TL;DR: What does the Belastingplan 2027 change for founders with a BV?
In the revised tax package of 3 November 2026, the Dutch cabinet proposes lower box 2 rates for 2027 to 2030: 23.5% instead of 24.5% on the first bracket and 29% instead of 31% above it. In 2031 the rates go back up. In the same bill, the cap on what you can borrow from your own BV drops from €500,000 to €100,000 in five yearly steps. Nothing is law yet: the Tweede Kamer votes on 12 November, and the Eerste Kamer has not set dates.
Developing story. Last updated 5 Nov 2026, 22:15 CET. On 4 November two opposition MPs tabled an amendment that pushes box 2 the other way: a 33% top rate and a €17,500 cap on loans from your BV (see the update below). We'll update this article as the Tweede Kamer debates and votes on the package, and when the Eerste Kamer sets its dates.
The Belastingplan 2027 debate opened in the Tweede Kamer on Wednesday 4 November 2026, and Google logged more than 10,000 searches for it in the Netherlands that day. Most of the noise is about box 3, the tax on savings and investments, and you can read what the box 3 delay means for founders and angel investors. For anyone who owns a BV, the bigger change sits in box 2, the tax on dividends and share sales from your own company. Here is what the cabinet proposes, what it costs or saves you in euros, and what to do before 31 December.
What did the cabinet change in the Belastingplan 2027 on 3 November?
On 3 November 2026 minister Eelco Heinen and state secretary Eelco Eerenberg sent the Tweede Kamer a letter with changes to the tax plan and box 3. Three moves matter for founders. The new capital gains tax in box 3 slips to 2029 at the latest. The planned 2027 cuts to the box 3 tax-free allowance and the higher presumed return are dropped. To pay for that, both box 2 rates fall for four years, a choice the letter says is in line with input from parties in both chambers.
One detail trips up even tax newsletters: the box 2 cut sits in a separate bill, the Novelle uitbreiding vermogenswinstbelasting box 3 (Kamerstuk 37 053), sent the same day, next to the Belastingplan 2027 bill (Kamerstuk 37 022). Both are part of the tax package the Kamer votes on 12 November, so a vote against the novelle takes the box 2 cut down with it.
The 2026 figures come from the Income Tax Act 2001 as it stands today. The 2027 bracket threshold changes with indexation, and the cabinet has not published the new amount.
How is this different from the September plan?
The letter of 29 September 2026 only touched the top rate: 31% down to 29.2% from 2027, for four years, with the low rate staying at 24.5%. Advisers who wrote about box 2 in October still quote that 29.2%. The 3 November version goes further on both brackets, so update any spreadsheet built in October.
Why does the cabinet cut box 2 for four years only?
The goal is cash out of BVs. The September letter says the lower rate pushes entrepreneurs to take locked-up money out of their company at a lower rate. The explanatory memorandum to the novelle is blunt about the timing it expects: less revenue in 2026 because owners wait for the lower rate, more in 2027, and "een grote eenmalige extra opbrengst" (a large one-off extra yield) in 2030, as owners pay out before the rates rise again in 2031.
Read that as a forecast of your peers' behaviour. The Ministry of Finance expects a dividend rush in December 2030, and it budgets the rate cut at €575 million a year in 2027 to 2030. The memorandum also links the cut to the loan cap: the lower rate partly compensates shareholders for the tighter limit on borrowing from their BV.
How much does the lower box 2 rate save on a dividend?
Box 2 taxes two things for anyone holding 5% or more of a company: the benefits you draw from the shares, such as dividends, and the gains when you sell them. That comes straight from article 4.12 of the Income Tax Act. Here is what the change means at three sizes (our calculation, using the 2026 threshold of €68,843 for both years and no other box 2 income).
A founder who takes a modest yearly dividend saves a few hundred euros. The real money is in large payouts and exits: on a €2 million sale held in your own name, the four-year window is worth close to €40,000. These examples assume you hold the shares in your own name. With a personal holding company the timing differs, so run the numbers for your own structure. Our guides to CEO salary decisions in bootstrapped startups and bootstrapped exit strategies cover the salary-versus-dividend and exit sides.
What happens to loans from your own BV?
Since 2023 the Dutch rule on excessive borrowing from your own company (wet excessief lenen) taxes debt to your BV above €500,000 as if it were a dividend. The law measures the debt at the end of each calendar year, counts you and your partner together, and leaves out home loans for which the BV holds a mortgage right. The novelle keeps that mechanism and lowers the cap year by year.
Take a founder who owes her BV €450,000 and repays nothing (our example, no other box 2 income, 2026 bracket). At the end of 2027 she is €30,000 over the cap and pays €7,050. Every amount taxed raises her personal cap, so from 2028 she pays tax on €80,000 a year. By the end of 2031 she has been taxed on €350,000 in total, about €85,600 in box 2 tax, for money she already had in her pocket. Repaying the loan, or turning part of it into a dividend in 2027 to 2030 at the lower rate, changes that picture. The bill text has no transition rule for existing loans.
If the loan financed your house, check the paperwork: only a home loan with a mortgage right granted to the BV stays outside the cap. A clean set of startup bookkeeping basics makes this check a ten-minute job.
What we know so far
Update 5 Nov, 22:15 CET: during the first day of the debate, MPs Klaver and Dassen tabled amendment 37 022 nr. 35 to the Belastingplan 2027 (received 4 November). It is a Proposed change from the opposition, not the cabinet's plan. For BV owners it would:
- raise the top box 2 rate by 2 points, from 31% to 33%, the rate that applied in 2024;
- cut the cap on loans from your own BV from €500,000 to €17,500, the same amount as the current-account limit, in one step instead of the cabinet's five;
- end the exception for home loans with a BV mortgage, from 1 January 2029;
- abolish the box 2 roll-over relief (doorschuifregeling) for gifts and inheritances of a 5%+ stake, with transitional rules for requests made before 2029;
- add a 45% top rate in box 3 above about €80,578 of box 3 income from 2029, and use the money to raise the general tax credit by €180.
