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Accounts in the Netherlands

Every kind of account and pension the planner offers in the Netherlands: what each one is, when money can come out, how it is taxed, and the pages we read the rules from.

Engine 2026Reviewed

Most Dutch retirement income comes from the state pension (AOW) and a workplace pension, and both are paid to you as an income, so they go in the pension step. What you hold yourself is mostly ordinary savings and investments, which the Netherlands taxes each year on an assumed return on the balance (box 3) rather than on what you actually earn or sell.

The Netherlands has no general tax-free savings account, so most people need only that first row. The other rows are for money that sits outside box 3: a lijfrente account (a personal pension top-up, held mostly by the self-employed and people with a gap in their workplace pension), a nettolijfrente for pay above the pension salary cap, and the oudedagsverplichting a director-shareholder kept in their own company.

Rules as of the 2026 tax year, read from the authorities on 2026-07-30. Each account lists the pages we read it from.

Accounts you can enter

Savings and investments

The Netherlands does not tax your profit, your dividends or your interest. Instead it taxes the balance itself each year, above a tax-free amount, and never charges more than what your investments actually made.

Savings accounts, shares, funds, bonds and most savings or investment insurance policies all sit here. Each year the tax office assumes a return on what you held on 1 January: 1.28% on bank savings and 6% on everything else in 2026, taxed at 36% once the total passes 59,357 a person, an amount the plan moves with prices. Selling, dividends and interest are not taxed on their own.

Since 2025 you may show the tax office that your actual return was lower and pay on that instead. The plan always does this for you, so in a poor year it charges only what your investments made. A bad year still earns no credit against a good one.

The Detailed view asks what your savings are held in, because a bank account and an investment fund are charged almost five times apart.

How it is taxed, rate by rate, is on the tax page.

In the withdrawal orders
With the ordinary accounts
Pays out
Whenever you like
At the first death
Your partner takes it over as it stands

Lijfrente account

Paid out in fixed, equal instalments, starting within five years either side of your AOW age. Starting before your AOW age means at least 20 years plus the years before it; from your AOW age, at least five years, or longer if the payments would pass 27,192 a year in today's money. Each one is taxed as income. Cashing it in another way costs an extra 20%, unless the account holds 5,513 or less. Premiums you never deducted come back untaxed first.

A lijfrente account is a personal pension top-up held at a bank (lijfrenterekening) or as an investment account (lijfrentebeleggingsrecht). Premiums are deducted from your income within a yearly allowance, so everything that comes out is taxed as income, together with the income-linked health contribution. While it is held it sits outside box 3, so there is no yearly charge on the balance.

Before the payments start you choose when they start and over how many years. Each year the plan pays the balance divided by the years left, which is what a fixed number of fund units a year comes to, so the payments rise and fall with the market. What you do not spend that year moves to your savings and investments.

If a year's payment at the start would be larger than the law allows for a short term, the plan lengthens the term in that future to what the law requires. A term the start age alone makes too short is refused when you enter it.

Cashing it in any other way taxes the whole value as income and adds a 20% charge (revisierente) on top. The plan does that only if you allow it, and only once everything else is spent.

Some people paid premiums they did not deduct from their income, for example above the yearly allowance. That money was already taxed, so the tax office pays it back first: the instalments are untaxed until they add up to those premiums. Enter only premiums that count: those paid in 2009 or earlier in full, and from 2010 at most 2,269 a year, shared by all your lijfrenten except a policy from before 14 September 1999. The plan cannot apply that limit for you, and the sum does not grow with prices. Left empty, the plan assumes every premium was deducted.

In the withdrawal orders
With the accounts taxed on the way out
Before the earliest age
Before the age you choose for it, only by cashing it in at a 20% charge, and only if you allow it
Pays out
In instalments over a term you choose, within the law's limits. A small balance may be taken out whole
At the first death
Your partner takes it over as it stands
What the planner asks about it
  • Age the payments start From 5 years before your state pension age to 5 years after your state pension age. We assume your retirement age.
  • Years it pays out over From 5 to 40 years. We assume 20 years.
  • Cash it in early if the plan runs short On unless you turn it off.
Where the model simplifies

  • If you cash in a lijfrente before its payments start, we charge the income linked health contribution on the amount as well as income tax and the 20 percent charge. The contribution is due on wages and regular payments, not on a cash-in, so in that year we show up to 4.85 percent of the amount too much, at most about 3,850 in today's money.

