30% facility

What is the 30% facility?

The 30% facility is a Dutch tax exemption for employees who were hired abroad to work in the Netherlands. If a number of conditions are met, the employer is allowed to pay you 30% of your salary as a tax-free allowance. The tax-free allowance is considered a compensation for the expenses that the employee has by working outside his or her home country.

 

Conditions 30% facility

Expats who have been recruited from abroad for a position in the Netherlands may be eligible for the 30% tax facility. In order to qualify for the 30% facility the below conditions have to be met. In this respect please note that the 30% application should be filed within 4 months of commencement of your employment (otherwise the 30% term will be shortened).

• You have an employment relationship.
  
• You have specific expertise that is not or is only barely available on the Dutch employment market:

- You are deemed to possess that expertise if your salary not including the tax-free allowance in the Netherlands is at least 39.467 euro (2022), or

- You are under the age of 30 and have a Master's degree. Your salary not including the tax-free allowance in the Netherlands is at least 30.001 euro (2022), or

- Your work in the Netherlands involve conducting scientific research at a designated research institution. The amount of your salary is not important for this purpose.

• You have a valid decision:

The date of issue of your decision determines the duration.

Issued as of 1 January 2019

our decision will be valid for a maximum of 5 years.

Issued between 1 January 2012 and 1 January 2019

Your decision has a maximum duration of 8 years, but due to a transitional arrangement, the end date on your decision may no longer be correct. You will not receive a new decision.

Issued before 1 January 2012

The period of validity of your decision is at most 10 years, if you applied for the decision within 4 months after starting your work in the Netherlands. The 30% facility will end no later than 1 January 2021, even if the original maximum term of your decision has not yet expired.

Shortened duration if you previously worked or resided in the Netherlands

We will reduce the time period of the decision by the period in which you previously worked or resided in the Netherlands.

In the following situations, we will not reduce the term:

• You previously worked or resided in the Netherlands, and that period ended more than 25 years before the start of your current job.
• You worked in the Netherlands occasionally during the past 25 years, but less than 20 days a year in total. For example, during a business trip from abroad.
• In the past 25 years, you stayed in the Netherlands occasionally, for example for holidays, family visits or other personal circumstances. And this did not exceed a total of 6 weeks per year, or a one-off period of 3 consecutive months.

• Recruited outside of the Netherlands:

You are also recruited outside the Netherlands if you live on Aruba, the BES islands, Curacao or Sint Maarten.

No 30% facility if you live in the border region

You must have lived at a distance of more than 150 kilometres as the crow flies from the Dutch border for more than 16 months in the 24 months prior to your first working day in the Netherlands. You are not allowed to have lived in Belgium, Luxembourg and parts of Germany, France or the United Kingdom.

I have worked in the Netherlands before

Did you previously qualify for the 30% facility and then moved outside the Netherlands again? If so, this does not have to be more than 150 kilometres from the Dutch border, if you meet all the following conditions:

• Your previous work period started maximally 5 years ago. Before 1 January 2021, your previous work period had to have started at least 8 years ago.
• When your previous work started, you lived more than 16 of the 24 previous months 150 kilometres (as the crow flies) from the Dutch border.
• During your previous work period, you had a valid decision for the 30% facility. Or you can make it plausible that, during your previous work period, you met the then applicable conditions for the 30% facility.

Do you have a PhD or doctoral degree?

You can make use of the 30% facility if, in the 24 months prior to the start of your PhD research in the Netherlands, you lived more than 16 of the 24 previous months 150 kilometres (as the crow flies) from the Dutch border.

During your PhD research and between getting your PhD and the start of your work in the Netherlands, you are allowed to have lived in the Netherlands, or within a radius of 150 kilometres from the Dutch border.

Source: Dutch tax authorities (www.belastingdienst.nl)

Example 30% facility

The tax-free allowance can be calculated in two ways:

• The employer may grant 30% of the employee's wages, including the reimbursement, tax-free. In other words: 30% of the salary including reimbursement (100%) is calculated; this 30% could be paid out as a tax-free allowance.
  

Example: the wage including the reimbursement is 70.000 euro. The untaxed reimbursement of extraterritorial costs is at maximum 30% of 70.000 euro is 21.000 euro.

• The employer may choose to pay a maximum of 30/70 of the wage as a tax-free allowance.

Example: the wage excluding the reimbursement is 70.000 euro. The untaxed reimbursement of extraterritorial costs is at maximum 30/70 of 70.000 euro is 30.000 euro.

For a personal tax calculation please use the following partner website: https://tax-calculator.net/dutch-tax-calculator/

30% ruling extension when changing jobs

Maintaining the 30% ruling is relatively easy, provided that your employment starts within three months after terminating your current one. In this respect please note that a new application should be filed with the Dutch tax authorities.