The Dutch VAT return

Example: a completed return for one quarter

A self-employed plasterer files for the third quarter of 2026. He worked for private customers and as a subcontractor for a construction company, and bought materials and tools. The amounts are made up; the boxes and the calculation are those of the return.

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How often you file

Your filing period is a month, a quarter or a year. For most small businesses it is the quarter: four returns a year, each in the month following the quarter. Businesses that reclaim a lot of VAT sometimes deliberately opt for monthly filing, because that money comes back sooner instead of being fronted for months.

Filing is mandatory even when there is nothing to report. A period without turnover and without purchases produces a nil return — and that return still has to be submitted. A missed filing costs a default penalty, regardless of whether you owed anything.

Step by step: how to file the return

Step 1: add up your period. All sales invoices, purchase invoices and receipts dated in that period, with the VAT per rate, divided over the boxes below. Accounting software does that from your entries; in booxx you click through each box to the transactions its amount is made of, so you can see before filing whether everything is in it.

Step 2: log in to Mijn Belastingdienst Zakelijk, the business portal of the Dutch Belastingdienst. Since 6 August 2026 you first choose your business form. A sole proprietorship logs in with DigiD; if your business has a legal form such as a vof or bv, your VAT return is only ready for you when you log in with eHerkenning. Step 3: open the return for the right period and copy the turnover and VAT per box; your input VAT goes in 5b.

Step 4: check the balance at the bottom and submit. You get a confirmation, and while logged in you see the date by which you must pay; you can pay straight after submitting with iDEAL | Wero. Step 5: if you had supplies or services to businesses in another EU country in that period (box 3b), also file the ICP return (ICP-opgaaf) — a separate statement next to the VAT return.

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What the boxes mean

Group 1 is your own turnover in the Netherlands, split by rate: 1a is the standard rate, 1b the reduced rate. Box 1d is the annual correction for private use — a company car, or goods and energy you use privately. Group 2 only fills up when a Dutch supplier has reverse-charged the VAT to you, which mainly happens in construction and subcontracting.

Group 3 is everything leaving the country: 3a is export outside the EU, 3b is supplies and services to businesses in another EU country, and 3c is the exception for turnover on which you account for VAT in another EU country under your own registration there. Group 4 is the mirror image: 4a is what you bring in from outside the EU, 4b from within. Group 5 adds up: 5a is the VAT owed from the groups above, 5b your input VAT, and the difference is what you pay or reclaim.

Why reverse-charged VAT appears twice

When you buy a service from a supplier abroad — hosting, software, a subcontractor — that invoice carries no VAT. The VAT has been reverse-charged to you: you have to declare it. The same amount then appears twice on your return: once as VAT owed in box 4a or 4b, and once as input VAT in box 5b.

On balance you pay nothing, but the boxes still have to be filled — the Belastingdienst wants to see that the transaction happened. Two cases look like this but are not: under the margin scheme (used goods, art, antiques) nothing is owed and nothing is deductible, and on imports under an Article 23 licence the taxable amount is the customs value including freight and import duties — a figure that rarely appears on the supplier's invoice.

The three mistakes made most often

The first is a VAT code sitting on the wrong side. You cannot tell from a code's name whether it is meant for sales or for purchases, and the wrong choice either removes turnover from your return or counts the VAT on the wrong side. When in doubt, look at the box: 5b, 2a, 4a and 4b belong to purchases, boxes 1 and 3 to sales.

The second is a supply to an EU business that lands in box 3b but not on the EC Sales List. The two belong together and the Belastingdienst lays them side by side. The third is confusing box 3c with the One Stop Shop: 3c is for turnover on which you account for VAT in another EU country under your own registration there, not for what you declare through the one-stop system.