    Your real tax is lower/up to €3,851 once/a lijfrente holder who cashes the account in before its payments begin

  • A lijfrente worth at most 5,513 in today's money may be paid out in one sum without the 20 percent charge. The law allows that only before the payments start and adds up every unstarted lijfrente you hold with the same provider; we allow it whenever the account is that small and look at each account alone.

    Your real tax is higher/up to €1,103 once/a lijfrente account that has fallen to 5,513 or less, mostly late in its payments

  • Cashing in a lijfrente early costs 20 percent on top of income tax. Within ten years of opening it, you may instead pay interest on the tax you saved, which can be less. We always charge the 20 percent.

    Your real tax is lower/a lijfrente cashed in within ten years of being opened

The law behind it
Wet IB 2001 art. 3.125, 3.126a, 3.133; AWR art. 30i; Uitvoeringsregeling IB 2001 art. 2a, 2b; fisin2026 §15

Nettolijfrente

Savings from taxed income for the pension above the salary cap. It is outside the yearly tax on savings and investments, and nothing you take out is taxed.

A workplace pension stops building on pay above a cap, 137,800 in 2026. Above that, you may save for retirement from taxed pay in a nettolijfrente. Nothing is deducted on the way in, the balance sits outside box 3, and nothing that comes out is taxed.

The plan lets you draw from it whenever and however much you need, like other tax-free money. Your contract may pay it out on a schedule; we could not confirm in the law which payout rules bind it, so the plan does not impose one.

In the withdrawal orders
With the tax-free accounts
Pays out
Whenever you like
At the first death
Your partner takes it over as it stands
The law behind it
Wet IB 2001 art. 5.16, 3.100 lid 3

Oudedagsverplichting (ODV)

The pension a director-shareholder kept in their own company. Paid out over 20 years from the age you choose, each year taxed as wages.

Until 2017 a director-shareholder (DGA) could build a pension inside their own company, called pensioen in eigen beheer. Building stopped in 2017, and between 2017 and 2019 many converted what they had into an oudedagsverplichting (ODV): a promise from the company to pay it out later. It is not invested for you: each year the law adds interest at a market rate set from Dutch government bond yields, 2.593% for 2026, and the plan grows it at that rate rather than with your portfolio. The rate is reset every January; the plan keeps this year's for the whole plan unless you enter another.

From the age you choose, no earlier than five years before your AOW age and no later than reaching it, it pays out in 20 yearly instalments, each the balance divided by the years left, taxed as wages. The plan cannot reach it before then and never cashes it in.

If you moved your ODV into a lijfrente with an insurer or bank, enter it as a lijfrente account instead.

In the withdrawal orders
With the accounts taxed on the way out
Before the earliest age
Nothing comes out before the age you choose for it
Pays out
In instalments over a term you choose, within the law's limits
At the first death
Your partner takes it over as it stands
What the planner asks about it
  • Age the payments start From 5 years before your state pension age to your state pension age. We assume your state pension age.
  • Years it pays out over From 20 to 20 years. We assume 20 years.
  • Interest added each year From 0% to 10%. We assume 2.59%.
Where the model simplifies

  • A director's old-age obligation (ODV) that starts paying before the state pension age must pay out over 20 years plus the years before that age. We pay it over 20 years from whenever it starts, so an early start pays more each year in our plan, and more of it falls in years taxed before the state pension age.

    Could go either way/a director-shareholder with an ODV starting before the state pension age

  • An oudedagsverplichting grows each year at a market interest rate the government sets from Dutch government bond yields: 2.593 percent for 2026. We hold that year's rate for the whole plan, where the real rate is reset every January and can even be negative, so over a long wait to the first payment the balance can drift either way from ours.

    Could go either way/a director-shareholder whose oudedagsverplichting starts paying several years from now

The law behind it
Wet LB 1964 art. 38p

Kinds of pension

A pension paid to you as an income goes in the pension step, not here. Choose its kind there and the plan taxes it by that kind's rules; leave it on standard and it is taxed like a state or workplace pension.

