Starting a business in the Netherlands: tax checklist

What does the Belastingdienst want from you in your first year?

Five phases and they arrive in a fixed order. In order: what you do before you register, the registration itself, the schemes you choose, your administration and your first two returns.

This is the tax half of starting up. It is not a company-formation guide. KVK registration, your residence permit and your BSN sit outside it. So do a business bank account, a trade name and your business plan. KVK and the Dutch government cover those. This page links out where you need them.

Before you start you need three things: your KVK number if you have one, a rough turnover estimate for the year and the receipts from before you registered.

Fifteen steps follow, grouped into five phases. Each step says what to do and which document or figure you need. Where a step turns on a rule, we link the page that owns it. The schemes in phase three apply to a sole proprietorship, not to a bv. The IND and your municipality own your permit and your BSN, not this page. A fifteenth step closes the checklist after the five phases.

What do you arrange before you register?

Three things and none of them can wait. Your legal form, your time log and the evidence of what you spent in the run-up.

Step 1. Pick your legal form knowing what it does to your tax bill. The Belastingdienst taxes an eenmanszaak and a bv under different systems. An eenmanszaak is a sole proprietorship and a bv is a private limited company. The choice moves your tax bill as well as your liability. Work it through on sole proprietorship or bv before you fill in the KVK form.

Step 2. Keep every receipt and every hour from before you registered. Costs and hours from the run-up phase, the aanloopfase, can usually go into your income-tax return⁴. Put them in the same folder as the rest of your bookkeeping from day one.

Step 3. Start a time log on the day you start working on the business. Every hour on the business counts, not only the billable ones: quotes, admin and building your website⁵. Simply being available does not count. The rule this feeds is set out on the hours criterion.

What happens when you register?

KVK passes your details on and the Belastingdienst writes to you. That registration takes up to ten working days. You then hear which taxes your business has to deal with³.

Step 4. Register at KVK, then wait for the letter with your VAT numbers. Registering an eenmanszaak puts you on file under your BSN. Any other legal form gets an RSIN from KVK. Both numbers feed your omzetbelastingnummer and your btw-identificatienummer³. You do not have to sign up with the Belastingdienst separately. One exception, you can request a VAT number yourself before your KVK registration. A partnership or a foundation sometimes has to register with the Belastingdienst as well. KVK sets out the registration steps on its own site.

Step 5. Check whether you are an entrepreneur for income tax. This is a second test with its own criteria. Passing the VAT one says nothing about this one¹. The Belastingdienst judges it per activity and weighs the eight criteria in the table below². Read the full test on entrepreneur for income tax. Bring your own answers to an advisor before you file. If you are not one, your income counts as inkomsten uit overig werk¹. Inkomsten uit overig werk means income from other activities.

Which schemes do you decide on in your first weeks?

Two of them and the small business scheme, the KOR, is the one that bites. It is a VAT decision. The hours criterion is an income-tax one.

Step 6. Decide on the KOR before your first investment, not after. You can join the small business scheme, the KOR, if your business sits in the Netherlands⁸. Your supplies also have to carry VAT⁸. Your turnover must not pass €20,000 in the year you apply or in the year before⁸. Joining means you charge your clients no VAT and you deduct none of the VAT on your own costs and investments¹³. Your start date is the next quarter or filing period at the earliest, so allow four weeks for processing⁹. Keep filing VAT returns until the confirmation letter arrives, which takes up to eight weeks⁹. You can work out when the KOR pays off on the small business scheme.

Step 7. Know which deductions the hours criterion unlocks. Reach 1,225 hours in the calendar year and you qualify for the self-employed deduction⁵. Start on 1 July and the full 1,225 hours still apply, because the Belastingdienst does not scale them to your months⁵. There is also a second condition, which drops away if you were not an entrepreneur in one of the five preceding years⁵. The amounts sit in the table below and the detail sits on the self-employed deduction.

Step 8. Understand how the deductions stack on your profit. The self-employed deduction and the starter’s deduction come off your profit first. The mkb-winstvrijstelling then takes 12.7% of what is left⁷. The mkb-winstvrijstelling is the SME profit exemption, a fixed cut of your remaining profit. The Belastingdienst calculates the benefit on the deductions and the exemption at 37.56% in 2026, not at your own rate⁶. The stacking order sits on deductible business costs and the yearly picture sits on self-employed and income tax. We do not set out that second condition here, the self-employed deduction page does. At €30,000 profit, your self-employed deduction and SME profit exemption are about €4,860.

What does your administration have to do from day one?

Set it up before the first invoice goes out. Three steps cover it: the books themselves, your invoice layout and what changes when you bill abroad.

Step 9. Set up your books and keep them for seven years. Everything about the business goes into your administration, on paper or digitally. The law puts the retention period at seven years⁴. Sometimes it is longer and in some cases it is shorter⁴. Setting this up in week one is far cheaper than reconstructing it in month eleven.

Step 10. Get your invoice layout right before invoice number one. Your invoices are part of your administration and they have their own rules. Fixing the layout once beats correcting every invoice you have already sent. The requirements are set out on reverse-charge VAT.

Step 11. Check your client’s btw-id before you invoice a business in another EU country. A verified btw-id decides whether you shift the VAT to your client. Shifting it brings an ICP return with it. Both rules sit on reverse-charge VAT and on the ICP declaration. Billing a client outside the EU follows different VAT rules, so check before you invoice.

Which returns do you file in your first year?

The VAT return comes first, then the income-tax return. The Belastingdienst tells you which period to file over, so you are not guessing at the calendar.

Step 12. File your first VAT return, usually for a quarter. Most entrepreneurs file per quarter. The letter you get after registering names the period that applies to you¹². Even a period with no VAT charged and none paid still needs a return¹². We can take this over on the VAT return.

Step 13. Set money aside and ask for a voorlopige aanslag. With a provisional assessment you pay income tax, national insurance contributions and the Zvw contribution during the year itself¹¹. It is adjustable, so a change in your situation does not have to wait until the annual return¹¹. Arrange one on the provisional assessment.

Step 14. File your first income-tax return as an entrepreneur. Close the books after the financial year and the Belastingdienst tells you when your return is due¹¹. What goes into it is on self-employed and income tax. We file it with you through the self-employed tax return. If you stay insured in another country, your contributions here work differently. Had the 30% ruling as an employee? Check what it does to your new business. We look at what this means for your situation on the call.

Which risk should you check before your first year is out?

Working for one client for a long time puts your independence in question. That is false self-employment, in Dutch schijnzelfstandigheid. It sits on the same axis the entrepreneur test measures.

Step 15. One client only? Look at the false self-employment risk early. Two of the eight criteria the Belastingdienst weighs are how independent you are and how many clients you have². A single long-running client pulls on both. What the rule says and who carries the consequences is set out on false self-employment.

That is the whole checklist. Two of the fifteen steps are hard to undo once made: the legal form you register with and your KOR decision. Everything else you can still put right in your first year.

If you would rather not decide those two alone, we go through them with you. We look at your turnover plan, your investment plan and your hours before you lock either one in. Book your free call and bring your figures.

What we do for business owners is on our page about tax advice for entrepreneurs.