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 fall outside it. So do a business bank account, a trade name and your business plan.

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. 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. Steps 5, 13 and 14 also assume a sole proprietorship. A fifteenth step closes the checklist after the five phases. The Belastingdienst is the Dutch Tax Administration and KVK is the Dutch Chamber of Commerce.

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 hours criterion page explains the rule in full.

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, the identification number for legal entities and partnerships. Your BSN or RSIN is the basis for your omzetbelastingnummer³. Your btw-identificatienummer does not contain your BSN. You can also 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?

You decide on two schemes. The KOR small business scheme has the biggest impact. 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 you run your business from 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. The starter’s deduction needs the hours criterion too. On incapacity, 800 hours is enough⁵. 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: you spend more time on your business than on other work⁵. It drops away if you were not an entrepreneur in one of the five preceding years⁵. You find the amounts in the table below and the detail 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. Deductible business costs explains the stacking order. Self-employed and income tax shows the yearly picture. At €30,000 profit, your self-employed deduction and SME profit exemption are about €4,860. That is €1,200 plus 12.7% of €28,800, before any starter’s deduction.

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, the return that lists your sales to business clients in other EU countries. Reverse-charge VAT and the ICP declaration explain both rules. 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. Would you rather hand it over? See our VAT return service.

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. The Zvw contribution is the income-related health insurance contribution. 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 may work differently. Had the 30% ruling as an employee? Bring both to the call. We look at what each means for your new business.

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. The entrepreneur test weighs that same independence.

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 bears 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.

Book your free call and bring your figures.

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