Tax partners in the Netherlands

What is tax partnership in the Netherlands? Tax partnership is a status the law gives you. You do not apply for it and you can almost never decline it. Subletting on a business basis is one exception. A blended-family setup is what makes this apply. A care-home move is a second exception if you are not married. A stepchild or foster child under 27 is the third. It decides what you may divide on your return and how the Belastingdienst sets your thresholds.

This page covers the conditions, the dates, what changes on your return and what it costs. How to split each item for the best result is a separate question. We work that out on our guide to the optimal allocation for tax partners.

Four life events have their own page. Start with moving in together or divorce and your tax return. We cover alimony and taxes after a death separately too.

Take Emma and Tomás. They married in Portugal and now live in Amsterdam, where Emma works part time and Tomás full time. We follow them to the figures.

Emma and Tomás married, so the wedding day settled their status. For everyone else the address comes first.

How do you know if you are tax partners? You are tax partners from the day you marry or register a partnership.¹ That holds even if you do not live together yet. Everyone else needs two things at once. You are registered together in the basisregistratie personen, the Dutch population register. You also meet one of the conditions below.

1. You are both adults and you have a notarieel samenlevingscontract, a cohabitation contract drawn up by a notary.
2. You have a child together.
3. One of you has recognised the other's child.
4. You are registered as partners with a pension fund. Registering with your employer alone is not enough.
5. You jointly own the home you both live in.
6. You are both adults and a minor child of one of you is registered at the address.
7. You were tax partners the year before.

Condition seven is a continuation rule, not a standalone route in. It keeps the status alive only while you stay registered at the same address.

A parent and child at the same address follow a different rule. They are tax partners only when both have reached 27 at the start of the year. One of the conditions above still has to be met.

The conditions tell you whether you qualify. The calendar tells you for how long.

When does tax partnership start and end? It starts on your marriage or registration date. For everyone else it starts on the day you are registered together while meeting a condition.¹ Were you already registered at that address the year before? Then you are tax partners for the whole of the following year, back to 1 January.

It ends the moment you are no longer registered at the same address. That holds even when you still meet another condition. Two people who bought a house together stay tax partners until one of them deregisters. Joint ownership afterwards changes nothing.

Were you partners for only part of the year? You and your partner may jointly elect to be treated as partners for the whole year. You make the election in the return and you both have to make it. Had several partners that year? Then it is open with only one of them. Decline it and neither of you may divide anything at all.¹

Status settled, dates settled. Now the part almost every page gets wrong.

Do tax partners file one tax return together? No. The Netherlands has no joint return. You each file your own return and you each receive your own assessment. What "filing together" means in practice is that you log in to one online session with your own DigiD each. DigiD is the national login you get after you register in the Netherlands. You then fill in both returns side by side. On paper it cannot be done at all.

Your own income stays yours by default. Wages, pension and business profit stay with the person who earned them. No election changes that. Only a closed list of items escapes the rule. That list is where the real decision sits.

So what is on that list?

What may tax partners divide between them? The law shares three items between the two of you. They are the net figure on the home you live in, substantial-interest income in a company and the persoonsgebonden aftrek. Their statutory name is gemeenschappelijke inkomensbestanddelen. Two further items are allocatable under their own rule: your joint Box 3 grondslag and the dividend tax withheld from you.¹

Two details matter more than they look. The balance on your home is one item, already netted: the eigenwoningforfait, a banded percentage of the WOZ value of your home, minus the mortgage interest and other deductible costs. Your municipality sets the WOZ value of your home each year. You cannot put the forfait with one partner and the interest with the other. And the persoonsgebonden aftrek is a class, not a single number. It holds the partner alimony you pay, uitgaven voor specifieke zorgkosten (specific healthcare costs) and gifts. The return lets you choose a different ratio for each of them.

Any ratio is allowed as long as the two shares add up to 100%. Allocation is open only to full-year partners or to couples who elect the whole year. You can change the ratio until both assessments are final. Where neither of you objects, that is six weeks after the assessment date.¹

A free choice over five items only pays off when you and your partner pay different rates.

What does tax partnership actually save you? The saving comes from putting each item with the right partner. Box 1 rates run from 35.75% at the bottom to 49.50% at the top. A cap holds relief on your mortgage interest and persoonsgebonden aftrek to 37.56%. The algemene heffingskorting, the general tax credit, then tapers by 6.398% of every euro above €29,736.⁷ That €29,736 is measured on your verzamelinkomen, your income after the personal deductions. Between those points the same deduction can be worth several hundred euros more on one return than on the other.

The second real gain sits in Box 3. Each of you has your own tax-free allowance of €59,357. As full-year partners you take both allowances off your joint grondslag, so €118,714.³ Two people who each hold €59,357 gain nothing from this. A couple where one holds €150,000 and the other holds nothing gains a great deal, because the unused allowance becomes usable.

