The 30% ruling — what it's worth, and what you lose when it ends

Tax & expat pay First published July 2026 · interactive tool · 5 min read

The 30% ruling (the expatregeling) lets an employer pay part of your salary as a tax-free allowance — up to 30% of it — if you were recruited from abroad and meet the conditions. It is one of the biggest single factors in an expat's take-home pay, and two questions come up again and again: how much is it actually worth to me? and how much will my net drop when it changes or ends?

This calculator answers both. It shows your estimated net salary three ways, side by side: with the 30% allowance (the 2026 rate), with the 27% allowance (the lower rate that applies from 2027 — see the note below on who that hits), and with no ruling at all — what you fall back to when your five years are up.

How is the number worked out?

The mechanics are simpler than the result looks. Up to 30% of your gross salary is paid as a tax-free allowance, so only the remaining 70% is taxed. That smaller taxable salary then runs through the normal Dutch system: the Box 1 brackets (35.75%, 37.56% and 49.50% in 2026), minus the two big tax credits — the algemene heffingskorting (general credit) and the arbeidskorting (employment credit). Your take-home is your gross salary less the tax actually paid.

There is a subtlety worth knowing, because it is where the benefit is quietly larger than people expect: both credits taper as income rises. By lowering your taxable salary, the ruling can hand back more credit as well as less tax — so the gain is usually a bit more than “30% × your top rate.” The step-by-step panel in the calculator shows each piece.

When don't you get the full 30%?

The full 30% is not always available. First, your taxable salary after the allowance must stay at or above a minimum — €48,013 in 2026 (or €36,497 if you are under 30 with a master's degree). If 30% would push you below that line, the allowance is trimmed so you stay on it, and below the threshold itself the ruling gives nothing. Second, the allowance only applies to salary up to the €262,000 cap, so the most tax-free pay it can produce in 2026 is €78,600. The calculator flags both situations as they arise.

The change to 27% — and who it actually hits

From 1 January 2027 the rate falls from 30% to 27%. Whether it applies to you depends on when your ruling started.

If your ruling was already running before 2024, you are grandfathered — you keep the full 30% for the rest of your term, and the 27% change does not touch you. If your ruling started in 2024 or later, you move to 27% from 2027. (Separately, the higher salary thresholds phasing in from 2027 also have their own transitional treatment.) Set the “when did your ruling start” switch in the calculator and it tells you which applies.

One note on the 27% column: to isolate the effect of the rate cut, it applies 27% to the 2026 tax figures. The real 2027 brackets, credits and thresholds will be indexed, so treat that column as “the rate change, all else equal” rather than a precise 2027 forecast.

What this tool deliberately leaves out

It is a salary-only estimate, built to answer the take-home question cleanly. It assumes you are under the AOW (state pension) age and treats your salary as your only income. It does not model pension contributions, the 30% ruling's interaction with a company car or bonuses, the income-dependent combination credit for parents, mortgage interest relief, or your Box 3 wealth. It also does not check whether you qualify for the ruling in the first place — that is a separate set of conditions (recruited from abroad, the 150 km rule, employer application). And the ruling lasts a maximum of five years; the “no ruling” column is what you land on when that runs out.