Box 3 Tax in the Netherlands: should you file the ‘Opgaaf Werkelijk Rendement’?
If you hold bank accounts, savings, investments, or rental properties in the Netherlands, you may be familiar with Box 3 taxation. Normally, the Dutch Tax Administration (Belastingdienst) taxes a deemed return on your assets rather than the actual income you earned.
Following recent court rulings, taxpayers can choose to report their actual returns instead of the deemed return. Doing so can potentially reduce your Box 3 tax liability.
To allow taxpayers to report actual returns, the Dutch Tax Administration introduced the Opgaaf Werkelijk Rendement (OWR) form. Starting July 2025, taxpayers began receiving letters with the deemed return for a given tax year, along with the option to report their actual return.