Moving to the Netherlands from the UK: the 2026/27 tax guide

The Netherlands taxes its residents on worldwide income, so this is not a territorial or low-tax play. Headline rates are UK-like or higher: 49.5% at the top of box 1 and a flat 36% charge on deemed investment returns in box 3. What makes the corridor work financially for employees is the 30% ruling, a statutory concession that hands a qualifying incoming worker a large slice of salary tax free for five years. It has been cut repeatedly: newcomers from 2027 get 27% rather than 30%, and the salary it applies to has been capped since 2024.

But the deciding factor for your UK bill is not your Dutch employment contract or your apartment in Amsterdam. It is the UK Statutory Residence Test (HMRC's residence manual, GOV.UK), which decides, year by year, whether the UK can still tax your worldwide income. Three things have to line up: breaking UK residence under the SRT, claiming split-year treatment where you leave mid-year, and dealing properly with the income and gains that stay UK-taxable regardless. Get those right and the Dutch position takes over.

The SRT is applied in order: first the automatic overseas tests (which make you non-resident), then the automatic UK tests (which make you resident), then the sufficient ties test if neither is conclusive. For someone taking a Dutch job, the automatic overseas tests are the target.

• First automatic overseas test: you were UK resident in one or more of the previous three tax years and spend fewer than 16 days in the UK in the current year.
• Second automatic overseas test: you were not UK resident in any of the previous three tax years and spend fewer than 46 UK days.
• Third automatic overseas test (the usual route for movers): you work full-time abroad across the tax year, broadly an average of at least 35 hours a week with no significant breaks, spend fewer than 91 days in the UK and work here on no more than 30 of those days.

If you cannot meet an automatic overseas test, the sufficient ties test combines your UK day count with the ties you keep (family, accommodation, work, a 90-day prior-presence tie and, for recent leavers, a country tie). The more ties you retain, the fewer UK days you are allowed. Amsterdam to London is barely more than an hour in the air and the Eurostar runs direct, which is exactly how commuter-style moves drift over a threshold. Model your position with our SRT calculator at /tools/srt-calculator before you book anything.

Most people do not emigrate neatly on 6 April. Where the conditions are met, split-year treatment divides the tax year into a UK part (taxed on worldwide income) and an overseas part (taxed only on UK-source income), so Dutch salary earned after the split date is outside UK income tax for that year. The common gateways for leavers are starting full-time work overseas and ceasing to have a UK home, each with its own conditions on timing and UK day limits.

The admin is the same as for any departure. File a P85 (GOV.UK) if you are employed or have a pension and will not be filing a return, and a final Self Assessment return for your year of departure if you are in the system. Split-year treatment is claimed on the SA109 residence pages, not by the P85, and the SA109 cannot be filed through HMRC's own free online service, so you will generally need commercial software or an agent. Keep records of travel dates, work patterns and your Dutch registration: residence questions are evidenced after the fact, and the Dutch municipal registration (BRP) date rarely matches your SRT split date exactly.

Becoming non-resident does not switch off UK tax on UK-source income. Because the Netherlands taxes residents on worldwide income, some of it also enters the Dutch net, with the treaty deciding who has first claim and who gives credit.

Two further UK rules deserve their own line. First, the temporary non-residence trap (HMRC manual CG26500): if you were UK resident in at least four of the seven tax years before leaving and return within five years, gains and certain income realised while abroad can be taxed in your year of return. A five-year 30% ruling posting that ends with a move home is exactly the fact pattern this rule was written for. Second, the residence-based IHT rules that took effect on 6 April 2025: if you were UK resident for at least 10 of the previous 20 tax years, your worldwide estate stays within UK inheritance tax for a tail of up to 10 years after you leave. Most leavers should also consider voluntary National Insurance on form CF83, because a full UK State Pension is cheap to protect and expensive to rebuild.

Dutch residence is decided on facts and circumstances, not a day count: there is no 183-day rule in Dutch domestic law. The tax authorities and courts look at durable personal and economic ties, including where your permanent home, family, work and registrations are, and an arriving worker whose family comes too is generally treated as resident from arrival. The familiar 183-day figure belongs to the treaty employment article, which protects short assignments, not settlers. Once resident, worldwide income is taxed in three boxes, each with its own schedule (PwC Worldwide Tax Summaries: Netherlands).

• Box 1 (employment, self-employment and your owner-occupied home): for 2026, 8.10% tax plus 27.65% national insurance on the first EUR 38,883, 37.56% from there to EUR 78,426, and 49.5% above that.
• Box 2 (substantial shareholdings, broadly 5% or more of a company): 24.5% on the first EUR 68,843 of dividends and gains and 31% above, which is what a BV owner pays on extractions.
• Box 3 (savings and investments): a flat 36% on a deemed return, not your actual income, above a tax-free threshold of EUR 59,357 (2026), with fixed deemed percentages applied to bank savings, other assets and debts.

