The Dutch 30% ruling drops to 27% in 2027: your net pay and what to ask your employer

The Dutch expat tax break known as the 30% ruling drops to a maximum of 27% on 1 January 2027. Three percentage points sounds simple, but the effect varies widely. It depends on when your ruling started and on where your salary sits against a threshold whose final 2027 amount has not yet been published.

This article started from a paid-partnership piece on IamExpat (19 October 2026). We left out the partner's promotion and checked the facts against the Dutch Tax Administration (Belastingdienst), the government, the Staatscourant and parliamentary papers. All of it was checked on 1 November 2026.

For the wider budget, see "Prinsjesdag 2026 decoded". For assets, see "Dutch Box 3 tax changes". This piece stays on the ruling itself: how to estimate your own position and what to ask your employer. It is not individual tax advice.

The main sources are the Tax Administration's Handboek Loonheffingen 2026, section 19.4 (March 2026), the government's expat ruling page, parliamentary paper 36602 no. 41, and the Staatscourant notice on the 2027 cap.

1. What is settled and what is not

The 27% rate is not part of this autumn's budget debate. It was adopted in the 2025 Tax Plan (Stb. 2024, 434). Figure 1 sets out the steps so far and the one piece still missing. The dashed circle marks the amount not yet published.

The table below separates what is fixed from what is still moving.

So the sensible working assumption is that 27% stands and the salary norm is the figure to watch.

Could it still go back to 30%?

In December 2025, NL Times reported that a D66 and CDA coalition plan would reverse the cut. In March 2026, about 40 local politicians from the Amsterdam area called for the ruling to be abolished, blaming it for housing pressure.

The cabinet replied in a letter of 8 July 2026: the 2026 to 2030 coalition agreement says the ruling will not be cut further. Citing an evaluation by SEO, it put the price effect in Amsterdam at about 0.9% for rentals and 1.8% for owner-occupied homes, and net tax revenue at about €128.5 million a year.

"No further cuts" does not mean "back to 30%". The March 2026 handbook and The Hague International Centre (September 2026) both assume 27%, and we found no bill restoring 30%.

2. How the ruling actually works

The ruling, officially the expatregeling since 2025, lets an employer pay part of your salary as a tax-free allowance for the extra costs of working abroad, without proving those costs.

It is not a lower tax rate

Your tax rate does not change. Part of your pay is simply not taxed. The Tax Administration's own example: on €70,000, up to €21,000 is tax-free in 2026 and €49,000 is taxed. At 27%, that becomes €18,900 and €51,100.

The rate is a maximum. According to the Tax Administration, your employer does not have to use it and can agree a lower amount. Your contract matters here as much as the law.

The conditions

Researchers at designated institutions and doctors training as specialists have no salary norm. In sectors where nearly everyone clears the norm, such as professional football, scarcity must also be shown.

3. Which group are you in?

Your treatment depends on when the ruling was first applied to your pay. Figure 2 follows the government table and the handbook.

Here is the same information compared with today. In 2025 and 2026, everyone is on 30%.

The gap opens up for people who arrived most recently.

What counts is when it reached your payslip

The handbook's test is whether the ruling was actually applied to pay. You keep 30% if it was applied no later than the last pay period of 2023. You keep the existing norm if it was applied no later than the last pay period of 2024. If your decision date and first use are close together, check your payslips too.

A gap between jobs can cost you your group

If you change jobs, the transition survives only if you start with a new employer within three months and jointly request continuation. Anyone in the 30% group thinking about a move in 2027 should treat that three-month limit as a hard constraint.

4. The salary norm: four numbers and no final answer

This is where online information is messiest. Figures from different years and different price levels get presented side by side.

What has actually been published

The first three rows come from the Tax Administration. The new norm comes from the parliamentary paper, which says it will be indexed for 2025, 2026 and 2027. The handbook says outright that the 2027 norms will be higher than its figures.

