Your 2025 income tax return: here’s what’s changed
Every year, you need to submit an income tax return for the previous year. This year, you’ll file your return for 2025. And like in most years, some rules have changed. This article will take you through the most important ones.
Declaring your actual return: now a standard option in your tax return
As of 2025, the ‘Submit Actual Return’ form has been integrated in your tax return. This means you no longer need to complete a separate form to declare the actual return on your assets. If you do choose to report the actual return, you’ll need to provide the required information yourself, as the Dutch Tax and Customs Administration doesn’t have access to it. Click here to read more about tax on the actual return on your assets.
Estimates of assumed rate of return
For 2025, the assumed rates of return are 1.37% for bank balances and 2.70% for debt. These rates are calculated by tax specialists. Compared to the rates used in your provisional assessment, these rates are slightly lower for bank balances and slightly higher for debt. The provisional assessment stated that there may be minor differences due to rounding, but these are limited to the nearest hundredth place. The assumed rate for other assets is 5.88%, as previously announced.
Extra bracket in Box 1
A third tax bracket has been added to Box 1 with effect from 1 January 2025. The original first bracket has been split into two parts. The first part, i.e. income up to €38,441, is taxed at a lower rate of 35.82%. The second part, income from €38,441 to €76,816, is taxed at 37.48%. And any income above €76,816 is taxed at 49.5% (unchanged).
The Dutch government has introduced this extra bracket to lower the tax burden on median income earners, so that their net income is higher. However, as the general tax credit is also being lowered, this saving will be limited.
Reduced tax breaks on green savings and investments
As of 1 January 2025, the tax-exempt threshold on green investments is €26,312, or €52,624 for tax partners. This is significantly lower than the previous tax year. This tax exemption applies only to green savings and investments that you held on 1 January 2025.
Averaging scheme scrapped
If you had large fluctuations in your income from year to year, you used to be able to claim money back through the averaging scheme. This scheme was available in 2022, 2023 and 2024, but was scrapped on 1 January 2023 and is therefore no longer an option for tax returns for 2025.
Gold coins now considered ‘other assets’
You may wonder whether gold coins that you hold as investments (Box 3) are legally considered cash. A Dutch court has provided an answer: under a ruling made at the end of 2025, gold coins are part of your ‘other assets’ (Box 3). They are therefore subject to the higher assumed rate of return, unless you declare the actual rate of return.
Rules for cryptocurrencies
You also need to declare your cryptocurrencies on your income tax return. For 2025, you must declare the market value of your cryptocurrencies as at midnight at the beginning of 1 January 2025, based on the exchange rate of the exchange platform you used.
As of 1 January 2026, crypto platforms have a legal obligation to collect and verify user data and share it with the Dutch Tax and Customs Administration. The Dutch and Tax and Customs Administration may use this data to check your tax return, but you will need to declare your cryptocurrencies yourself on your tax return. They will not be filled in for you.
This new rule will really come into play in the years after 2025 and has less of an impact on your current tax return.
