RSU Tax in the Netherlands: How Are Your Shares Taxed in 2026?

How are RSUs taxed in the Netherlands?

The Belastingdienst taxes your RSUs as salary in Box 1, the moment they vest. RSU stands for restricted stock units. It counts the market value on the vesting date as wage. Your employer withholds that tax through payroll, the loonheffing. Without Dutch payroll, you declare it yourself. You owe nothing when the shares are first granted. And you owe no separate capital-gains tax when you later sell.

This guide is for people working in the Netherlands with RSUs or stock options. It covers how the Belastingdienst taxes your equity as an employee. It does not cover the full Box 3 calculation in depth. The 30% ruling gets limited coverage here. Each has its own page.

Meet Priya. She is a software engineer in Amsterdam, on the 30% ruling. Her first RSU tranche just vested at €20,000. We follow her shares through every rule below.

When do you pay tax on your RSUs?

You pay tax the moment your RSUs vest, not at grant and not at sale. The Belastingdienst takes the market price on that day and treats the whole amount as salary.²

For Priya, that means her €20,000 vest appears on her payslip like a bonus. Her employer withholds Box 1 tax straight away. The timeline below shows each stage.

What tax rate applies to your vested RSUs?

You pay your Box 1 salary rate on the vesting benefit. It stacks on top of your normal salary for the year. So it often falls in the top bracket.

The 30% ruling lowers that bill. It lets your employer pay part of your salary tax-free. The vesting benefit is salary, so it qualifies. The tax-free part is 30% in 2026, over wage up to €262,000.¹ From 2027 the rate is 27% for rulings that started in or after 2024. Older rulings keep 30% for their full term.¹ Priya's ruling started this year, so 30% of her 2026 vest is tax-free. For her vests from 2027, that part drops to 27%. The Belastingdienst taxes only the rest. The 2026 figures below set the full picture. Her tax-free part is €6,000, so €14,000 of the vest stays taxable. Her tax on that €14,000 depends on her salary, because the vest stacks on top of it. Not sure about your own cohort? Read our guide to the 30% ruling. The ruling only covers RSUs that vest inside its term.

What happens to your shares after they vest?

After vesting, your shares move into Box 3, the wealth box. The Belastingdienst looks at their value on 1 January each year. It does not tax your real gain. Instead it applies a deemed return, a fixed percentage per asset type. Is your real return lower? Then you can ask for tax on that instead, under the tegenbewijsregeling. That's the counter-evidence rule. For shares that deemed return is 6.00% in 2026. The Box 3 rate is 36%.³ You pay only over the value above the tax-free allowance of €59,357 per person.³ The government wants to tax the actual return instead.

Two points matter here. First, selling later brings no capital-gains tax. Second, Priya's shares stay in Box 3. Our Box 3 assets guide works through the full calculation.

When do you pay tax on stock options?

You pay tax on stock options when the shares become tradable. That rule has applied since 1 January 2023. Before then, the taxable moment was always exercise, when you turned options into shares. The change spares listed-company staff a tax bill on shares they cannot yet sell.⁴ Tradable means you are legally free to sell. That is the moment the Belastingdienst now treats as the wage moment.

You can also keep the old timing. Under the choice rule (keuzeregeling), you tell your employer in writing that you prefer to pay tax at exercise.⁴ For listed companies the deferral runs up to five years. The difference is real money. Say Priya also holds 100 options, at a strike of €100. She exercises at a share price of €200, a €10,000 benefit. The shares turn tradable five years later at €300, a €20,000 benefit. Exercise timing fixes her benefit at €10,000. The tradable moment sets it at €20,000. Which works out better depends on the share price, so her written choice matters. Do you hold the 30% ruling? It only covers wage taxed within your ruling's term. Deferring past that term can cost you the tax-free part.

What if your RSUs vested around a move to or from the Netherlands?

The Netherlands taxes only the Dutch part of your vesting benefit. You earn equity while working across two countries, so the two countries split it. The split follows the working period the shares relate to, under the tax treaty. The exact allocation is case-specific, so a general rule gives you no figure.

Leaving the Netherlands has its own rules. For unvested RSUs, the Dutch part of your work period stays taxable here. A 5%+ holding can also trigger a conserving assessment (conserverende aanslag). The outcome depends on your exact case.

What should you do before you file?

List every vest, check your payslip and note your 1 January value. Start with the vests. Which RSUs vested this year and at what value? Then check that your employer withheld Box 1 tax on each one. Finally, note what the shares were worth on 1 January, for Box 3. Priya does exactly this. Her return then matches her payslip line for line.

Two pointers if you want to go deeper. The Box 3 assets guide explains the wealth-tax mechanics behind that 1 January value. Did your equity cross a border or did you move here mid-vest? Then speak to an advisor first. That allocation is where mistakes cost the most, and we review it as part of our tax return service. Does your employer run no Dutch payroll? Then you report the vest yourself in your return.

How the Dutch tax system treats what you earn is on our overview of work and income.