Can you still use your fiscal retirement reserve?
You can no longer add to a fiscal retirement reserve¹.
That door closed on 1 January 2023. The reserve let you move part of your profit onto the business balance sheet. You postponed the tax on that part. You did not escape it. In Dutch it is the oudedagsreserve, usually shortened to FOR. About a third of the owners of a one-person business or a partnership built one up³. The government closed the scheme because too much of it had become pure postponement².
The reserve you already have does not disappear. It may stay on the business balance sheet and nothing forces you to settle it today. Everything you built up to the end of 2022 still follows the old rules.
One point is worth getting straight before anything else. The reserve is not part of your private wealth. It belongs on the business balance sheet in Box 1 and never in Box 3.
This page covers the reserve you still carry and the decision in front of you. It applies only if you run a sole proprietorship or partnership, not a BV. It does not explain how to build pension now. For that, read Your pension gap and Annuity advice. It does not teach the cessation rules either. We do not work out your tax bill.
Fadi has run a one-person design studio in Rotterdam since 2016. Say his fiscal retirement reserve stands at €26,000 and nothing has gone into it since the end of 2022. We follow him to the end of this page.
In short
Closed since 2023. The scheme is shut to new amounts. The one you have may stay where it is.
Box 1, not Box 3. The reserve is on your business balance sheet and never in your private wealth.
Three exits. Buying an annuity, settling it in your profit or leaving the reserve where it is.
Two conditions, not one. A forced release usually needs your reserve above your equity and an event that year. Stopping for good settles it either way.
Its own deduction ground. Converting has its own article in the Dutch Income Tax Act 2001. That stands beside your jaarruimte, the annual annuity deduction room.
Converting or settling locks in your choice. Waiting keeps every option open.
When does your fiscal retirement reserve have to come out?
Two conditions together force a release, but stopping for good always settles it.
So which situations can still force a release of your reserve? The events get all the attention. The first condition is what decides most cases.
The first condition is a size test. Your reserve has to stand higher than your ondernemingsvermogen, the equity in your business.
The second condition is an event and there are three of them. You stop part of the business. Or you have reached the AOW age on 1 January of the calendar year. The AOW age is the Dutch state pension age. Or you miss the urencriterium in that calendar year and in the one before it.
The urencriterium is the 1,225 hours a year you had to work in the business to form the reserve at all.
When both conditions land in the same year, the reserve has to come down. Stopping for good settles the reserve in full. Dying does too, unless a partner continues the business. The table below sets each trigger beside the condition it needs. The 1,225 hours figure comes from business.gov.nl, consulted on 17 August 2026.
| Trigger | Condition | What happens to the reserve |
|---|---|---|
| You stop part of the business, reach the AOW age or miss the urencriterium | Your reserve stands higher than your business equity | Only the part above your business equity moves into profit |
| You stop the business for good | Always, with no size test | The whole reserve moves into your profit |
| You die before settling it | Unless a partner takes the business on | It goes into your taxable profit |
What are your three exits?
You can convert the reserve, settle it in your profit or leave it alone.
So the size test is what most people should check first. What you do while the choice is still yours is the real question.
The first exit is conversion. You buy an annuity that pays you an income later. Then you lower the reserve by that same amount in your return. The reserve shrinks by exactly what you put in.
The second exit is settlement. You let the reserve fall into your profit and pay the tax on it, without buying anything.
The third exit is to wait. A reserve that stays below your business equity is going nowhere. The risk of waiting is that an event picks the moment for you. The table below puts the three side by side.
| Exit | What it costs | When you decide |
|---|---|---|
| Convert into an annuity | No extra income tax that year, because the deduction matches the release | Any year you choose |
| Settle it in your profit | Your profit rises by the reserve and you pay tax on it | When a trigger fires or sooner if you want it closed |
| Leave it where it is | Nothing now, but the decision moves to a later year | Until a trigger fires or you stop |
Does converting your reserve use up your jaarruimte?
