Leaving the Netherlands ends your Dutch resident tax liability on the day you actually move your life abroad, not on the day you deregister, and that date drives everything else: the M-form for the year of departure, the end of your 30% ruling, box 3 for part of the year, a possible preserving assessment on your Dutch pension, and Dutch gift tax that follows you for another year. Most of these points are settled in one return, filed the year after you leave, when there is little left to arrange.
The 30% ruling, your home, your pension and your savings each have their own rule for when the Dutch claim stops, and they do not all stop on the same day. For the return itself, we refer to The M-form: Dutch migration tax return; this article covers what goes into it.
In short
- Where you live for tax purposes is judged on all the facts. Deregistering from the municipal register is evidence, not proof.
- For the year you leave you file one return covering both periods, the M-form (M-biljet). For 2025, the filing window ran from 1 May to 1 July 2026, extendable to 1 November 2026.
- The 30% ruling runs until the last day of the pay period after the pay period in which your Dutch employment ended.
- Box 3 for the departure year is based on your assets on 1 January, reduced in proportion to the full months you were resident.
- A Dutch pension you built up with tax relief can trigger a preserving assessment (conserverende aanslag) when you leave. Shareholders with 5 percent or more face one on their shares.
- Anyone who lived in the Netherlands remains subject to Dutch gift tax for a year after leaving, whatever their nationality.
Leaving the Netherlands this year? Our emigration tax check sets out your departure in one document: the date your Dutch residence ends, your 30% ruling, pension, home, box 3 and the treaty with your new country. If you wish, we then prepare and file your M-form, with any requests that belong with it.
Emigration tax check (emigratie fiscale check): EUR 695 excl. VAT (EUR 840.95 incl. VAT), with M-form filing as an add-on from EUR 495 excl. VAT (EUR 598.95 incl. VAT). Emigration tax check → Holding 5 percent or more in a company? See Emigration for shareholders →
Ask your question by emailConfidential. Fixed price agreed in advance. Advice and filing under one roof. Member of the Dutch Register of Tax Advisers.
When do you stop being a Dutch tax resident when leaving the Netherlands?
You stop being a Dutch tax resident on the day the centre of your personal life moves abroad, judged on all the circumstances (article 4 of the General State Taxes Act, AWR): where your partner and children live, whether your Dutch home stays available, where you work and where your ties lie. No day count in Dutch law settles it.
Deregistering from the Personal Records Database (BRP) is required when you expect to spend at least two thirds of the coming year abroad, roughly eight months, and it is a sensible step, but it does not decide your tax residence. Someone who deregisters while the family stays in the Dutch home has usually not left for tax purposes. Keep evidence of the move from day one, such as the lease abroad, the end of your Dutch lease and your registration in the new country. If both countries regard you as resident, the tax treaty decides.
Which return do you file for the year you leave?
For the year of departure you file the M-form (M-biljet), a single return that covers the months you were resident and the months after you left. Up to the departure date you are taxed on your worldwide income; after it, only on Dutch-source income. Payroll tax withheld during the year assumed a full year of Dutch residence, so the outcome rarely matches it.
The M-form is filed online through Mijn Belastingdienst, with a DigiD or an accepted European login, or on a paper form you request. It becomes available later than the ordinary return: for 2025, it could be filed from 1 May to 1 July 2026, and anyone who requested an extension before 1 July had until 1 November 2026. The legal rule is that you file within the term the inspector sets, at least one month after the invitation, and that the term can be extended (article 9 AWR). Check the dates for the 2026 return on the Tax Administration's website before you plan around them.
When does the 30% ruling end if you leave the Netherlands?
The 30% ruling ends on the last day of the pay period following the pay period in which your Dutch employment ended (article 10ec, paragraph 1, of the Wage Tax Implementation Decree 1965). For someone paid monthly whose job ends in June, the ruling therefore runs until 31 July.
The option to be treated as a partial non-resident taxpayer, which kept savings and investments outside box 3 and box 2 for holders of the ruling, was abolished on 1 January 2025. Only employees who already received the 30% allowance in the last pay period of 2023 keep the option under transitional rules, which end on 31 December 2026 at the latest (article XIIA of the Tax Plan 2024). How the ruling itself works, including the reduction to 27% from 2027 and the transitional rules for older rulings, is explained in The 30% ruling.
How is box 3 taxed in the year you leave?
