How the Netherlands taxes a retirement plan

We model these and we know we do not get them exactly right. Where the size could be measured, it is stated.

• Every figure here assumes you have reached the Dutch state pension age, which is 67 years and 3 months now and rises towards 70 for later birth years. Retire before it and the lowest tax band is charged at 35.75 percent rather than 17.85, and the older person's credit does not exist yet. We apply the pension age rules at every age, so an early retiree's tax is understated by up to 6,960 a year on the rate alone, plus up to 2,067 of a credit they cannot yet claim. It is the largest single error we make.

  Your real tax is higher/up to €9,027 a year/anyone retiring before the Dutch state pension age, which is exactly the early retirement this tool is built to model

• Dutch tax credits come off your whole tax bill, including the charge on savings and investments. We can only set them against the tax on your pension, so anything left over is thrown away and we show more tax than you would pay, up to the full 4,163 of credit. This pulls against the taper gap above: netted across our three worked portfolios we show about 1,486 too much tax in one and about 3,240 and 3,295 too little in the other two.

  Your real tax is lower/up to €4,163 a year/a retiree with a small pension and a large taxable portfolio

• The Netherlands taxes savings and investments on an assumed return rather than on what you actually earned, and that assumed figure counts towards the income that shrinks a retiree's two main tax credits. We shrink them on your pension alone, so we hand back credit you would really lose and your tax is understated, by up to 3,623 a year. A second gap below runs the opposite way and partly cancels this one.

  Your real tax is higher/up to €3,623 a year/a Dutch retiree with a taxable portfolio large enough to push their assessed income past about 29,700

• When your portfolio returns less than the assumed rate, you may show the tax office what you actually made and be taxed on that instead. You have to claim it and evidence it, and not everyone does. We apply the lower of the two every year, so we flatter the average person's bill. A bad year still buys no relief against a good one, in the law and here alike.

  Your real tax is higher/anyone whose portfolio returns less than the assumed rate in a year and does not claim the lower figure

These exist in law and we leave them out, usually because applying them would need a question we do not ask.

• If you were born before 1946 the lowest tax band runs to 41,123 rather than 38,883, which is worth about 400 a year. We do not ask your birth year, so we use the narrower band for everyone and show slightly too much tax for that group.

  Your real tax is lower/up to €400 a year/anyone born before 1946, who is 80 or over now

• In the year you reach state pension age the tax office splits the lowest band's rate according to your birth month, so part of that year is charged at the higher rate that applies before it. We charge the lower rate for the whole year. It is one year in a plan that runs for decades.

  Your real tax is higher/anyone in the single year they reach Dutch state pension age

• Debts count against your savings and investments and reduce the charge on them, once they pass a floor of 3,800, or 7,600 for a couple. We never ask what you owe, so a mortgage on a let property does nothing here and we show too much tax, by roughly 0.97 percent a year of the debt you could have set off.

  Your real tax is lower/anyone carrying a mortgage on a let property, or other debt outside their own home

• A let property or second home is taxed on an assumed return of 6 percent of its official valuation (WOZ), and we see only your investment portfolio. Dutch property is therefore untaxed here rather than taxed on what it is worth, so your tax is understated by about 2.16 percent of that valuation every year. We could also not establish the 2026 table that reduces the taxable value of a home that is let.

  Your real tax is higher/anyone owning a Dutch let property or second home

• Owning the home you live in adds a slice of assumed income to your Dutch tax bill, 0.35 percent of its official valuation (WOZ) for most homes. A relief currently cancels about 72 percent of that for anyone without a mortgage, and it is being withdrawn a little each year until it is gone in 2041. We model none of this, so a mortgage free retiree's tax is understated, and more so the further out the plan runs. Mortgage interest relief, which we also leave out, runs the other way.

  Your real tax is higher/a retiree who owns their Dutch home, most of all one who has paid the mortgage off

• Certified green investments shelter 26,715 from the charge on savings and investments and carry a small extra credit. We do not offer them as a choice, so if you hold them we show more tax than you would pay. The relief is closing: it drops to 200 in 2027 and is abolished in 2028, so it is not worth planning around.

  Your real tax is lower/anyone holding certified green investments, a relief that ends in 2028

• Notes and coins you keep at home are exempt up to 672, or 1,344 for a couple, and we do not exclude them. At the rate that applies to savings that is worth a few euros of tax a year, so we have left it out.

  Your real tax is lower/anyone holding physical cash, for whom it is worth a euro or two

• A replacement for the charge on savings and investments is going through parliament, intended for 2028. It would tax your actual yearly gain, count gains you have not sold, allow costs, carry losses forward, and swap the tax free capital amount for a much smaller exemption on the return itself. For a modest saver that shelter is worth up to 1,282 of tax a year today against 648 under the new rules. We model the 2026 rules and nothing else.

  Could go either way/anyone whose Dutch plan runs past 2028, which is all of them

Separate tax systems, or rules that only bite outside a retirement plan.

• Everyone in the Netherlands pays a flat monthly health insurance premium straight to their insurer, on top of the income linked health contribution we do show. We could not confirm the 2026 average from an official source, and what we saw puts it around 150 to 160 a month for each adult. It is a household bill rather than a tax, so budget for it in your spending.

  Your real tax is higher/up to €1,920 a year/every Dutch resident adult, whatever their income

• Local property and service charges are not income tax and never appear in these figures. On a home worth 500,000 they plausibly come to 700 to 1,500 a year, covering the property levy, sewerage, waste collection and the water board. Put them in your household spending rather than expecting them here. We could not source an authoritative national figure for 2026.

  Your real tax is higher/up to €1,500 a year/anyone owning a Dutch home, and to a smaller extent anyone renting one

• If you own 5 percent or more of a company, what you take out of that stake is taxed in its own right, at 24.5 percent up to 68,843 and 31 percent above. That is a separate system from the one we model, so nothing you hold through your own company appears here.

  Your real tax is higher/anyone holding 5 percent or more of a private company

• If what you do with your money goes beyond ordinary investing, such as borrowing to trade daily or flipping property one after another, the profits are pulled onto the progressive income tax scale instead of the flat charge on savings and investments. We assume you buy and hold, so we never test for it.

  Your real tax is higher/someone trading with borrowed money or flipping property systematically, rather than holding investments