Converting has its own deduction ground beside your jaarruimte.
This is the point most sources still get the wrong way round.
Jaarruimte is the amount you may put into an annuity this year and deduct. Converting a fiscal retirement reserve has its own deduction ground, article 3.128 of the Dutch Income Tax Act 2001. It stands beside the jaarruimte of article 3.127 rather than inside it. Believe the other version and you convert less than you could.
You also have more time than you think. You may still pay the premium up to 30 June of the calendar year after the conversion. It then counts for that earlier year.
Read Is the annuity premium deductible? for the jaarruimte sums themselves. The 30 June deadline comes from belastingdienst.nl, consulted on 17 August 2026.
What does converting look like for Fadi?
Fadi converts his whole reserve and pays no extra income tax that year.
So what does that do to Fadi's year? Take the €26,000 we assumed for him. He buys an annuity with an insurer for that same amount and reports the decrease in his return.
Two things then happen in the same year. The €26,000 leaves the reserve and goes into his profit. He deducts the same €26,000 as the premium he paid for the annuity.
The two cancel out. His income tax for the year does not move, so what he has really changed is the timing. The tax now falls on the annuity payments when they reach him. That is years later and at whatever rate applies then.
What a conversion is worth depends on your other income, this year and every year after it.
Whether an annuity is the right home for that money is a separate question. That is the one to ask an advisor about.
What if you stop or leave the Netherlands?
Stopping, dying or leaving the Netherlands each end the reserve, but on different terms.
Converting is the exit you choose. Stopping, dying and leaving choose for you.
When you stop for good the reserve comes off the balance sheet and the amounts you postponed go into your profit. Buy an annuity from an insurer with that amount and the two even out again. The tax then falls on the annuity payments. Read Discontinuation profit for the cessation event itself.
If you die before settling the reserve, it becomes part of your taxable profit. A partner who continues the business may take the reserve over instead. The partner requests that in the return.
Leaving the Netherlands is the case people ask about most. Ceasing to be a Dutch entrepreneur generally releases the reserve. The conserverende aanslag is the protective assessment the Belastingdienst issues when you leave. It targets pension and annuity entitlements rather than the reserve itself. Convert the reserve into an annuity first and the money moves into such an entitlement. The protective assessment then covers that entitlement. Inside the EU or the EEA that assessment carries automatic deferral of payment and no collection interest is charged on it. Read Tax and emigration for the migration-year return.
A pension pot you left behind in another country is a separate matter. Read Foreign pension and Dutch tax. It answers what happens to that pot here.
One thing runs through all three cases. The number you settle has to be the right number.
“A reserve that has passed through two or three advisors is worth checking before anyone acts on it. The Belastingdienst taxes the number on the balance sheet.”
What should you do with your fiscal retirement reserve now?
Start by checking what your reserve actually is.
That sounds obvious. It is also the step most people skip.
Ask your accountant or look it up in your last return. Then compare it with your business equity. A smaller reserve blocks a forced release only while you keep trading. Stopping for good still settles it in full.
Where you go next depends on what you found. If the reserve is small and you are years from stopping, the honest answer is that nothing is urgent. If it is large and your business equity is falling, the conversation is worth having this year.
You report the reserve in your own return. Read Self-employed tax return for that filing. Read Retirement in the Netherlands for the wider picture of stopping work. Fadi converted his whole reserve, so his balance sheet no longer carries one.
How this fits your wider pension plan is on our page about pension advice.
¹ business.gov.nl, Retirement reserve · Accessed
² business.gov.nl, Fiscal retirement reserve · Accessed
³ kvk.nl, De FOR is gestopt, wat nu? · Accessed
Common questions about the fiscal retirement reserve
Can I still build up a fiscal retirement reserve?
No. Since 1 January 2023 nothing new may go into a reserve. What you already built up may stay on your business balance sheet. Only the building up has stopped.