What is the 30% ruling?
The 30% ruling (officially the 30% facility, sometimes called the expat scheme) lets qualifying employees recruited from abroad receive up to 30% of their gross salary tax-free. It’s meant to offset the real costs of relocating — housing differences, travel back home, maintaining ties in two countries — without requiring you to itemize every expense. Your employer applies it directly through payroll: 30% of your agreed salary is simply treated as tax-free, and Dutch income tax is calculated only on the remaining 70%.
Who qualifies
To be eligible, you generally need to:
- Be recruited from abroad for a role in the Netherlands — this isn’t available for jobs sourced locally
- Have specific expertise that’s scarce or unavailable in the Dutch labor market (in practice, this is mostly assessed through the salary threshold below)
- Have lived more than 150 km from the Dutch border for at least 16 of the 24 months before starting your job
- Meet a minimum taxable salary threshold
Salary thresholds for 2026
This is where it gets concrete. As of 1 January 2026:
- Standard threshold: €48,013 gross annually (up from €46,660 in 2025)
- Reduced threshold for under-30s with a verified Master’s degree: €36,497 gross annually (up from €35,468 in 2025)
Your degree needs to be verified by the Dutch credential evaluation body (IDW) or pre-approved by the Dutch Tax Authorities for the lower threshold to apply.
There’s also a cap on the other end: the tax-free allowance can only be applied to a maximum annual salary of €262,000 in 2026. Anything above that isn’t covered by the ruling.
How long does it last?
The ruling can apply for a maximum of five years (60 months), reduced by any period you’ve already lived or worked in the Netherlands within the past 25 years. If you started using the ruling before 1 January 2024, you keep the full five years under the original terms.
What's changing
A few things are worth knowing if you’re planning further ahead than just this year:
- The rate itself is staying at 30% through 2025 and 2026 — the previously planned step-down (30% → 20% → 10% over time) has been reversed.
- From 1 January 2027, a flat rate of 27% will replace the 30% rate for eligible employees, ending the traditional benefit level.
- As of 2025, partial non-residency status has been abolished. Previously, ruling beneficiaries could opt to be treated as non-residents for box 2 and box 3 tax purposes (savings, investments, and substantial shareholdings). That option is gone — beneficiaries are now taxed the same as regular Dutch residents in those boxes.