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Income Tax Return for Freelancers (ZZP) in the Netherlands 2023

Jan 31, 2023 · 5 min read

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What is Income Tax by the Dutch Law?
How to calculate Income Tax?
What about that Income Tax return?
How to file an Income Tax return?
Filing a tax return as a non-resident
Enter Enty

According to recent figures published by the Employee Insurance Agency (UWV), almost 1.51 million people — or 20% of the Dutch labor force — decided to quit their jobs in 2022. Many of those opted for self-employment, increasing the total number of self-employed workers by 14% in the past two years.

Whether you already find yourself among them or just contemplate the idea for now, you’re gonna have to know your way around income tax. It’s a bit tricky, naturally — but we’ll be happy to clear some of the nuances up in this article.

What is Income Tax by the Dutch Law?

As a self-employed professional (zelfstandigen zonder personeel, or ZZP) in the Netherlands, you can set up a sole proprietorship (eenmanszaak) so that your business is not separated from your personal assets. That also means you’ll be expected to pay income tax (inkomstenbelasting) instead of corporate tax (vennootschapsbelasting) over your taxable earnings, aka your income minus deductible items and fiscal allowances (don’t worry, we’ll get to that).

How to calculate Income Tax?

The amount of tax you need to pay depends on several factors:

your income
your assets
deductible costs
outstanding debts

In 2023, those earning up to 73,071 euros a year will see their income tax rate fall by 0,11% — to 36,93%, saving them up to 102 euros this year. All earnings over that barrier will be taxed at 49,5%.

Now, to those deductions: you can be eligible for entrepreneur allowances if you meet the hours criterion (at least 1,225 working hours in most cases) and have not yet reached the state pension age at the start of the calendar year. In that case, you can deduct €5,030 from your earnings when you file the tax return. This deduction is being reduced every year and is expected to be set at €3,240 by 2036.

You can check how much income tax you will have to pay by completing the income tax return. There’s a nice calculation tool made by The Netherlands Chamber of Commerce KVK just for that.

What about that Income Tax return?

As a sole proprietor in the Netherlands, you must file a tax return with the Dutch Tax and Customs Administration (Belastingdienst). Basically, this information is used to determine whether you have to pay tax, or get a tax refund if you’ve paid too much. Pretty important, that is.

Usually, you will receive an automatic notification that you have to file a tax return. However, if that’s not the case, you may still have to file a return, for example if you have income over which you have paid an insufficient amount of tax or no tax at all.

Take care of your accounting with Enty!

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How to file an Income Tax return?

Thankfully, it can be done digitally these days. The return form can be found on the government website.

Keep in mind — and this is very important — that you need to file your income tax return before 1 May (in most cases), although it’s possible to apply for an extension before that date via regular mail. If you need an extension of more than 5 months, prepare to explain why in your application.

Filing a tax return as a non-resident

You are a non-resident taxpayer if you don’t live in the Netherlands but you do have assets in the Netherlands or an income on which you must pay more tax than €49. In this case, practically all of the above applies to you as well.

You can file the tax return using your DigiD or if you don’t want to do it digitally, you can request a C form. If you only lived in the Netherlands for part of the year, you should use an M form.

Surely enough, there’s also an elephant in the room to be addressed by the name of double taxation. The Netherlands has signed various tax treaties for the purpose of avoiding it, but each case is personal depending on your country of residence and/or business activity.

Enter Enty

All the details may seem a bit too much, and quite rightfully so — handling all your taxes is no easy feat. Of course, you may opt to file your tax return yourself, or you could leave it up to Enty.

Enty can take care of all accounting needs of a freelancer in the Netherlands. Our accountants, will prepare the report, file it on your behalf in time, while you can concentrate on business. Just upload the documents on Enty and we’ll take care of the rest.

Outside of accounting, Enty’s subscription includes a set of tools to help you manage your business easier: issue invoices, create contracts, and just ease up general workflow of your small business.

Book a free call with us and we’ll be delighted to answer all of your questions and guide you through the whole process. Or explore Enty yourself.

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