Netherlands Capital Gains Tax Ends the Paper-Profit Levy: 36% on Sale

The Netherlands capital gains tax that the Dutch cabinet now wants would kill the plan to tax investors on paper profits every year. Instead, shares, bonds and options would be taxed at 36% only when they’re sold, starting in 2028. The catch? Savers and small investors get squeezed hard in the meantime.

THE HAGUE, Netherlands – 3 October 2026

Prime Minister Rob Jetten and Finance Minister Eelco Heinen set out the U-turn in a letter to the House of Representatives dated 29 September. It follows months of revolt against the Box 3 Actual Return Act, which the lower house passed in February and which has been stuck in the Senate ever since.

Jetten said the government “has responded to the criticism voiced in both houses of parliament,” according to The National. Critics had warned that taxing unrealised gains would force people to sell assets just to pay the bill.

Is the Netherlands Unrealized Gains Tax Scrapped?

For most investors, yes, if parliament signs off. The cabinet’s 29 September letter proposes taxing shares, bonds and options only on sale from 2028, which drops the annual levy on paper gains for roughly 90% of appreciating Box 3 assets. The Senate hasn’t voted, so the original Box 3 Actual Return Act technically remains on the table.

We covered the original Netherlands unrealized gains tax when it stalled in August. The idea was simple and brutal: if your portfolio rose in value during the year, you’d owe 36% on the increase, cash or no cash. Shopify founder Tobias Lütke called it “the dumbest thing,” and a petition against it gathered 50,000 signatures in a week, as reported by The National.

Since February we’ve had a steady run of calls from Dutch residents holding concentrated stock positions, asking whether to leave before the law bit. What scared most of them was the cash-flow problem: paying real euros on gains they couldn’t spend. That fear is also why people with serious wealth started looking at offshore trusts and holding structures long before any vote.

How Will the Netherlands Capital Gains Tax Work From 2028?

The Netherlands capital gains tax would charge 36% on the actual gain when an investor sells shares, bonds or options, starting 1 January 2028. Each taxpayer gets a €1,000 tax-free return, down from the €1,800 the earlier bill promised. Real estate and start-up shares were already on a sale basis. Remaining assets, including crypto and savings, switch over by 2030.

KPMG’s Dutch tax arm, Meijburg & Co, notes that “other assets” stay under the capital growth approach until the 2030 switch. Deloitte names crypto among the assets that move last. So a Dutch bitcoin holder could still face tax on paper gains for two more years.

Who Pays More Under the Box 3 Changes in 2027?

Ordinary savers and small investors pay more under the Box 3 changes in 2027. The tax-free threshold drops from €59,357 to €30,846 per person, and the deemed return on investments rises by 1.5 percentage points. Someone with €50,000 in Box 3 assets moves from paying nothing to paying tax.

Read that number twice. The cabinet is halving the threshold to fund a reform that mostly helps people with large portfolios. It’s also raising money from business owners: the amount you can borrow from your own Dutch BV before it’s taxed falls from €500,000 to €100,000 in five steps. To sweeten that, the Box 2 rate on dividends from a substantial shareholding drops from 31% to 29.2% for four years.

About 2.5 million people fall into Box 3, according to NL Times. Many of them will feel the 2027 squeeze long before they ever see the 2028 relief.

Will the Dutch Senate Back the New Box 3 Plan?

The Dutch Senate will probably back it, though nothing’s locked in. Senators showed very little appetite for taxing paper gains during their summer debate and pushed for a broad capital gains tax instead, according to Meijburg & Co. The catch is that Jetten’s minority cabinet still needs opposition votes in both houses to pass the funding measures.

Early reactions were mixed. NL Times reported that GroenLinks-PvdA leader Jesse Klaver wants further talks, while JA21 called part of the financing “unacceptable” because it hits small investors. The bill itself, file 36748 at the House of Representatives, will need amending before anything changes on the ground.

The Netherlands Capital Gains Tax and Anyone Thinking of Leaving

Let’s be blunt. A sale-based tax rewards patience, and that’s good news for long-term holders. It also creates a new question nobody has answered yet: what happens to unrealised gains when a resident moves abroad?

Countries that tax on sale tend to bolt on an exit charge, because otherwise a mover simply sells after leaving. Norway’s exit tax is the cautionary tale here. We’d expect Dutch advisers to watch the draft law closely for anything similar, and anyone planning a move should get their timing right before the rules are written.

Bottom line: The Hague blinked on unrealized gains taxes, but Europe’s appetite for taxing wealth hasn’t gone anywhere. Hungary’s new wealth tax on fortunes above $3.1 million proves the point.

Netherlands Capital Gains Tax FAQ