Going ZZP: freelancing in the Netherlands

Becoming a zzp’er takes about an hour and 85.15 euro.

Staying one profitably takes rather more attention, because the tax reliefs that made Dutch freelancing attractive are being dismantled on a published schedule, and the rules on who counts as genuinely self-employed have teeth again after nearly a decade of deliberate non-enforcement.

Zzp stands for zelfstandige zonder personeel, self-employed without staff.

It is not a legal form.

The legal form almost everyone uses is the eenmanszaak, the sole trader, and that is what you register.

Registering at the KVK

You start the registration online at kvk.nl and finish it in person at a KVK office, where you pay 85.15 euro in 2026 by card.

Cash is not accepted.

That single payment is the whole cost of registration; there is no annual fee for staying on the register.

Bring valid identification and the address at which the business is established, which can be your home.

The KVK passes the registration to the Belastingdienst automatically, and your btw-nummer and btw-identificatienummer arrive by post within roughly a fortnight.

The btw-id is the one you print on invoices and websites, because it does not contain your BSN.

The Hague is an unusually good city in which to do this.

The concentration of international organisations, embassies and NGOs means a large market for translation, communications, research, IT and legal work conducted entirely in English, which is not true of most Dutch cities.

VAT, quarterly, forever

Most freelancers file a btw return every quarter.

You charge 21% on most services, 9% on a defined list including books and food, and 0% on certain cross-border supplies.

You reclaim the VAT on business costs and pay the difference.

The trap is cash flow rather than complexity.

VAT collected is not your money, and a quarter in which you invoice well and spend the proceeds ends with a payment demand you have already eaten.

Open a separate account and move the VAT into it the day each invoice is paid.

If turnover stays under 20,000 euro a year, the kleineondernemersregeling is worth considering.

Under the KOR you charge no VAT and file no VAT returns, and in exchange you cannot reclaim any.

You must register at least four weeks before the start of a quarter.

Since 1 January 2025 you may leave the scheme without waiting out the old three-year lock-in, which makes trying it far less risky than it used to be.

The deductions, and how quickly they are shrinking

Three reliefs decide what a Dutch freelancer actually pays.

The zelfstandigenaftrek is 1,200 euro in 2026.

It was 2,470 euro in 2025 and is scheduled to fall to 900 euro in 2027.

If you built a plan on figures from an older guide, rebuild it.

The startersaftrek adds 2,123 euro on top, claimable in at most three of your first five years.

Together the two come to 3,323 euro off profit for a qualifying starter in 2026.

The mkb-winstvrijstelling is 12.7% of profit in 2026, applied after the ondernemersaftrek has been taken off.

It carries no hours requirement, so every entrepreneur for income tax purposes gets it.

The zelfstandigenaftrek and startersaftrek do carry one: the urencriterium of 1,225 hours a year spent on the business, which works out at about 23.5 hours a week across a full year.

Keep a contemporaneous record of hours, including unbilled hours spent on admin, marketing and training.

Reconstructing it two years later under questioning is not a position you want to be in.

Schijnzelfstandigheid, which is the real risk now

The Wet DBA makes client and contractor jointly responsible for classifying the working relationship correctly.

Between 2016 and 2024 it was essentially not enforced.

Since 1 January 2025 it is.

The test is how you actually work, not what the contract says.

Do you set your own hours, use your own equipment, decide how the work is done, and stand outside the client’s management chain?

Or do you sit in their team, at their desk, on their rota, doing what their employees do?

Existing model agreements stay valid until the end of 2029, but the Belastingdienst is explicit that the paperwork does not settle the question.

Enforcement in 2026 remains a soft landing.

Inspectors can impose back-tax assessments for misclassification, and a visit and a warning normally come first, with the failure-to-comply penalties still held back for the year.

Misclassification costs the client payroll taxes and social contributions, and costs the freelancer the entrepreneur reliefs, the zelfstandigenaftrek and the startersaftrek among them.

A further tightening is proposed: a new Zelfstandigenwet, put forward to start on 1 January 2028, built around entrepreneurial risk and genuine independence.

If you have one client who provides most of your income, treat that as a live commercial risk rather than a paperwork question, and read it alongside what a Dutch employment contract would give you instead.

Nobody is insuring you

An employee who falls ill keeps being paid for up to two years.

A zzp’er who falls ill stops earning that day.

There is no employer, no sick pay and no unemployment benefit.

Private arbeidsongeschiktheidsverzekering is the standard answer and it is expensive, with premiums rising steeply with age and with the riskiness of the work.

The cheaper alternative many Dutch freelancers use is a broodfonds, a mutual scheme of small groups making monthly donations to whoever among them is ill.

It is not insurance and it does not cover long-term disability, but it covers the common case.

A compulsory basic disability insurance for the self-employed, the BAZ, has been drafted and sent to the Council of State.

It is not in force.

Do not wait for it.

Nor is anyone building your pension.

Employees accrue a second-pillar pension automatically; the self-employed accrue nothing beyond the state AOW unless they arrange it.

How the Dutch pension system fits together is worth reading before you decide that this year’s profit is all spendable.

The rest of the administration

Invoices must carry your KVK number, your btw-id, a sequential invoice number, the date, and the VAT rate and amount.

Records must be kept for seven years.

You file an income tax return as an entrepreneur rather than as an employee, which means the simple March deadline an employee lives by is a good deal more involved for you.

Your assessed income also drives everything downstream: the allowances, the income-related healthcare contribution and the amount you pay for health insurance.

Freelance income is volatile and the allowance system assumes it is not, which is the single most common source of repayment demands.

Most freelancers here use a bookkeeper for the quarterly VAT and an accountant once a year.

Bookkeepers in The Hague charge a fraction of what accountants do and handle the routine filings perfectly well.

If you plan to work from somewhere other than the kitchen table, coworking spaces are also a legitimate business expense, and a registered business address that is not your home.

Sources

• KVK, belastingtarieven 2026: the zelfstandigenaftrek of 1,200 euro in 2026 down from 2,470 euro in 2025 and falling to 900 euro in 2027, the mkb-winstvrijstelling at 12.70%, the urencriterium of 1,225 hours, and the 20,000 euro KOR threshold with the 100,000 euro EU-KOR limit
• Belastingdienst, mkb-winstvrijstelling 2026: 12.7% of profit after the ondernemersaftrek
• Rabobank and Informer, startersaftrek 2026: 2,123 euro, claimable in three of the first five years, on top of the zelfstandigenaftrek
• KVK and Finom, KVK inschrijfkosten 2026: the one-off registration fee of 85.15 euro paid by card at a KVK office, with no further fee for remaining registered
• KVK, wet DBA voorkom schijnzelfstandigheid: shared responsibility of client and contractor, the criteria for genuine self-employment, back-tax assessments and fines, model agreements valid to the end of 2029, and the proposed Zelfstandigenwet from 1 January 2028
• ZZP Nederland and Jongbloed Fiscaal Juristen: the extension of the soft landing through 2026, with back-tax assessments possible but failure-to-comply penalties held back, and business visits and warnings used first
• Belastingdienst, kleineondernemersregeling: registration at least four weeks before a quarter begins, no VAT charged and none reclaimable, and the removal of the three-year lock-in from 1 January 2025
• Beleiduitgelegd.nl and ZZP Nederland on the BAZ: the compulsory basic disability insurance for the self-employed sent to the Council of State for advice and not yet in force