One oddity: the government's Ondernemersplein site gives €38,388 for the under-30 norm. The parliamentary paper says €38,338, and the handbook's €39,450 follows from that figure (38,338 × 1.029). We use €38,338.

A working range for 2027

Until the final figure appears, a range is more useful than a false point estimate. These are our own calculations, not official figures.

The factor of 1.026 is the full 2027 inflation correction. The factor of 1.01248 is the reduced version proposed for income tax in the Tax Plan 2027 papers. The sources we could read do not say which one applies to the salary norm.

The trade journal Salaris Vanmorgen gives €52,521 at 2026 level, against the handbook's €51,899. The arithmetic suggests the first applies both the 2025 and 2026 indexation, and the second only 2026. We use about €53,250 below as a working number. The existing norm, on the same logic, lands at about €48,600 to €49,300.

The test uses pay after the allowance

The norm is tested against taxable salary, excluding the allowance. So the allowance can only go as far as leaving your taxable salary above the norm. In the handbook's example, someone on €50,000 in 2026 can receive only €1,986 tax-free, not €15,000.

Here is the gross salary needed to use the full rate.

The 2027 rows are our calculations. Only the newest group sees the line move up, by roughly €4,000 to €5,000.

Fall short and the ruling lapses

According to the handbook, the norm is tested per year. If pay falls short, the ruling lapses back to 1 January of that year and the employer corrects its returns. It does not come back if your pay later recovers.

There are protections. Part-year pay is annualised. Pay reduced by parental, pregnancy, birth, foster or adoption leave can be tested as if you had not taken leave. And the tax office's request form strongly advises agreeing that the allowance may be reduced to keep taxable pay above the norm. Without that agreement, you can lose the ruling. Ask whether yours has one.

Turning 30

The lower norm applies only until the end of the month you turn 30. It requires a Dutch master's degree from a research university or an equivalent foreign degree; the handbook names Nuffic as the body that can assess foreign degrees. A bachelor's degree does not qualify.

5. The WNT cap: €273,000 in 2027

The allowance can only be calculated on salary up to the limit in the Wet normering topinkomens (WNT), the public-sector top-pay law, also called the Balkenende norm. Since 1 January 2026 it applies to everyone, after the exemption for older rulings ended.

The Staatscourant published the 2027 amount on 24 August 2026. So IamExpat's line that the 2027 cap is "yet to be announced" is out of date.

The maximums are simple multiplication; SRA gives the same €73,710. At the top end, 27% users lose €4,890 of allowance, while 30% users gain €3,300.

Part-year users get a pro-rated cap. In the handbook's example, someone who starts on 17 June and earns €150,000 by year-end is limited to €42,324. If you change employer mid-year, the cap is split across employers.

6. Estimating your net pay

We are not calculating your tax, only the difference between 2026 and 2027 at the same gross salary.

1. Find your group in section 3.
2. Multiply gross pay by your rate to get the allowance.
3. Subtract it from gross. If the result is below the norm, cut the allowance.
4. Multiply the extra taxable pay by your marginal rate.

Your marginal rate is higher than the headline

As income rises, two tax credits shrink, which raises the real cost of each extra euro. We use the 2026 phase-out rates and the proposed 2027 rates. The 2027 credits are not final, so we show a range.

Estimates by salary

Figure 3 shows the allowance on €70,000. The newest group gets about €2,150 less than the 2024 group on the same pay.

The table covers people who started from 2025, at the same gross in both years.

Note that €70,000 costs more than €80,000. In the band where the norm bites, the loss is larger than 3 points.

The 2024 group mostly avoids this. On €70,000, €2,100 more becomes taxable, or about €800 to €1,070 a year (€67 to €89 a month). The by-2023 group has no change from the rate itself.

The bands around the norm

Figure 4 maps the newest group's 2027 gross pay. Note the left-hand band.

Someone on €53,000 who used a small allowance in 2026 would, without a raise, fall out of the ruling entirely in 2027 on these numbers.