Box 3 in the departure year is calculated on your assets and debts as they stood on 1 January, and the resulting deemed return is reduced in proportion to the time you were resident, ignoring parts of calendar months (article 5.2, paragraph 6, Income Tax Act 2001). Leaving on 20 June therefore means five months of box 3 on the 1 January position, not five and two thirds.
After the departure date, box 3 only reaches Dutch assets, chiefly real estate located in the Netherlands (article 7.7 Income Tax Act 2001). Because the 1 January value counts, money spent before your departure, for example on a home abroad, still counts for the resident months.
What happens to your Dutch pension when you leave?
When you leave, the value of pension rights built up with Dutch tax relief is treated as wages, and the tax on it is laid down in a preserving assessment (article 3.83, paragraph 1, Income Tax Act 2001); similar rules apply to annuities (lijfrente) for which you deducted premiums (article 3.136). This applies to an ordinary employer pension with a Dutch pension fund as well, and it also applies if you remain registered in the Netherlands but a tax treaty treats you as a resident of the other country.
A preserving assessment is not a bill to pay. Payment is deferred until at most the start of the tenth year after the year to which the assessment relates (article 25, paragraph 5, Collection Act 1990), and if nothing happens to the pension in that time, the remaining amount can then be remitted on request (article 26, paragraph 2). The deferral ends if you surrender the pension or transfer it in a way the rules do not allow, so do not cash out or move a Dutch pension in those ten years without checking first. The mechanics are explained in Dutch in Conserverende aanslag bij emigratie.
Do you hold 5 percent or more of a company?
If you, alone or together with your partner, hold at least 5 percent of the shares in a company, you have a substantial interest (aanmerkelijk belang), and leaving the Netherlands is treated as a sale of those shares at market value (article 4.6 and article 4.16, paragraph 1, under h, Income Tax Act 2001). The gain is taxed in box 2 through a preserving assessment, with deferral of payment that ends on a later sale, a dividend or a repayment of capital. This is a separate and larger exercise, with a valuation of the company at the departure date; we deal with it under emigration for shareholders rather than in the emigration check.
What happens to your Dutch home after you leave?
A home you leave behind empty and up for sale continues to count as your main residence, with mortgage interest relief, during the year of departure and the three following years (article 3.111, paragraph 2, Income Tax Act 2001). If you let it, or the term runs out, the home becomes a Dutch asset in box 3, and you remain liable to Dutch tax as a non-resident taxpayer for as long as you own it (article 7.7).
A home that stays furnished and available to you is also one of the strongest facts against your departure. Letting it on a long lease or selling it supports the move.
What else stops when you leave?
Your state pension (AOW) depends on residence or on work in the Netherlands that is subject to Dutch wage tax (article 6 of the General Old Age Pensions Act), and the other national insurance schemes follow the same logic. Once you live abroad and no longer work here, you stop building up state pension rights, subject to EU and treaty coordination rules.
Rent benefit ends when you live abroad, and healthcare allowance generally ends with your Dutch health insurance, unless you keep that insurance, for example because you continue to work in the Netherlands. Stop allowances in good time, because amounts paid after you leave are reclaimed.
Does Dutch gift and inheritance tax follow you abroad?
Dutch gift tax follows anyone who lived here for one year after leaving, regardless of nationality, and Dutch nationals remain within gift and inheritance tax for ten years. The Inheritance Tax Act deems anyone who lived in the Netherlands and makes a gift within one year of leaving to have still lived here at the time of the gift (article 3, paragraph 2, Inheritance Tax Act 1956). The wider ten-year rule, under which a death or gift within ten years of leaving is treated as if you still lived here, applies only to Dutch nationals (article 3, paragraph 1).
That one-year rule is the trap that catches expats. An American or Indian engineer who leaves in March and, once settled, helps a child buy a first home in the autumn is making a gift that the Netherlands taxes as if the parent had never left, on the full worldwide gift and at Dutch rates for that relationship. Waiting until the year has passed, or making the gift before leaving with the Dutch exemptions in mind, can save the full amount of that tax. A treaty on inheritance and gift tax with the new country can change this, and whether that country also taxes the gift is a question for a local adviser.
