Netherlands income tax 2026: the three boxes, and a residency test with no day count

Dutch income tax sorts what you earn into boxes, each with its own rate. Income from work and your home falls in box 1, taxed in 2026 at 35.75% up to €38,883, 37.56% up to €78,426 and 49.50% above that. Income from a substantial shareholding falls in box 2, at 24.5% up to €68,843 and 31% above. Savings and investments fall in box 3, where a calculated return is taxed at 36%, after a tax-free allowance of €59,357 per person. Which income the Netherlands may reach depends on where you live, and on that the law is brief: article 4 of the General Tax Act says that where someone lives is judged according to the circumstances. There is no threshold of 183 days or any other number. A person living in the Netherlands reports worldwide income as a resident taxpayer; a person living elsewhere with Dutch income is a foreign taxpayer on that income, which is why a low day count proves little here.

The 2026 rates, box by box

Box 1, income from work and home, before state pension (AOW) age. Rates are lower after that age.

Those box 1 percentages are not pure income tax. The Belastingdienst breaks the 35.75% first band into its parts when it explains credits to people abroad, and the split tells you more than the headline does:

So 27.65 of the 35.75 points are national insurance contributions, which the tax office collects with the tax as one amount. They follow your insurance status, not your tax status, and the Belastingdienst says plainly that being a foreign taxpayer does not by itself mean you owe them on your income. Other international rules decide that. Someone who works abroad and is insured there has no right to the contribution part of the credits either. Once you reach AOW age the first bands are lower, because the AOW contribution drops out; the month you reach that age sets the rate for that year. We read that statement, but not the table of those lower rates, so we do not print them here.

A worked figure, our own arithmetic on the table above: €60,000 of taxable box 1 income under AOW age gives €13,901 on the first €38,883 and €7,932 on the next €21,117, so about €21,832 before tax credits. The credits are real money, and the final bill is only known once the return is filed.

Box 3 catches people out when they compare it with other countries. The office assumes your wealth yields something, works out that return by a set method, and taxes the result. The Belastingdienst says itself that this need not match what you really earned.

Living in the Netherlands is a question of fact

The sheet the Dutch authority gave the OECD lists what is looked at: whether you spend most of your time at a Dutch address, whether your partner or family lives there, whether you work there, your insurance, your family doctor, your clubs and societies, and your children's schooling. None of these is a test on its own and none carries a number. A home kept available, a partner who stayed and a job that continued can weigh more than the months you were physically away. The reverse holds too: a long stay does not by itself settle matters without that list being read against your life.

Two statutory rules sit beside that general test, both in the Income Tax Act 2001. Article 2.2 contains a deeming rule: someone who stops living in the Netherlands and comes back to live there within a year, without having lived in another state in between, is treated as having lived there during the absence. The rule falls away if you show you were taxed as a resident in an EU state, or in a designated treaty state with information exchange, on bases mainly equal to the Dutch ones. The same article keeps Dutch nationals posted abroad by the State inside Dutch residence, as diplomats for example, and the Belastingdienst extends the idea to partners and to children under 27 who are largely supported by the posted person.

Foreign taxpayers, and the 90% line

Move away and keep Dutch income, and you are likely to be a foreign taxpayer who usually still files in the Netherlands each year, through the online programme or the C form. A treaty with your new country may then stop the Netherlands taxing certain income. What you can still deduct hangs on one test. If you live in another EU country, Liechtenstein, Norway, Iceland, Switzerland, or on Bonaire, Sint Eustatius or Saba, and pay Dutch tax on at least 90% of your total income, you are a qualifying foreign taxpayer, and you get the same deductions, credits and box 3 allowance as a resident, mortgage interest included.

Miss that line and the answer depends on where you live. The Belastingdienst keeps separate lists for Belgium, for Suriname and Aruba, and for all other countries, where what survives is essentially the business deduction for profit from a Dutch enterprise and the box 3 allowance. People planning a move usually check the rate. The 90% test can matter more.

The year you arrive or leave has its own return

A year spent partly in the Netherlands does not fit the ordinary return. You file online through Mijn Belastingdienst, under the option for taxpayers who live outside the Netherlands for part of the year, or on the paper M form, M standing for migration. Entrepreneurs filing on paper also complete the M annual statements. Expect a first message within about three months. The office officially has three years to finish: its final 2025 assessment must be issued by 31 December 2028, plus any extension you had.

In that year the tax part of a credit normally only runs for the period you lived in the Netherlands, while a qualifying foreign taxpayer keeps it for the time abroad as well. Coming to work there, you may also be able to use the expat scheme, under which your employer may give you 30% of your pay, allowance included, as an untaxed allowance for the extra costs of a temporary stay. We read only that summary, not the scheme's conditions, so check them with the Belastingdienst before relying on it.

What a counter can and cannot do without a threshold

This page's counter gives a total and no verdict, on purpose. Any result saying "resident" or "not resident" from days alone would claim something Dutch law does not say. The total is still useful, because time at a Dutch address is the first indicator on the authority's list, and because the country you moved to may well use a day count of its own. Enter your stays with arrival and departure dates and keep the record, with the dates of your address change and the end of a lease or job. Those are the facts you will be asked about if your departure date is ever questioned. If you would rather not rebuild a year of trips from memory, the Taxlag app keeps the log as you go.

Two residences, one treaty

If your new country also treats you as resident, the two claims are settled by the treaty between the two states, when there is one. Our guide on dual tax residency walks through that order. It helps to know the Dutch side may not be settled by a clean break: a home kept available for your use is exactly the sort of fact the indicators pick up. Compare the Netherlands with countries that do count days in the country table, such as neighbouring Germany, where a dwelling or a six-month stay decides the matter, or start with the overview of tax residency.

What we could not settle from the sources we read: how heavily each indicator weighs against the others. The official texts list them and leave the balance to the circumstances. We found no official weighting, so we do not offer one.