct Dutch taxes are withheld from the salary.
You are considering moving to the Netherlands before the end of the year. Currently you are a freelancer in the UK and you have heard about setting up a BV in the Netherlands to be able to take advantage of the 30% ruling. You are wondering if that is possible since your company would probably be earning quite a bit less than the recommended BV threshold of € 120.000 – € 150.000 per year.
Normally if you start a company, with profits still on a lower level, a BV may not be now considered the best option; however with the 30% ruling benefit it certainly becomes more attractive. It is important that the various required action points are carried out in the right order so as not to jeopardize the 30 ruling possibility. We can certainly help with the setting up of a BV – also a notary public for the official incorporation is needed – as well as the preparation of quarterly VAT returns, monthly wages tax returns and annual accounts as well as the corporate and personal income tax returns.
You are already working in the Netherlands since recently and are under the 30% ruling. Your wife still lives abroad and will move to the Netherlands in a few weeks. She is a U.S. citizen and will remain working for a US company. You want to know if there is a way that your wife will also get the 30% ruling.
If your wife would set up a BV prior to moving to NL she would then become an employee of this BV and the BV would invoice the US company (now employer – then client). This way the 30% ruling may be applicable. Setting up a BV will involve some time and your wife may have to hold of the immigration process. It is important that your wife had no previous stays in NL and is not registered here yet nor has the immigration process started. There may be other options that qualify for the 30% ruling such as commencement of an NL payroll for the current US employer which is something we could arrange but it would require the cooperation of the US employer. An even simpler setup would be to use a third-party payroll company. In this your wife would become an employee of the payroll company and the payroll company would invoice the US employer.
Your employer is helping you with the application for the 30% ruling. You do in fact meet all the requirements: you did not live within 150 km of the Dutch border, your salary is high enough and you were recruited from abroad. The problem is that you completed your degree from a Dutch university and were officially registered at your family’s address within 150 km of the Dutch border. You are afraid the Dutch Tax authorities will see this as a reason to deny your 30% ruling. You want to know how to proceed and how to prove that you do qualify.
It is indeed important that the application is done correctly. It is important to include documents that state that you were living further away than 150 km from the Netherlands. Think of a CV that mentions your actual living address. Questions may be raised by the inspector but can also be dealt with later; at the moment it is best to complete the form as clearly as possible and avoid including items that could give raise to further questions.
You will start a new job in Eindhoven from the 1st of October and will apply for the 30% tax ruling. Your question is: can you already start renting an apartment from the 1st of September or is this going to compromise the 30% tax ruling?
We would be happy to help you out by answering your question regarding the 30% ruling and moving to the Netherlands. To qualify for the 30% ruling you need to have signed a job contract before you move to the Netherlands, that is September 1st in case you rent an apartment from that date. You should preferably register at the city council around October 1st.