Key rules at a glance
| Topic | Rule | Legal basis |
|---|---|---|
| Tax residence | Judged on all circumstances; deregistration is evidence only | Article 4 AWR |
| Return for the year of departure | M-form; for 2025 filed 1 May to 1 July 2026, extendable to 1 November 2026 | Article 9 AWR |
| End of the 30% ruling | Last day of the pay period after the pay period in which employment ended | Article 10ec, paragraph 1, Wage Tax Implementation Decree 1965 |
| Partial non-resident status | Abolished from 2025; transitional rules end 31 December 2026 | Article 2.6 Income Tax Act 2001 as it read on 31 December 2024; article XIIA Tax Plan 2024 |
| Box 3 in the departure year | 1 January position, reduced to full months of residence | Article 5.2, paragraph 6, Income Tax Act 2001 |
| Box 3 after departure | Only Dutch assets, chiefly Dutch real estate | Article 7.7 Income Tax Act 2001 |
| Dutch pension and annuity | Preserving assessment; deferral up to ten years, then remission on request if untouched | Articles 3.83 and 3.136 Income Tax Act 2001; articles 25(5) and 26(2) Collection Act 1990 |
| Shares of 5 percent or more | Deemed sale at market value; preserving assessment in box 2 | Articles 4.6 and 4.16 Income Tax Act 2001 |
| Empty home for sale | Main residence in the year of departure and three following years | Article 3.111, paragraph 2, Income Tax Act 2001 |
| Gift and inheritance tax | Gift tax: one year for anyone who lived in the Netherlands; gift and inheritance tax: ten years for Dutch nationals | Article 3 Inheritance Tax Act 1956 |
Frequently asked questions
Do I stop paying Dutch tax when I deregister from my municipality?
Not automatically. Your Dutch tax residence ends when the centre of your life has moved abroad, judged on all the facts. Deregistration supports that, but a family or home left behind in the Netherlands can mean you are still resident.
Do I have to file an M-form when I leave the Netherlands?
Yes, the M-form is the return for the year of departure. It covers both the months you were resident and the months after you left. For 2025 it could be filed from 1 May to 1 July 2026, with an extension to 1 November 2026 if requested in time.
When does my 30% ruling end if I leave the Netherlands?
On the last day of the pay period following the pay period in which your Dutch employment ended. For a monthly salary, the ruling therefore runs until the end of the month after the month in which the job ends.
Will I pay tax on my Dutch pension when I leave?
Not immediately. A preserving assessment is imposed with deferral of payment for up to ten years, and if the pension is left untouched in that period, the remaining amount can be remitted on request.
Can I give money to my children tax free after leaving the Netherlands?
Not in the first year. Anyone who lived in the Netherlands and makes a gift within one year of leaving is treated as still living here, whatever their nationality, so Dutch gift tax applies. Dutch nationals remain covered for ten years.
What happens to my Dutch house after I leave?
If it stands empty and is up for sale, it remains your main residence for the year of departure and the three following years. If you let it, it becomes a Dutch asset in box 3 and you remain liable to Dutch tax as a non-resident taxpayer.
Why this is bespoke work
Each item on this checklist has its own end date, and the dates interact: the day your residence ends sets the box 3 fraction, the pension assessment and the one-year gift period, while the end of your employment sets the end of the 30% ruling. What leaving costs depends on choices made before you go, not after.
We handle the Dutch side of leaving the Netherlands from start to finish: the analysis of your departure, the M-form with the requests that belong with it, and the non-resident returns for Dutch property in later years. For your new country we recommend a local adviser, with whom we coordinate. Our expat tax guide covers the Dutch rules for the years in between.
Law and regulations as of November 2026.
The information on this page is general and informative in nature and does not constitute tax, legal or financial advice. Amounts and dates apply to 2026 unless stated otherwise and may change. For application to your specific situation, we are glad to advise you personally.
Not sure which Dutch claims follow you after you leave? The emigration tax check gives you a written overview of your departure: when your Dutch residence ends, what the 30% ruling, your pension, your home and box 3 mean for the M-form, and how the treaty with your new country applies. Shareholders with 5 percent or more go to our emigration route for shareholders, where the preserving assessment on the shares is worked out.
Emigration tax check (emigratie fiscale check): EUR 695 excl. VAT (EUR 840.95 incl. VAT), with M-form filing as an add-on from EUR 495 excl. VAT (EUR 598.95 incl. VAT). Emigration tax check → For shareholders: Emigration for shareholders →
Ask your question by emailConfidential. Fixed price agreed in advance. Advice and filing under one roof. Member of the Dutch Register of Tax Advisers.