Step 2: Filling your 2025 tax return: avoid surprises and seize opportunities

If you borrowed money in 2025 from your company, a family member or another person to be able to buy your home, you must state this loan separately on your tax return.

If you took out a loan from your own company in 2023 for your home, the condition is that a right of mortgage must be established in favour of the company.

Permanently or temporarily letting all or part of your home will affect your taxes. This is explained in more detail in this article.

If you made any donations (for which you have proof) to one or more public benefit organisations (known as ‘ANBIs’ in Dutch) in 2025, we advise you to make a list of these donations. If they meet certain conditions, donations are tax deductible. A distinction is made here between ‘one-off’ gifts and ‘recurring’ donations (a regular, ongoing donation).

A threshold and a maximum apply when deducting one-off gifts. No threshold applies to recurring donations, but you do need to meet a number of conditions, including that the donation is laid down in an agreement.

If you make a donation to a cultural public benefit organisation, you may deduct 1.25 times the donation amount from your income, up to a maximum of €1,250. You will reach this maximum if you give at least €5,000 to cultural public benefit organisations in a calendar year.

Expenses incurred due to sickness or disability are deductible under certain conditions. You may only deduct the medical expenses in the tax return for the year in which you paid these expenses if they were not reimbursed. Expenses that fall under the voluntary or compulsory excess are non-deductible.

You can set off the personal deductions (such as donations, medical expenses and spousal maintenance) against your income in Box 1, Box 3 and Box 2 (in that order). If you cannot fully set off your personal deductions against this income, you may set off the remainder against your income in a future year.

Regardless of your income, your medical expenses are deductible at a maximum rate of 36.93%, but the deduction of medical expenses is subject to a threshold amount that depends on your income and deductions.

In Box 3 (taxable income from savings and investments), you pay no tax on assets below your tax-free allowance of €57.684 (or €115.368 for tax partners). Any assets above that threshold are taxed at a flat rate – that means it’s the same for everyone. This tax rate is based on the assumed return on your savings and investments. 

If you would pay less tax based on the actual return rather than the assumed return, you are entitled to a refund of the excess tax paid. 

To qualify for the refund, you must be able to provide evidence of the actual return. The Dutch Tax and Customs Administration (Belastingdienst) is currently designing a form specifically for this purpose. As the form is expected to be available only from mid-2025, you’ll need to apply the assumed rate in your next tax return. The Belastingdienst will also release a form for pre-2025 tax years.

If you pay spousal maintenance to your ex-partner, the amount you pay is tax-deductible. Your ex-partner must declare the same amount as income on their income tax return. Child maintenance is not tax deductible, nor is it considered a form of deductible debt for the purpose of Box 3 either.

If you have moved out of your home on account of a divorce or separation in advance of a divorce, while your ex-partner continues to live there, you will be able to continue to use the mortgage interest deduction for your share of the ownership of the home for a maximum of 24 months after you move out.

You must then also declare the imputed rental value for your share of the ownership over that same period. This is balanced out by a spousal maintenance deduction of the same amount. After all, you have granted your ex-partner the benefit of occupying the property.

Given that the death occurred in 2025, this means that at 00:00 on 1 January 2025 you did not have any inheritance tax debt relating to this death yet. You can include this debt in your 2026 income tax return, which you can file with the Dutch Tax and Customs Administration from March 2026 onwards.

If so, you can generally include the amount of this debt in Box 3 of the tax return, regardless of whether you have already received an inheritance tax assessment from the Tax and Customs Administration for this.