What this leaves out

These estimates ignore pay rises and bonuses, the €173 increase in the labour tax credit, the general rise in tax rates on the rest of your pay, any employer top-up, and effects on income-tested benefits. A DutchNews partner article quotes an adviser saying most clients will see €50 to €100 a month. That figure has no independent source, but it broadly fits the full-allowance band above.

7. The 150 km rule and where you were hired

The handbook requires that in the 24 months before your first working day, you lived more than 150 km in a straight line from the Dutch border for more than 16 months. It adds that this rules out Belgium and Luxembourg, northern France, large parts of Germany and a small part of the UK.

There are two exceptions. People returning to the Netherlands whose earlier work here began within the last five years may qualify if they met the conditions the first time. PhD graduates who start work within a year of their doctorate may qualify if they met the distance test before starting their research.

8. Duration and the four-month deadline

Going to 27% does not extend your ruling. The 27% simply applies to what remains of your 60 months.

Five years is the maximum, and time spent living or working in the Netherlands in the 25 years before arrival is deducted. Up to 20 working days a year and up to six weeks of private stays a year are not counted. If you studied or worked here before, check the end date on your decision.

So a person starting on 1 February and applying on 15 June begins on 1 July, with no backdating. You and your employer both sign, and the tax office aims to reply within eight weeks.

On a job change, you need a new joint request within four months of starting, and the new job must begin within three months of the old one ending. The ruling ends on the last day of the pay period after the one containing your last working day. If you are placed on paid leave until your contract ends, it can stop earlier.

9. Other things that move with the ruling

Partial non-resident status ends

Under partial non-resident status, ruling users were treated as non-residents for Box 2 and Box 3, so foreign savings and investments stayed out of Dutch tax. It was abolished on 1 January 2025. Only people whose ruling applied in the last pay period of 2023 can still use it until 31 December 2026.

So even those who keep 30% declare worldwide Box 2 and Box 3 from tax year 2027, subject to treaty relief. The handbook also says the simplified arrangement that spared some employees a tax return runs out for this group in 2027, so some people may need to file for the first time. Box 3 itself is covered in our separate article, including the debated 2027 allowance.

Benefits, mortgages and pensions

No employee insurance premiums are due on the allowance, and the allowance does not count towards the daily wage for unemployment benefit. The Central Appeals Tribunal confirmed that in 2022. At 27%, the base grows slightly, which should also raise employer premium costs.

Lenders look at this too. An IamExpat partner article notes that on €90,000 the tax-free part falls from €27,000 to €24,300, and that the ruling lasts up to five years while a mortgage runs for 30. Ask a lender how they treat it. Whether pension contributions use pay with or without the allowance depends on your scheme.

The IND threshold is a separate test

The IND figures are from the official list and change each 1 January. Passing one test does not mean passing the other. More on permits is in our residence permits guide.

Actual costs instead of the fixed rate

An employer can instead reimburse your actual, provable extra costs tax-free. Since 1 January 2026, higher living costs, utilities and private calls home no longer count, and housing counts only above 18% of pay. The choice is made once a year, in the first pay period, so January 2027 is the moment for 2027. International school fees can in some cases be exempt separately.

10. Ten questions for your employer

The first four are the ones worth settling before the January payroll. Contract wording varies, so see also our employment contract guide.

For employers, the same list works as a review: map each ruling holder to a group, re-test taxable pay against the new norm, revisit net-pay and tax-equalisation promises, and check pay against IND thresholds. Tax equalisation itself is not an exempt cost, and the handbook allows spreading the allowance evenly or adjusting it at year-end.

11. Why figures differ between sources

Much of the confusion comes from different years and different definitions. The table below is a guide to reading other articles, not a ranking.

Sources: Expatica calculator, Expatica guide (updated July 2026), DutchReview (April 2026) and Xpat.nl. The Expatica guide also still describes the 30/20/10 step-down, which was dropped from 2025. ACCESS still has a line saying you can opt for partial non-residency. The Hague International Centre sensibly points readers to official sites for amounts.

