Eigenwoningforfait
The amount the tax office adds to your income for living in your own home. Your municipality's WOZ value drives it.
Essential cookies keep this site working. With your permission we also use statistics cookies, to see how the site is used and improve it, and marketing cookies, so we can show you our ads. You can change your choice at any time via 'Cookie settings' at the bottom of every page.
The tax office treats the home you live in as Box 1 income, not as Box 3 wealth. We show what it adds, what comes off and which page covers each part.
Your tax position
Own the home you live in? The Dutch tax office treats it as income in Box 1. It is not wealth in Box 3. That one distinction drives everything below. Two things happen at the same time. The tax office adds a percentage of your WOZ value, the eigenwoningforfait, to your income. Your mortgage interest and qualifying financing costs then come off again.
You pay tax on the balance between those two halves, never on one half alone. The Dutch name for that balance is the saldo eigen woning. With a large mortgage the balance is usually negative. The home then lowers your taxable income instead of raising it. Once the mortgage is largely repaid the balance turns positive and the home starts costing you tax. A rule called Wet Hillen still softens that. It shrinks a little every year.
The calculation runs in one line. Eigenwoningforfait minus deductible interest and costs equals your taxable income from the home.
Three numbers set that line for 2026. For most homes the eigenwoningforfait is 0.35% of your WOZ value. That is the valuation your municipality sets, measured on 1 January 2025. You deduct the interest in full. The rate you get it back at stops at 37.56%. That cap applies once your Box 1 income before deductions passes €78,426.
A home counts as your eigen woning on two conditions. You or your fiscal partner own it. It is your main residence. You can hold only one main residence at a time. A second property goes to Box 3.
Once you no longer live there, your home usually moves to Box 3. That happens when you let out the whole house. It also happens when it becomes a holiday or second home. Moving abroad can do the same. There are exceptions to that main rule.
Moved house but not yet sold the old one? The moving rule keeps that home in Box 1 while it sits empty and up for sale. It runs for a limited number of years, so you hold two homes in Box 1 for a while. Posted abroad for a time? The posting rule can keep your Dutch home in Box 1 while it stays empty and available to you. Letting out one room keeps a home in Box 1 too. Each case has its own page below.
The two halves
Start here if you live in the house and still carry a mortgage. These six pages cover both halves of the calculation.
Take the eigenwoningforfait first, then the deductions. The rest answers what comes up once you see your own figures.
The boundary
The Box 1 treatment holds only for the home you actually live in. Different rules take over when you let it out, buy a second place or release your surplus value.
The move is rarely all-or-nothing. These pages draw each line.
When things change
Every move in or out of a house has its own tax moment. That sits apart from the yearly position above. Buying triggers transfer tax and your first return as an owner. Selling triggers the bijleenregeling, the rule on reusing your sale profit. Building triggers a construction deposit.
Two cases start in the same place. Moved out with the old home still up for sale? Arrived in the Netherlands the year you bought? Start with the page on your first return. Otherwise open the page that matches your situation. Your standing position picks up again the following year.
The amount the tax office adds to your income for living in your own home. Your municipality's WOZ value drives it.
The full list of costs you may take off. That runs from the interest itself to the one-off costs of the loan.
How the interest deduction works, which loans qualify and why the deduction rate has a ceiling.
Paid a boeterente to switch or repay early? It counts as a financing cost, with conditions worth checking first.
What changes when you let the whole house. What stays the same when you let one room.
How the Dutch system taxes rental income. This page also shows when the property moves to Box 3.
A holiday home or second property in the Netherlands or abroad is wealth, not income. This page explains what follows.
The overwaarde is the value above your remaining debt. What you do with it decides how the tax office treats it.
Your first return as an owner, plus the one-off costs you can claim only in the year of purchase.
What you pay on the purchase itself and why the rate depends on whether you will live there.
Sold a home with equity in it? The rule decides how much of your next mortgage still earns the interest deduction.
A bouwdepot funds building work from your mortgage. The interest on it follows its own timetable.
Next step
We work out your own balance for the year, mortgage side and tax side together. Then we tell you what it means for your return. Is a monthly refund worth having? Then we arrange it with you.
What's included
A dedicated advisor
Only part of a notary bill belongs to the mortgage. This page separates the deductible part from the rest.
A negative balance does not have to wait for your annual return. A voorlopige aanslag pays it back monthly instead.
If you pay erfpacht on the land under your home, that payment has its own place in the calculation.
Borrowing from a parent can work, on terms the tax office recognises. This page sets out those terms.
Your tax return and your mortgage in one conversation
Help in English or Dutch
How is this page fact-checked?
We check every page for accuracy, timeliness and relevance. Each one is written and reviewed by our qualified advisors, so the information stays clear, complete and correct.
Updated 31 August 2026
“People come to me sure they owe wealth tax on their house. Usually the house is lowering their bill. They have been waiting a year to see it. I would rather you knew that a year earlier.”
Menno van der Made
Tax advisor
Your advisor
Most homes are straightforward. Some are not: a room let out, a year abroad, a property in another country, a mortgage that is nearly repaid. Talk it through with a dedicated advisor who knows the eigen woning rules.
Send your question and we reply within one working day.
