The 30% ruling for Brits: who gets the Dutch expat tax break, and what changes in 2027

The 30% ruling lets your Dutch employer pay up to 30% of your salary tax-free for up to five years, and for a typical Amsterdam hire that's worth thousands of euros a year; but it's not automatic, and it gets less generous from 2027.

The short version

• The expat scheme (expatregeling, still called the 30% ruling) lets your employer pay up to 30% of your salary as a tax-free allowance for extra costs of living abroad [1].
• In 2026 you need taxable salary of more than EUR 48,013 a year (about £40,000), or EUR 36,497 (about £30,400) if you're under 30 with a master's degree [2].
• You must have lived more than 150 km from the Dutch border for more than 16 of the 24 months before starting. Living in parts of the UK doesn't qualify [3].
• The ruling lasts up to five years and your employer must apply with you [3].
• From 2027 the maximum drops to 27% for most people who got the ruling from 2024 onwards [4].

Pound conversions use the Bank of England spot rate of 5 November 2026 (£1 = EUR 1.2002).

How it works

Dutch law assumes that someone brought in from abroad has "extraterritorial" costs: trips home, double housing, the price of being a foreigner. Instead of making you prove them, the expat scheme lets your employer pay a tax-free allowance of up to 30% of your salary including that allowance, or up to 30/70 of your salary excluding it [1]. You don't pay income tax on that slice, and no Dutch employee insurance premiums are due on it either [1].

The Belastingdienst's own examples [1]:

That last row is the one to watch. The salary test is applied to your pay after the tax-free part is taken off, so a salary just over the bar leaves very little room for the allowance.

The cap

The allowance is worked out on a salary of at most EUR 262,000 a year, the limit from the Dutch top-incomes law. In 2026 the maximum tax-free allowance is EUR 78,600 (about £65,500) for a full year, reduced pro rata for part-years [1][4]. Since 1 January 2026 the cap applies to every expat on the scheme, including those who started before 2022 [4].

Other tax-free extras

If you're on the scheme, your employer can also reimburse, tax-free, your relocation costs, an introductory visit to the Dutch office, and fees for an international school or the international department of an ordinary school that follows a foreign curriculum [1]. For a family moving with children, that last one can be worth more than the 30% itself. See schools in Amsterdam.

Who qualifies

You need all of these [2][3]:

1. A job with a Dutch payroll employer. The employer applies with you.
2. Recruitment from abroad. You were hired from outside the Netherlands.
3. Specific expertise, tested by salary. For 2026 your taxable salary, not counting the tax-free allowance, must be more than EUR 48,013. For under-30s with a Dutch master's or an equivalent foreign one (a UK MA, MSc or similar), it's more than EUR 36,497. Scientific researchers at designated institutions and doctors training as specialists don't have a salary test [2].
4. The 150 km rule.

The salary norms rise each year: EUR 46,107 in 2024 and EUR 46,660 in 2025 before this year's figure [3].

The 150 km rule: watch out if you lived in the east of England

For more than 16 of the 24 months before your first Dutch working day, you must have lived more than 150 km, as the crow flies, from the Dutch border [3]. The Belastingdienst says plainly that living in Belgium, Luxembourg, or parts of Germany, France or the UK doesn't qualify [3]. Most of Britain is comfortably far enough, but if you lived near the east coast, measure it before you count the money. If you did a PhD in the Netherlands, the 24 months are counted before your research started [3].

Previous time in the Netherlands

The five years are cut by earlier Dutch work or residence. Old stays don't count if they ended more than 25 years ago, and nor do occasional work days (under 20 a year) or holidays and personal visits of up to six weeks a year or one three-month stay [3]. So the summer you spent in a Leiden student house in 2003 won't cost you anything; the two years you worked in Rotterdam in 2019 will.

Applying with your employer

1. Agree it in your contract. The ruling is something your employer chooses to give; it isn't owed. Get the gross salary, the allowance and what happens if the ruling is refused in writing.
2. Fill in the application with your employer. The Belastingdienst replies within eight weeks [3].
3. Apply in time. If the application goes in within four months of your start date, the scheme applies from your first working day [3]. Miss it and you lose the early months.
4. Check the decision. It shows the end date, up to five years from your start [3].

Changing jobs. Moving within the same group keeps the ruling. Moving to a different employer, you keep it if you start the new job within three months of leaving the old one and the new employer applies within four months [3].

The changes: 2024, 2025 and 2027

The scheme has been chopped and changed more often than an England midfield.

Source: Rijksoverheid, last updated 6 January 2026 [4].

So anyone signing a Dutch contract now gets 30% for 2026 and 27% from 2027, and from 2027 also faces a higher salary test. The government hasn't put the new 2027 figure on that page, so check the Belastingdienst's figures in January [4]. The old plan to step the allowance down from 30% to 20% to 10% over the five years has been replaced by this table.

Partial non-resident status has gone. Expats used to be able to opt to be treated as non-resident for Box 2 and Box 3, which kept UK savings and investments out of Dutch wealth tax. From the 2025 tax return that option has ended, except for people who used the scheme before 2024, who keep it until the 2026 return [3]. For most Brits arriving now, UK ISAs and savings fall into Dutch Box 3; see our guide to Box 3.

The UK end

The 30% ruling is purely Dutch. It doesn't change whether you've left the UK tax system, which is decided by the Statutory Residence Test, and you still tell HMRC you've gone, usually on form P85. If you keep a buy-to-let in Bristol or Birmingham, the rent stays taxable in the UK [5]. Our guide to Dutch taxes for Brits covers how the two systems fit.

A lower taxable salary can have knock-on effects on things calculated from it, so ask your employer and, if the sums are big, a tax adviser who knows both countries. And if you want to compare offers with people who've done it, our community group for Brits in the Netherlands is full of them.

Sources

1. Belastingdienst: Inhoud van de expatregeling (checked 8 November 2026)
2. Belastingdienst: Deskundigheidsvereiste (2026 salary norms, checked 8 November 2026)
3. Belastingdienst: Can I apply for the Expat Scheme (30% facility)? (last modified 12 January 2026)
4. Rijksoverheid: Expatregeling hoogopgeleide buitenlandse werknemers (updated 6 January 2026)
5. GOV.UK: Tax on your UK income if you live abroad

Keep reading

• Dutch taxes for Brits: the UK link and your State Pension
• Box 3: how the Dutch tax savings and investments
• Dutch residence for Brits: highly skilled migrant and self-employed routes
• The Statutory Residence Test explained