The Dutch tax system
The rules behind everything above. Learn how the three income boxes work and who counts as your fiscal partner.
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Guides you can download, checklists you can work through and the Dutch tax returns explained one by one. Every card says what it is, so you can tell before you open it.
Orientation
We publish free material you can use on your own. Guides to download and checklists to work through. Each Dutch tax return explained, one form at a time. And the rules themselves, for when you would rather look them up.
All of it is edited to the standard on our editorial guidelines page. Each page shows the date of its last review at the top.
Just arrived in the Netherlands? Start with the M-form below, because your first Dutch return is different. The Belastingdienst (the Dutch tax authority) issues the returns. Our pages help you work out which one applies to you.
None of it is advice about your own situation.
This page points you to the material. It does not explain the rules itself. For the rules, go to the Dutch tax system, our much larger explanatory section.
Guides and checklists
These four pages give you something you can keep using. The guide shelf holds our free guides, sent to you by email.
If your year has an unusual twist, a conversation will help you more than a checklist.
The forms
The Belastingdienst names each return by a letter, and the letters can be confusing. The four pages below show when each return applies and what it asks for.
The forms are drawn up by the Belastingdienst, not by us. Each page links to the official form once you know which one is yours.
Do it yourself
The two pages below show you the rules and the calculations, not a ready answer. The first explains how the Dutch tax system works. The second shows how fiscal partners divide shared items between them. Most couples simply keep the default allocation.
Neither page is a download. You can use both without contacting us.
The rules behind everything above. Learn how the three income boxes work and who counts as your fiscal partner.
How the allocation between fiscal partners works and what changes when you adjust the default.
Missing something?
A fair number of these pages exist because somebody asked for them first.
What's included
A reply from the person who writes this material
No obligation to become a client
Our free guides on filing, on owning a home and on inheritance tax. Each one arrives by email once you ask for it.
What the Belastingdienst asks for when an estate is declared, in the order it asks for it.
The tax side of starting your own business. What you register, what you owe and your first deadlines.
Which alimony payments are deductible, which count as income and what you need to be able to show.
The return for the year you moved to or left the Netherlands. You lived here for only part of that year, so the form covers both periods.
The ordinary annual return, for a year you spent living in the Netherlands from start to finish.
The return for a year you lived abroad but still had Dutch income or property.
The return filed on behalf of someone who died during the tax year, usually by the family.
Frequently asked
What people ask before they download anything. Yours not here? Ask Menno
“The material here is written for a situation rather than for a person. That works until your year has something unusual in it. When it does, ask, and I will tell you honestly whether a page still covers you.”
Menno van der Made
Tax advisor
Ask us
If you were looking for something and it is not on this page, tell Menno what it was. He writes a good deal of this material. So he either knows where it is or knows that it does not exist yet, and both are useful answers.