12. Example cases (fictional)

These people are invented, and the numbers use our working norm.

Dev's case shows how the age limit can work. Until the month he turns 30, the full 27% applies (€15,660). After that, the standard norm cuts the allowance to about €4,750 on an annual basis. That change arrives in a single payslip, so he should ask payroll in advance.

13. A timetable for the coming weeks

1. This week: find your decision and payslips. Confirm your first-use date and end date.
2. In November: run the calculation in section 6.
3. In November: send the questions in section 10, starting with the first four.
4. In December: watch for final figures from the Tax Administration, for example in its payroll newsletter. The 2025 edition was dated 24 December 2024; this year's timing may differ.
5. By 31 December: if you used partial non-resident status, list your foreign accounts.
6. On 1 January 2027: record balances, including foreign ones.
7. In January: compare your payslip with your estimate and raise any differences.

14. Common mistakes

15. Key points

• The cut to 27% starts on 1 January 2027 and is already law.
• By 2023 keeps 30%, 2024 goes to 27%, from 2025 means 27% and a higher norm.
• The final 2027 norm is unpublished; €50,436 is in 2024 prices.
• If pay after the allowance falls below the norm, the ruling lapses back to January.
• The WNT cap for 2027 is €273,000.
• Partial non-resident status ends on 31 December 2026 at the latest.
• Ask your employer about your group, your allowance, a norm agreement and any top-up.

Sources

Government, parliament and courts

• Handboek Loonheffingen 2026, section 19.4 — Belastingdienst: detailed rules, transition, examples, 2027 norm notice
• Applying for the expat ruling — Belastingdienst: conditions, 2024 to 2026 norms, job changes
• Request form 2026 — Belastingdienst: four months, norm agreement
• Payroll rates 2026 — Belastingdienst: tax rates and credit phase-outs
• Partial non-resident status — Belastingdienst: transition
• Payroll newsletter 2025 — Belastingdienst: example of year-end publication timing
• Expat ruling — Rijksoverheid: group table and cap
• Ruling becomes 27% — Ondernemersplein: legal basis
• Parliamentary paper 36602 no. 41: 27%, new norms, transition
• Letter of 8 July 2026, 32140 no. 336: no further cuts; SEO figures
• Staatscourant 2026, 29611: 2027 WNT cap
• Tax Plan 2027 costings — Rijksfinanciën: 2027 inflation factors
• ECLI:NL:CRVB:2022:2032 — Central Appeals Tribunal: allowance and unemployment daily wage
• Income requirements — IND: 2026 thresholds

Trade press

• Expat ruling from 2027 at 27% — SRA: status in October 2026, €73,710
• Expat ruling in 2026 and 2027 — Salaris Vanmorgen: €52,521
• Tax brackets 2027 — Taxlive: proposed rates

Media for internationals

• 30% ruling changes in 2027 — IamExpat: starting point (paid partnership)
• Buying a Dutch home with the 30% ruling — IamExpat: mortgages (paid partnership)
• Mind the gap — DutchNews: net pay estimates (partner content)
• Officials call for abolition — NL Times: the debate
• D66, CDA coalition plan — NL Times: earlier reporting
• The 30% ruling — DutchReview: example of older figures
• The Dutch 30% ruling explained — Expatica: gross-equivalent figures
• Salary calculator — Expatica: example of an older cap
• The 30% ruling — Xpat.nl: example of older rules
• The Dutch tax system — ACCESS: example of an older statement
• Budget Day plans for 2027 — The Hague International Centre: 27%, step-down dropped
• The 30% expat ruling explained — The Hague International Centre: overview

All checked on 1 November 2026. Rules and amounts change, so confirm the latest figures on official sites before deciding anything. This article is general information, not individual tax advice.

Original article

30% ruling changes in 2027: What employers & internationals should know — IamExpat