The 30% ruling

What it's worth

Net pay per year, single, below state pension age, 2026, with the standard salary requirement. Your taxable salary drops by up to 30%, and the euros that come off are the ones taxed at your highest rate.

Who qualifies

You can use the ruling if all of these are true:

• You are hired from abroad by a Dutch employer, or by a foreign employer that runs Dutch payroll, or posted to the Netherlands.
• For more than 16 of the 24 months before your first working day, you lived more than 150 km from the Dutch border.
• You bring expertise that is scarce in the Netherlands. In practice this is a salary test: see the salary requirement below.
• You and your employer agree in writing to use it, and the Belastingdienst grants it.
• Living within 150 km of the Dutch border before you moved rules you out, whatever your nationality. Two exceptions: you did a PhD in the Netherlands and lived far enough away before it started, or you had the ruling before, in a job that started at most 5 years ago.

The salary requirement

Your taxable salary, after the tax-free part, must be above the requirement for your group. If 30% would take it below, the tax-free part shrinks so your taxable salary stays at the requirement. If your salary drops below it later, the ruling stops.

The tax-free part is capped at 30% of the public-sector pay ceiling (the WNT maximum, €262,000 in 2026), so at most €78,600 a year.

How long it lasts

At most 60 months, counted from your first working day in the Netherlands. Earlier time you lived or worked in the Netherlands in the 25 years before is taken off. Example for someone who started in January 2025:

If you change jobs, you keep your remaining months when you start with your new employer within three months of leaving the old one, and you apply together again within four months of starting.

How to apply

1. 1Agree with your employer, in your contract or an addendum, that part of your salary is paid as the tax-free allowance.
2. 2Your employer and you apply together to the Belastingdienst. Apply within 4 months of your first working day and it counts from that day; apply later and it counts from the month after you apply.
3. 3Once it's granted, your employer pays the tax-free part through payroll each month. You don't claim it in your tax return.

What changes, what doesn't

From 30% to 27% in 2027

From 1 January 2027 the tax-free part is at most 27%. If your employer already applied the ruling to your salary in December 2023, you keep 30% until your ruling ends. The salary requirement for rulings that started in 2025 or later also goes up in 2027; the amount isn't published yet.

When it ends

When your 60 months are up, your whole salary is taxed. At €100,000, that means €1,361 less a month than with the 30% ruling in 2026.

The ruling also ends early if you stop working for your employer and don't start a new qualifying job within three months, or if your salary drops below the requirement.

Sources and limits

• Wet op de loonbelasting 1964, art. 31a · wetten.overheid.nl
• Uitvoeringsbesluit loonbelasting 1965, arts. 10ea to 10ej
• Belastingdienst: Expatregeling (30%-regeling) aanvragen · Belastingdienst
• Wet inkomstenbelasting 2001, arts. 2.10, 8.10 and 8.11 · wetten.overheid.nl
• Belastingdienst: heffingskortingen 2026 · Belastingdienst
• Belastingplan 2025 (27% from 2027)

Information, not tax advice. The salary figures come from our Netherlands calculation, tested against our own worked cases NL1 to NL5 (computed, not yet checked against the Belastingdienst calculator).