Claiming your tax refund in the Netherlands

Index

As one might expect, an individual with income in the Netherlands is required to pay income taxes over this income. For people in employment, this is mostly already taken care of. Their employer calculates the taxes due over the wages of the employee every month. In principle, this should correspond with the total income tax due over a year.

However, it is all too common that the withheld tax and the tax due do not match. The reason for this is that the income tax often contains more aspects than the employer can consider when it comes to tax calculation. We therefore often see that people have overpaid taxes throughout the year, which can be claimed back by filing an income tax return.

How to file a Dutch income tax return?

You can file your income tax return in three ways. The most common way is digitally. For this you will need to log into the website of the tax authorities with your DigiD. Once logged in, the proper form should be available to you there.

You can also file your return through an app. The authorities have developed an app, in which one can file their income tax return. Sadly, in a lot of cases filing through the app is not possible. For example, if you had foreign assets or income in the year for which you want to file, then filing through the app is not possible.

Lastly, it is still possible to file your income tax return on paper. In this case, a paper form can be requested from the tax authorities by phone. We however do not recommend going this route as filing on paper is a lot more complex and prone to mistakes.

Of course, you can also hire an advisor to help you with filing your tax return. This ensure that you file a correct return, that has been optimized to be as beneficial as possible. If you wish to use Expat-Service, then you can start this process whenever you would like. Just make an account and complete the corresponding questions and we will be able to assist.

Required to file a tax return?

You can be obligated, by the tax authorities, to file a tax return for any given year. If this is the case, then you will receive a letter near the start of the year, in which the authorities request that you file a return, for the previous year.

It is also required to file a return, if it can be reasonably expected that you should know that you still need to pay taxes. This is the case for example, if you had income that hadn’t been taxed yet through the year, like with freelancing work.

If you are required to file a return, then you can do so between the first of march and the 30^th of April, following the year for which you need to file. If you are not required to file, like is often the case when you are entitled to a refund, then you can still do so for 5 years after the tax year has concluded.

Can I expect a refund in the Netherlands?

It is often hard to determine preemptively, whether someone will get a refund or will need to pay additional tax. This is because a multitude of factors go into determining this. In certain cases, a decent assumption can be made. For example, if in any given year, someone only had income from their employer, but also paid mortgage interest on their own home, then that person is most likely entitled to a refund, since mortgage interest may be deducted within the income tax.

Furthermore, we often see that people who migrate to the Netherlands in a year, especially when they migrate late in the year, often receive refunds as well. The reason for this is that the wage tax in these situations is usually overestimated, which of course leads to a refund being owed at the end of the year.

If you think you might be entitled to a tax refund, then be sure to contact Expat Service. At any point you can start the process of filing your tax return through us, by just completing a questionnaire for the years you want to file. After doing this once, some data is even copied to other years, making filing a second return with Expat Service even more convenient.