Box 3 is the moving part. The Dutch Supreme Court ruled that the transitional system cannot tax more than your actual return, so a counter-evidence rule now lets you demonstrate a lower real return, and a full actual-return system is targeted for 1 January 2028, so the treatment of your portfolio may change again after you arrive. The honest boundary: Horizon advises on the UK side of the move and coordinates with a local adviser in the Netherlands for Dutch filings and immigration. The Dutch figures above are verified against current professional summaries, but your own Dutch returns belong with local counsel.

The 30% ruling lets a Dutch employer pay a qualifying incoming employee up to 30% of employment income free of tax, as a proxy for the extra costs of working abroad, without receipts. It has been trimmed repeatedly, and the current, verified shape matters to anyone planning a move (PwC Worldwide Tax Summaries: Netherlands, deductions).

• Percentage: 30% for 2026. From 2027 the rate falls to 27% for the entire run of the ruling, with transitional protection keeping 30% for employees who were already using it before 2024.
• Cap: since 1 January 2024 the ruling applies only to salary up to the public-sector pay norm (the WNT norm), EUR 262,000 for 2026, so the maximum tax-free amount is EUR 78,600 a year.
• Duration: a maximum of 60 months, reduced by most previous stays in the Netherlands.
• Salary norms for 2026: a taxable salary of at least EUR 48,013, or EUR 36,497 for under-30s with a qualifying master's degree; no norm for qualifying scientific researchers.
• Distance test: you must have lived more than 150 kilometres from the Dutch border for more than two thirds of the 24 months before starting, which UK movers pass comfortably, and the application must be filed within four months of starting the job.
• Partial non-resident status, which let ruling holders opt out of box 2 and box 3 on foreign assets, was abolished from 2025; only employees who held the ruling in 2023 can still use it, with 2026 the final year.

Two planning points follow. Timing a start date so the ruling is granted while the rate is still 30% is worth real money over five years. And because partial non-resident status has gone, your worldwide savings and investments enter box 3 from the start, so the shape of your portfolio on arrival matters in a way it did not for earlier generations of UK movers.

The current treaty is the 2008 UK-Netherlands Double Taxation Convention, in force since 25 December 2010 and effective in the UK from 6 April 2011 for income tax and capital gains tax, amended by a 2013 protocol and modified by the Multilateral Instrument from 2020 (GOV.UK). Its residence tie-breaker settles the crossover year if both countries claim you, running through permanent home, centre of vital interests, habitual abode and nationality in the usual order.

The pension articles are where this treaty stops being ordinary (consolidated text, GOV.UK). Article 17 starts from the usual rule that pensions are taxable only where you live, but gives the source state a claw-back: the UK can tax a pension paid to a Netherlands resident where the contributions got UK relief, the Netherlands taxes the payments at less than the normal employment rate or on less than 90% of the gross amount, and the year's gross payments exceed EUR 25,000. Lump sums paid before the pension commences may be taxed by the source state, which catches the UK habit of taking tax-free cash early. And Article 18, the government service article, covers salaries only: unlike almost every other UK treaty it has no pension paragraph, so UK government service pensions fall under Article 17's residence rule rather than staying automatically with the UK. For an NHS, civil service, forces or teachers' pension, the answer here is genuinely different from most corridors, and worth advice before you draw anything.

If you own a UK limited company and move to the Netherlands while continuing to run it, the company's own residence moves with you in practice: a UK-incorporated company managed from the Netherlands becomes Dutch tax resident under Dutch law while staying UK resident under UK law. This treaty resolves corporate dual residence only by mutual agreement between HMRC and the Dutch authorities, and until they agree the company is denied most treaty benefits. That is a poor place to leave a trading company, so decide the structure before you fly, not after.

The comparison itself is closer than people expect. Dutch corporate income tax is 19% on the first EUR 200,000 of profit and 25.8% above (PwC Worldwide Tax Summaries: Netherlands, corporate), against the UK's 19% to 25%. The bigger difference is on extraction: a BV owner pays box 2 rates of 24.5% and 31% on dividends and must take an arm's-length salary through box 1. For a long-term move, a Dutch BV or Dutch payroll employment is cleaner than dragging a UK Ltd into dual residence; for a short posting, keeping the UK company with genuine UK board governance can work, but it needs designing. Closing the UK company before you leave is sometimes the better answer, and the numbers decide it.

The Netherlands suits employed professionals with a Dutch offer who can capture the 30% ruling, families making a permanent, well-paid move, and company owners willing to restructure properly into a BV. It suits people less well if their wealth is mostly investment portfolios, because box 3 now reaches worldwide assets from day one, if they expect to return to the UK within five years with significant gains to realise, or if their real aim is escaping UK IHT quickly, given the 10-year residence-based tail. And like every destination in this series, the Netherlands does nothing for UK property income and gains, which stay UK-taxable regardless.

We handle the UK side of this corridor on fixed fees agreed upfront: personal tax returns from £350, non-resident and expat returns from £550, and complex cross-border work, which is where split years, treaty pension claims and company restructuring sit, from £750. If you are planning the move, mid-move, or already in the Netherlands and unsure your UK exit was done properly, book a free 30-minute clarity call and we will tell you where you stand and quote a fixed fee before any work starts. There is more on how we work with internationally mobile clients on our expat tax adviser service page.