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Business expenses

Which costs can a Dutch freelancer deduct, which share counts, and when do you get the VAT back? The rules per kind of cost, and how Peil keeps track.

What counts as a business cost?

A cost is a business cost when you make it for your business. Where you buy something doesn't matter; what it is for does. One supermarket receipt can hold coffee and fruit for your workplace (business) and the groceries for home (private).

Not every business cost counts in full. Dutch tax law has three kinds: costs you deduct in full, costs you deduct for 80%, and costs you can't deduct. On top of that you get the VAT (btw) back on most costs, but not on all of them.

Which share do you deduct?

ShareKind of costExamples
100%Ordinary business costsoffice supplies, software, your accountant, advertising, professional literature, workwear, train, taxi and flights for work, a workspace outside your home
80%Mixed costs (gemengde kosten)a business lunch, coffee and fruit for your workplace, a gift for a client, a congress or study trip
0%Private and not deductiblegroceries for home, your own lunch, ordinary clothing, the hairdresser, a fine, fuel and parking for your own car

What you deduct lowers your profit, and you pay income tax on the lower profit. So a €100 deduction doesn't save you €100: it saves you the rate you pay on your last euros of profit.

Food, drink and hospitality: 80%

Three kinds of costs are only partly deductible, including the travel and stay that go with them:

  • Food, drink and stimulants: business lunches and dinners (tip included), coffee, tea, milk and soft drinks.
  • Hospitality (representatie): receptions, festive gatherings, and business gifts. A present for a client is hospitality, not marketing.
  • Congresses, seminars, symposia, excursions and study trips.

Each year you choose in your tax return how to deduct them: everything above a threshold of €5,700, or 80% of the total. With less than €28,500 of mixed costs a year, 80% gives the larger deduction, which is true for nearly every freelancer. That's why Peil uses 80%.

For the travel and stay that go with a course or congress you deduct at most €1,500 a year, unless your work makes attending necessary.

What you eat and drink yourself is private: also your lunch on an ordinary workday, also at your own desk. Your own share of a business lunch with a client does count as a mixed cost.

Restaurants and cafés: the VAT stays in the cost

When you eat or drink in a restaurant, café or hotel, you don't get the VAT on that food and drink back. That VAT is simply part of the cost. Buy coffee and biscuits in a shop for your workplace and you do get the VAT back.

An example: a lunch with a client for €109, of which €9 VAT. The cost is the full €109, and you deduct 80% of it: €87.20. The same €109 of coffee and fruit from the supermarket costs you €100, because you get the €9 VAT back, and you deduct €80 of it.

Your own car: €0.25 per kilometre

If you use your own car, motorbike or bike for work, you deduct €0.25 per business kilometre in 2026 (€0.23 in 2024 and 2025). Commuting counts as business travel for income tax.

You can't deduct fuel, insurance, tolls and parking on top: they are included in the amount per kilometre. A fuel or parking receipt is therefore no cost for your tax return. What counts is how many business kilometres you drive, so keep track of them.

Public transport, taxis and flights for work are deductible in full. Keep your ticket, or an overview of your OV-chipkaart trips.

What you can't deduct

  • Fines: traffic and parking fines, administrative fines and penalty payments, also when you got them while working.
  • Clothing, except workwear: clothing you can (nearly) only wear for work, or with your business's logo of at least 70 cm².
  • Personal care, such as the hairdresser. Artists, presenters and professional athletes are exceptions.
  • General books and magazines. Professional literature is deductible.
  • A landline subscription at home. Business calls on it are deductible. For a mobile subscription the business share counts.
  • A workspace in your own home, unless it is a self-contained part of the house and you earn most of your income there. A workspace elsewhere, such as an office or a coworking desk, is deductible.
  • Things you own privately, such as a computer that isn't part of your business. Buy it for your work and it is a business purchase.

Courses: only to keep up

A course or training is deductible when you take it to keep your existing professional knowledge up to date. Learning something new, for instance for another profession, is not a business cost. The line isn't always sharp, the Belastingdienst says so too. If you're unsure, ask.

Large purchases: written off

Something of €450 or more (excluding VAT) that lasts longer than a year, such as a laptop, is a business asset. You don't deduct it at once but write it off over at least five years, so at most 20% a year. On your investments together you may also get the small-scale investment deduction (KIA).

How Peil handles your costs

In Peil you add a cost under Costs, with the receipt attached as a photo or PDF. Every cost gets a category, and the category decides which share counts:

  • 100%: Office and supplies, Software and subscriptions, Equipment, Travel and transport, Training and books, Marketing and advertising, Professional services, Other.
  • 80%: Restaurants and cafés (the VAT stays in the cost), Meals, drinks and hospitality, Conferences and study trips.
  • 0%: Private and Fines. Peil still keeps them, so your receipts and your overview stay complete.

When Peil reads your receipt for you, it picks the category from what was bought, not from the shop: groceries for home go to Private, a restaurant bill to Restaurants and cafés, a fuel or parking receipt to Private. You always see the suggestion and can change it.

Does one receipt mix business and private purchases, such as coffee for your workplace and groceries for home? Open the receipt's lines and mark the private purchases. Anything you don't tick counts as business, and the category applies to those business lines. You don't get the VAT on the private lines back. When every line shows its VAT rate, Peil works out the VAT per line; otherwise it splits the VAT in proportion to the amounts. On a receipt with both 9% and 21%, that is an approximation.

Peil only removes VAT from costs when you can deduct it. Private expenses and fines are not deductible, and you can't reclaim VAT on them. With reverse-charged VAT, you report the VAT yourself; you can deduct it as input VAT only to the extent the purchase is used for VAT-taxable turnover. If you use the KOR, you don't deduct VAT.

What Peil doesn't do yet

  • The €5,700 threshold instead of 80%. It only gives more above €28,500 of mixed costs a year.
  • A business share of costs you also use privately, such as your phone or internet. A purchase now counts in full or not at all.
  • Business kilometres with your own car.
  • The €1,500 limit on travel and stay for courses and congresses.
  • The VAT on business gifts above €227 per recipient per year, which you then don't get back.
Peil uses these rules to estimate your profit and your tax ahead of time. It is not bookkeeping and not a tax return. If you're unsure about a cost, ask your accountant.

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