Workplace pension (pensioenfonds)

Taxed in full as income, with the healthcare contribution.

Your pension fund's statement, or mijnpensioenoverzicht.nl, lists each workplace pension with its yearly amount before tax. The plan pays it as a steady income for life that rises only with the indexation you set.

Where the model simplifies

  • A workplace pension can sometimes be paid partly or wholly as a lump sum: a pension under 632.63 a year may be bought out by the fund, and from 2029 you may take up to 10 percent of your pension as one payment at the start. Both are taxed as ordinary income in the year paid. We only model the pension as a yearly payment, so a lump sum, and the higher tax that bunching it into one year usually brings, is not shown.

    Could go either way/a Dutch retiree with a very small workplace pension, or one who would take part of a workplace pension as a lump sum from 2029

  • Under the new Dutch pension contracts, which every workplace scheme must adopt by 1 January 2028, a pension already being paid can go up or down each year with the fund's investment returns. We model a workplace pension as a steady payment that only rises with the indexation you set, so the year to year swings, and the tax on them, are not shown.

    Could go either way/every Dutch retiree with a workplace pension, from the year their scheme moves to the new contracts

The law behind it
Wet IB 2001 art. 3.80-3.81 (belastbaar loon, including loon uit vroegere dienstbetrekking, is box 1 income) with Wet LB 1964 art. 10; Zvw art. 43 lid 2 a (loon is bijdrage-inkomen); Pensioenwet art. 65-66 (afkoop only below 632.63 a year)

Annuity insurance (lijfrente)

Taxed in full as income, except that premiums you did not deduct, entered as what you paid, come back tax-free first.

A lijfrente bought from an insurer pays either for life or for a set number of years, at least five. For a temporary one, enter the age its payments stop. If you did not deduct some premiums, enter those that count as what you paid (the same limits as for a lijfrente account): payments are untaxed until they add up to them. An old bridging lijfrente (overbruggingslijfrente) or a severance annuity (stamrecht) paid by an insurer is taxed the same way and goes here too.

The law behind it
Wet IB 2001 art. 3.100 lid 1 b (termijnen van lijfrenten are belastbare periodieke uitkeringen, box 1); art. 3.125 lid 1 a and c (oudedagslijfrente lifelong, tijdelijke oudedagslijfrente at least 5 years); Zvw art. 43 lid 2 d (belastbare periodieke uitkeringen are bijdrage-inkomen)

Where other things you hold go

AOW and workplace pensions
Enter them in the pension step as an income: the AOW as your state pension, a workplace pension with its kind. They are taxed as income for as long as they pay.
A lijfrente already paying you
Enter it in the pension step as an annuity, with its kind, rather than as an account.
Nettopensioen (workplace pension on pay above the cap)
Enter its payment in the pension step as an amount after tax, which the plan leaves untaxed. We could not confirm in the law that its payments are tax free, so the planner has no kind for it.
Capital, savings or investment insurance (kapitaalverzekering, beleggingsverzekering)
Enter it with your savings and investments, where box 3 taxes it. A policy that already existed on 14 September 1999 is free of box 3 up to 123,428; the plan does not apply that and shows too much tax.
Mortgage-linked savings (kapitaalverzekering, spaarrekening or beleggingsrecht eigen woning)
Leave it out. It exists to pay off your mortgage and is taxed with your home, not with your savings.
Shares in your own company (a holding BV)
Nowhere. What you take out of a stake of 5% or more is taxed under a separate system the plan does not model, so nothing you hold through your own company appears here.

New rules not in the model yet

Box 3 on your actual return
A bill to tax the return you actually make each year, gains you have not sold included, passed the lower house in February 2026 and was meant to start in 2028. In September 2026 the government asked the Senate to hold it while it weighs other options. It is not law, so the plan uses today's rules.
A lump sum from your workplace pension
A law passed in June 2026 lets you take up to 10% of your workplace pension as one payment when it starts, taxed as income that year. The government plans it for 2029, and the start date is still to be set, so the plan pays the pension as a yearly income only.