The texts don't say how a 2-point rise in the Belastingplan would combine with the cabinet's 29% in the separate novelle. Taxence reports that PRO and Volt offer it in exchange for support for the tax plan, that D66 is open to talks and that the VVD rejects it as contrary to the coalition agreement. On 5 November the Tweede Kamer's temporary committee on fundamental rights decided to start an advice track on the novelle, under reserve of how the bill proceeds (bill page 37 053). The vote stays on 12 November.
- 29 September 2026: the cabinet plans a top box 2 rate of 29.2% for 2027 to 2030.
- 2 November: the Council of State advises dropping the 2028 box 3 plan.
- 3 November: an extra cabinet meeting approves the revised package; the novelle with 23.5% and 29% goes to the Tweede Kamer.
- 4 November, 15:30: the plenary debate on the Belastingplan 2027 starts. It continues on Tuesday 10 November from 16:30.
- 4 November: MPs Klaver and Dassen table amendment 37 022 nr. 35: 33% top box 2 rate and a €17,500 BV-loan cap.
- 5 and 9 November: written questions on the novelle are due on Thursday 5 November, the answers by Monday morning, and a legislative committee meeting follows on Monday 9 November.
- 12 November: the Tweede Kamer votes on the Belastingplan package and the novelle.
What we don't know yet
- Whether the novelle wins a majority in the Tweede Kamer on 12 November.
- When the Eerste Kamer handles the novelle. Its page on the Belastingplan 2027 shows no dates yet. In our reading, the lower rates can only start on 1 January 2027 if both chambers pass the bill in time.
- The 2027 box 2 bracket threshold after indexation.
- Whether the Klaver and Dassen amendment (33% top rate, €17,500 loan cap) finds a majority on 12 November, and how it would combine with the cabinet's 23.5% and 29% in the novelle.
- Whether the new box 3 capital gains tax starts in 2028 or 2029.
Which other bills in the package touch founders?
The package also holds the bill on tax incentives for start-ups and scale-ups (Kamerstuk 37 024), which changes the taxation of employee stock options and abolishes the stakingsaftrek and the meewerkaftrek. The cabinet's 3 November amendment to it is technical, and it goes to the vote on 12 November with the rest. If you plan an option pool, start with our guide to equity and stock option plans. For context on tax as a share of your running costs, see what a tech startup really pays in nine European countries.
What does the Belastingplan 2027 mean for you?
- Hold any December 2026 dividend until after 12 November. If the novelle passes both chambers, waiting until January saves 1 to 2 percentage points.
- Add up your debt to the BV today, your partner's included, and compare it with €420,000 for the end of 2027. If the opposition amendment passed instead, the limit would be €17,500, so know your number either way.
- Plan payouts for 2027 to 2030. The cabinet itself expects owners to empty BVs before 2031, so spread large dividends over the cheap years and keep enough cash for the first-year cash flow your company needs.
- Model a share sale before 2031 if an exit is near: 2 points on the gain adds up fast.
- Check your home loan: without a mortgage right for the BV it counts toward the cap.
- Pay yourself on purpose. If you are still pre-revenue, read how to pay yourself while bootstrapping before you take money out at all.
- Talk to your adviser after the vote, with your own numbers and this article's tables.
Founders in the UK face a similar four-year puzzle with the 10% Founders' Relief from April 2027, so exit timing is a tax question on both sides of the North Sea this year.
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FAQ: Belastingplan 2027 and box 2
What is the box 2 rate in 2027?
Under current law it stays at 24.5% and 31%. The cabinet proposes 23.5% on the first bracket and 29% above it for 2027 to 2030, in the box 3 novelle (Kamerstuk 37 053). An opposition amendment of 4 November (37 022 nr. 35) proposes a 33% top rate instead. The Tweede Kamer votes on 12 November 2026.
Is the box 2 cut part of the Belastingplan 2027?
It belongs to the same tax package, in a separate bill: the Novelle uitbreiding vermogenswinstbelasting box 3, sent to the Tweede Kamer on 3 November 2026.
Does the lower box 2 rate apply when I sell my company?
Yes, if you hold the shares in your own name. Box 2 taxes both dividends and gains on selling a 5% or larger stake, so a sale in 2027 to 2030 pays 29% instead of 31% on the part above the first bracket.
What is the new limit for borrowing from my own BV?
As proposed: €420,000 at the end of 2027, then €340,000, €260,000, €180,000 and €100,000 at the end of 2031, for you and your partner together. Today it is €500,000. An opposition amendment of 4 November would cut it to €17,500 and end the home-loan exception from 2029; the Kamer votes on both on 12 November.
Should I pay out a dividend in December 2026 or January 2027?
If the novelle passes both chambers before 1 January 2027, January is cheaper by 1 to 2 percentage points. Wait for the 12 November vote and the Eerste Kamer schedule before you decide.
What happens to box 3 in the revised plan?
The new capital gains tax moves to 2029 at the latest, and the 2027 cuts to the tax-free allowance are dropped. Our box 3 article covers the details for founders and angel investors.
About the Author
Violetta Bonenkamp, also known as MeanCEO, is an experienced startup founder with an impressive educational background including an MBA and four other higher education degrees. She has over 20 years of work experience across multiple countries, including 5 years as a solopreneur and serial entrepreneur. Throughout her startup experience she has applied for multiple startup grants at the EU level, in the Netherlands and Malta, and her startups received quite a few of those. She’s been living, studying and working in many countries around the globe and her extensive multicultural experience has influenced her immensely.
