Netherlands income tax brackets: 2024, 2025 and 2026 compared

In 2024 the Netherlands had two income tax bands. In 2025 it had three. That structural change is the most important thing about these years, and most pages comparing them do not mention it at all.

Three years side by side

Box 1 — income from employment and home ownership — for people below state pension age.

The top rate has been 49.50% in all three years. Everything else moved.

The rate did not fall the way it looks

The first band's combined rate went 36.97% → 35.82% → 35.75%. Read that as a tax cut and you have missed what actually happened, because that number is two things added together.

The national insurance component has not moved at all. It has been 27.65% in every one of these years. The entire decline in the headline rate comes from the income tax half, which fell by 1.22 points across three years.

This matters for a practical reason. National insurance is charged only inside the first band — above it, the rate is income tax alone. So the 27.65% that dominates the first band is not a tax rate that applies to your whole salary, and the 49.50% at the top is not the same kind of number as the 35.75% at the bottom. Quoting them side by side without saying so is the most common way this table gets misread.

What the 2024 structure means if you are looking back

In 2024 there was no middle band. Everything up to €75,518 was taxed at one combined rate, and only income above that hit 49.50%.

The 2025 reform split that long first band in two and put a lower rate on the bottom slice. For someone earning between roughly €38,000 and €76,000 the arithmetic is not a simple improvement — that income moved from the old 36.97% band into a new 37.48% band. The gain went to earners below the new split; the band above it pays slightly more than the single 2024 rate.

That is a real change in who pays what, and it is invisible in any table that only shows the current year.

What is not in this table

Tax credits. Everyone is entitled to the general credit, most employees to the labour credit, and both taper away as income rises. They can move an effective rate by several points, and they are not part of a bracket table.

The 30% ruling. If you are on the expat scheme, part of your salary is paid free of tax and these bands apply to the rest. The maximum share falls to 27% from 2027 — but only for people hired on or after 1 January 2024.

Box 2 and box 3. Income from a substantial shareholding and from savings and investments are taxed in separate systems at separate rates. Several widely-read guides quote box 2 rates on a page about box 1; if a source tells you the Dutch rate is 24.5% or 33%, that is what has happened.

Where these numbers come from

All three years are taken from the Tax Administration's own box 1 tables, which publish the years side by side, and the 2025 figures were checked a second time against its separate calculation page. Nothing here is taken from a summary.