Three smaller benefits are worth knowing. You may deduct qualifying healthcare costs you paid for your partner. If one of you has reached state pension age, the higher uplift on specific healthcare costs applies to both of you.⁵ And the combined 90% test can carry a partner with little income into qualifying non-resident status. We come back to that below.

Emma and Tomás put their Amsterdam mortgage interest entirely with Tomás, because he pays the higher rate. That is the whole mechanism.

The division is the good news. There is a second effect that runs the other way. It is the one couples are told about least.

Where does tax partnership cost you money? For the deduction thresholds the Belastingdienst adds your two threshold incomes together. You have no say in it. The drempelinkomen is your income and deductions across Boxes 1, 2 and 3, taken before the persoonsgebonden aftrek. Full-year partners must add both of theirs together. Both partners' qualifying costs then go on one pile.¹

The threshold rises in bands. Two incomes usually land a couple higher up that scale than the cost-bearing partner would reach alone. Emma has €15,000 of income and the specific healthcare costs. On her own her threshold would be 1.65% of €15,000, so €248. Together with Tomás at €60,000 the couple's threshold income is €75,000. The threshold then becomes €848 plus 5.75% of the €23,589 above €51,411. That is €2,204.⁴ Assuming her costs clear that, the couple deducts €1,956 less than Emma would alone.

The same joint figure decides the uplift on specific healthcare costs, which is only open below a joint threshold income of €41,123.⁵ Two incomes clear that ceiling easily, so partnership more often removes the uplift than creates it. Two further costs follow the status rather than the arithmetic. The inkomensafhankelijke combinatiekorting, a credit for working parents, needs a child under 12 at your address. With a tax partner it goes only to the lower earner. Your Box 3 declaration widens to cover your partner's assets and your children's.

None of this is a setting you can switch off. It is what the status does.

The bands below apply to your own threshold income. With a full-year tax partner you add both incomes together. Only the bottom band then moves: the floor becomes €332 and it runs to €19,360.⁴

Two moments change the arithmetic sharply. Both of them carry a deadline.

What happens when a tax partner dies? Partnership ends on the date of death. You may elect to be treated as partners for the whole year.² You make that election in the return, together with the representative of your partner's heirs. You may be that representative yourself. Without the election neither return may divide anything.

One trap costs real money. Allocate the persoonsgebonden aftrek so nothing is left over on your partner's side. Their verzamelinkomen is the ceiling. From the year after the death you are no longer partners. Any remainder on their return is then lost for good.² The forms differ too. Your partner's final return goes on an F form and yours on a P form. We set out the wider picture on taxes after a death.

Borders move the answer again. For international couples they usually decide it.

What if one of you lives abroad or moves during the year? You can only be tax partners abroad as qualifying non-resident taxpayers.⁶ You both have to hold that status. The rule asks two things of you.

1. You both live in the EU, the wider EEA or Switzerland. Bonaire, Sint Eustatius and Saba count too. One of you may live in the Netherlands.
2. The Netherlands taxes at least 90% of your income. Your own test decides your own status. For the partner question the test runs over your two incomes together.

The combined test is what makes it useful. A €50,000 Dutch salary and a partner with no income passes it. Both of you then qualify. A €50,000 Dutch salary against a partner earning €30,000 abroad fails. That partner is then not a qualifying non-resident taxpayer, so the two of you are not tax partners at all. Assets count in the test as well as income, so a holiday home abroad can be what tips you under 90%. Fail the test and you lose the partner status and the deductions with it. Your country of residence may also have to issue an income statement.

Moving during the year has its own trap. It is a planning point rather than a rule to accept. Emigration or immigration during the year closes the whole-year election. That holds where the partner who moved is not a qualifying non-resident taxpayer either. In a migration year you may divide your joint Box 3 grondslag only on one condition. Both Dutch residence periods have to start and end on the same dates.¹ Move together, on the same dates, or you lose the division for that year.

One more date belongs here. The partial non-resident status that came with the 30% ruling runs its final year in 2026. A couple leaning on it should plan the 2027 return now. It changes which of your assets the Dutch return covers.

That is the whole mechanism, from status to deadline.

What should you check before you file? Check four things, in this order. Did either of you live abroad or move this year? Then settle the qualifying non-resident question. It decides whether there is a partnership at all.

Next, confirm the exact dates you were registered together. Those dates decide the status and everything after it. Then decide the ratio per item rather than one ratio for everything. The return allows a different split for each category. Last, look at the threshold effect before you count on a healthcare or gift deduction.

Your division is not final when you file. You can change it until both assessments are irrevocable. A return that is already in can still be improved. Emma and Tomás settled their dates, then split each item.