Gift tax in the Netherlands: the 2026 exemptions

What is gift tax in the Netherlands?

Gift tax is what the receiver pays on a gift above their exemption.² Every gift carries an exemption and below that amount you pay nothing. Above it you pay a percentage of the difference.

This page is the complete 2026 reference. It carries every exemption amount, the full rate table and the filing rule. It does not cover gifts to charity, which run through the income-tax deduction rules instead.

Meet Omar. He wants to give his daughter €10,000 towards her first flat. She turned 29 this year. She moved to the Netherlands last year. We follow his gift through this page and work it out to the euro. The figures below decide almost every gift, including his. Dutch gift tax follows the giver. A gift from parents living abroad can fall outside it.

So the exemption follows the relationship between the two people involved.

Who counts as a child for gift tax?

A child is your own child, a stepchild or a foster child.¹ Everyone else has their own yearly exemption of €2,769.¹ Think of a brother, a friend or an aunt.

Parents count as one giver, even after a divorce.³ So if Omar and his partner each give €4,000, the Belastingdienst sees one gift of €8,000. A partner is a spouse, a registered partner or a live-in partner. The Belastingdienst also treats other partners as one giver.³

What does that mean for the amounts themselves?

How much can you give tax-free in 2026?

Parents can give one child €6,908 in 2026 without any gift tax.¹ Anyone else can give you €2,769 in the same year.¹ Both amounts apply per giver, per calendar year.³

On top of that sits a one-off exemption. It applies when the child is 18 to 40 at the moment of the gift.¹ A child who qualifies can receive €33,129 to spend freely.¹ Or, for a study costing at least €20,000 a year excluding living costs, €69,009.¹ The table below sets out all four amounts, plus the exemption for a family business.

The table holds the amounts. What it cannot show is how often you may use them.

Above the exemption the Belastingdienst charges a percentage.

What are the gift tax rates in 2026?

A child or partner pays 10% on the taxable part of a gift.² Grandchildren and further descendants pay 18%.² Everyone else pays 30%.²

Above €158,669 the percentages step up to 20%, 36% and 40%.² Only the part above that line carries the higher rate.² The rate applies to the gift minus the exemption, not to the whole gift.² The table below sets the three groups side by side.

With the amounts and the rates in hand, Omar's gift works out in four steps.

How much gift tax would you actually pay?

Omar's daughter would pay €309.20 on his gift of €10,000. The yearly exemption takes €6,908 off the top, which leaves €3,092. As his child she pays 10% on that amount, which comes to €309.20.

At 29 she could instead use the one-off exemption and pay nothing.¹ Omar skips that option, since it would use up the one-off exemption for good.

The gift stays well under €158,669, so the higher band never comes into play. The table below walks through every step. What the money then makes possible is the part no table shows.

What is left for you to arrange?

When do you have to declare a gift?

A gift above the exemption goes on a return, before 1 March.³ For a gift from parents that line sits at €6,908 in 2026.³ From anyone else it sits at €2,769.³

You also file to claim the one-off exemption, even when nothing is left to pay.³ The Belastingdienst does not send a reminder, so the duty sits with the receiver.³ Filing runs online through Mijn Belastingdienst.³ You sign in with DigiD, the Dutch national login. Our page on the gift tax return shows how we take that off your hands. One date matters more than the rest.

Dates and amounts are the easy part. Whether an exemption actually fits your gift is the question worth checking.

Everything above assumes a giver who lives in the Netherlands.

What if the giver lives outside the Netherlands?

Then it depends on how long ago they left and which passport they hold.³ A Dutch national who moved abroad less than ten years ago still triggers a return.³ For another nationality that window is one year.³ Someone who never lived in the Netherlands triggers nothing.³

Our page on a gift from abroad works through the treaties and the deadlines in full.

The 2026 figures stand, but not every year looks the same.

Are the exemptions about to change?

No change has been enacted, so the 2026 amounts on this page apply.¹ A lower parental exemption has been discussed in the press since early 2026. Nothing is in force yet.

One large exemption has already gone.¹ The jubelton, a former one-off home exemption, ended on 1 January 2024.¹ A qualifying child can still spend the €33,129 one-off exemption on a home.¹

Timing matters more than the rule changes people worry about.

How does all of this land when you make your own gift?

What does this mean for your own gift?

Your gift is based on three things: the giver, the receiver's age and the amount. For Omar that combination came out at the yearly exemption and €309.20 of gift tax.

Cannot spare the money right now? Our page on gifting on paper explains how to record a gift without transferring it.

Gifts and inheritance run into each other more often than people expect. To see how inheritance tax itself works, read inheritance tax in the Netherlands and our inheritance tax ebook. Our page on the inheritance tax return shows how we handle that filing. The inheritance tax return checklist lists what to gather before you start. After a death in your household, read our page on taxes after death before you arrange anything.

The practical next step is short: write down the amount, the date and the receiver. We then check whether the return is right and whether the timing could be better.