Box 3 actual return: how to report it

What is the Box 3 actual return?

Your Box 3 actual return is what your assets really earned in a year. That means the interest, dividends and rent you received. It also means the rise or fall in value of your savings, shares, crypto and second home.¹

Box 3 normally taxes you on a deemed return instead: a fixed percentage per type of asset, regardless of what your assets actually earned. You have the right to prove that your actual return was lower. That right comes from the Wet tegenbewijsregeling Box 3, the counter-evidence scheme.⁵

The Belastingdienst, the Dutch tax authority, then compares the two figures and taxes the lower one.¹

Take Priya. She lives in Amsterdam with €95,000 in savings and a €40,000 share portfolio. She also holds a $12,000 account with an American bank. This spring a letter arrived about her Box 3 income for 2022, the year her shares declined in value. We follow her through the whole route below.

The deemed-return calculation itself, with a worked example, is on Box 3 assets.

Which route applies to your tax year?

From 2025 you report your actual return as part of your income tax return.² There is no separate form. If your assets are above the tax-free allowance, the Belastingdienst asks in the return whether you want to report your actual return. It then calculates both figures and applies the one that suits you best.² No invitation arrives for 2025.

For 2017 to 2024 the "Opgaaf werkelijk rendement" (actual return) form still exists. Where you find it depends on the year. For 2020 to 2024 you file it on Mijn Belastingdienst, the Belastingdienst's online portal, per year.³ For 2017 to 2019 you use a direct online form and log in with DigiD, your Dutch digital login, only.³ You cannot download either version. You can order a paper form by phone, but on paper you cannot see whether your actual return is the lower one.³

The letters go out in waves, more than ten million in all, and it can take until 2028 before yours arrives.⁴ You do not have to wait. You can fill in the form without a letter, as long as you look up the figures yourself in your assessment.⁴ For 2021 and later that is always possible. For 2017 to 2020 it is not, and the Belastingdienst has a checklist that shows which years are open to you.⁴ The form stays open for 5 years after the tax year it covers.⁴

Priya's letter is about 2022, so she uses the form in Mijn Belastingdienst.

How is your actual return calculated?

You add up everything your assets earned and everything they gained or lost in value. Interest, dividends and rent all count. So does the change in value of your shares, crypto or second home. That counts whether or not you sold anything.¹ The deemed return looks only at your position on 1 January. The actual return follows your money through the whole year. Money you paid in or took out during the year is not return. Correct the value change for every deposit and every withdrawal.

Three rules surprise almost everyone.

The tax-free allowance does not apply here. The exemption counts against the deemed return only. You calculate your actual return over your total assets. The Hoge Raad, the Dutch supreme court, decided that.¹ ⁴

You cannot deduct your costs. Purchase and sale costs of shares, maintenance on a second home and asset-management fees all stay out.¹ Two exceptions exist. Interest you pay on a Box 3 debt comes off your return. And an investment that raised the WOZ value of a second home comes off the year-end WOZ value. That only works if you reported it to the municipality.¹

A negative year becomes zero. A loss on one asset settles against a gain on another within the same year. If the total is negative, the Belastingdienst sets your actual return at €0. You cannot carry that loss to another year.¹

Priya's 2022 adds up like this. She received €190 in savings interest and €600 in dividends. Her shares fell from €40,000 to €36,800, a loss of €3,200. Her dollar account was worth €10,560 on 1 January and €11,280 on 31 December. She used the rate on each date, 0.88 and 0.94 euro per dollar. That is a €720 gain. Her actual return is €190 plus €600 plus €720 minus €3,200, so minus €1,690. A negative total becomes €0, so her Box 3 income for 2022 is nil. She gets back what she paid on the deemed return. A refund threshold can still apply if you have no final assessment.

Does reporting your actual return pay off?

That depends on what you hold. With savings only, you will rarely gain anything. The Belastingdienst says so itself.⁴ Savings interest and the deemed rate for savings sit close together.

Shares, crypto and property are a different story. In a bad market year your actual return can fall far below the deemed one, and that gap is your refund. Without a final assessment a refund only follows above the refund threshold. How high that threshold is depends on your tax year.⁴ The table below shows how far apart the two figures ran per year.

Back to Priya. The deemed percentage for 2022 was 5.53%, while the average share return was minus 7.97%.⁴ Her portfolio moved with the market, so her actual return landed well below the deemed one.

A good year works the other way. Report an actual return above the deemed one and the Belastingdienst simply keeps the deemed return.¹ The online form even shows you which of the two is lower before you file it.⁴

That is where the calculations become difficult. You need the value of every asset on 1 January and on 31 December. You need every deposit, every withdrawal and every dividend. For a foreign account you also need the exchange rate on both dates. Your deadline adds pressure. A year that closed long ago makes the work harder. Arrived or left during the year? For 2017 to 2024 you say so on the form itself.

What changes from 2026?

From 2026 the Belastingdienst adds an amount for your own use of a second home. Can you use a holiday home or other property yourself? Then that use counts as return, on top of the rent and the change in value. This is the so-called bijtelling eigen gebruik.¹

You choose how to calculate it. Take the annual economic rental value or a fixed 5.06% of the WOZ value. The annual economic rental value is the yearly rent the property would fetch. That percentage is pro-rated over the days you can use the property.¹ For 2026 you use the WOZ value with reference date 1 January 2025. Days you rent the home out do not count. Days it is unusable because of building work do not count either.

The Belastingdienst's own example uses a second home with a WOZ value of €237,000. Take 5.06% of that and you get €11,992. Usable for 243 of 365 days, that becomes €7,984 added to the actual return.¹

The Wet werkelijk rendement would tax everyone on their actual return from 1 January 2028. It is still waiting for a vote in the Eerste Kamer (the Dutch Senate).⁶ In September 2026 the cabinet proposed an amendment.⁶ It would tax gains on shares, bonds and other financial instruments only when you sell them. Parliament has not yet decided on it. We track that process on Box 3 reform.

What should you do now?

Start by checking the route for your tax year, since that decides everything else. Filing for 2025 or later? Then answer the question in your income tax return and keep your annual statements to hand. Want to file for 2020 to 2024? Then the form in Mijn Belastingdienst is your route, and the date in that letter is your deadline.

Holding shares, crypto or a second home in a year the market fell? Then it is worth the calculations, and you should not leave it until the last week. The Belastingdienst's checklist shows which years are open to you and which figures you need to gather.

Priya filed her 2022 form inside her deadline and got her Box 3 tax back. What we take off your hands is on help with your tax return.