Box 3 in plain language: what you pay now and what is still changing

Box 3 is the Dutch tax on what you own, not on what you earn. The system has been under pressure for years and is moving again. So a note up front.

This is an explanation and not tax advice. Rules and amounts can change every year and the law for 2028 is not finished. Always check with the Dutch Tax Administration (Belastingdienst) what applies to your year. I could not open the Belastingdienst site when I wrote this, so the amounts below come via SRA and Rabobank, who base themselves on the official figures.

What falls under it?

Box 3 holds your wealth that is not in your own business or your own home. Think savings, investments, shares, bonds, a second home and crypto. According to Grant Thornton, crypto is as a rule private wealth in box 3, whether you hold it on an exchange, with a broker or in your own wallet. Debts reduce it to some extent.

How it works now: the assumed return

You do not pay on what you actually earned, but on a return the government assumes. That is called the flat rate return (forfaitair rendement). For 2026, SRA and Rabobank give these percentages:

• Bank and savings balances: 1.28 percent (provisional, final early 2027)
• Investments and other assets, crypto included: 6 percent
• Debts: 2.70 percent (provisional, final early 2027)

You pay 36 percent tax on that assumed return. The rate is the same as in 2025.

The reference date: 1 January

What counts is your wealth on 1 January of the tax year. What happens afterwards does not count. If your portfolio rises or falls during the rest of the year, your bill does not change. Grant Thornton puts it this way: you pay even if your investments lose value.

The exemptions

According to SRA and Rabobank, the tax free allowance in 2026 is €59,357 per person, and €118,714 for fiscal partners together. You pay nothing on that amount. There is also a debt threshold of €3,800 per person.

SRA also lists an exemption for cash of €672 per person and an exemption for green investments of €26,715 per person.

A worked example

This example is invented and simplified. It is not a calculation for your situation.

Say you are single and on 1 January 2026 you hold only €100,000 in investments. No debts, no savings.

The assumed return is 6 percent of €100,000: €6,000. Your wealth above the allowance is €100,000 minus €59,357: €40,643. So the taxed share of your wealth is about 40.6 percent. The taxable income is 40.6 percent of €6,000: about €2,439. The tax is 36 percent of that: about €878.

The method is my own simplification of the calculation rules. The real return form takes the split between savings, investments and debts into account. Use the Belastingdienst calculator for that.

Counter evidence

If your actual return is lower than the assumed one, you can according to Grant Thornton ask, based on Supreme Court case law, to be taxed on your actual return. That applies to all your box 3 wealth and you must be able to prove it. That takes good records of transactions, values and costs.

What has changed recently

The current system is going away. This is the position as of October 2026.

The Act on actual return in box 3 (Wet werkelijk rendement box 3). The new system taxes the actual return, including yearly value changes, at 36 percent. Negative return can be offset in later years, except for the first €500. The House of Representatives passed the proposal on 12 February 2026. The intended start date is 1 January 2028.

The Senate. The Senate has not passed the proposal. According to SRA there would be no majority. At the end of September 2026 the cabinet came with a letter to parliament setting out four scenarios, and asked the Senate not to continue handling the bill for now.

5 October 2026. In an oral consultation with the Senate, the cabinet said it is choosing one scenario. The capital gains tax, where you pay tax on realised profit, will be extended to all financial instruments from 2028. Crypto gets a separate bill, which is meant to arrange the move to a full capital gains tax in 2030. On 2 October the cabinet asked the Council of State for urgent advice on the amendment, expected at the end of October. State Secretary Eerenberg wants the amendment finished before Christmas. Senators still asked questions about funding and feasibility.

In the short term. According to SRA the cabinet wants to lower the tax free allowance in 2027 to the level of 2020, a little over €30,000 per person. Minister Heinen said on 5 October that this limit is not final. So it remains a proposal and not a fixed amount.

These are government plans, not a forecast by BitFox. They can still change.

What to look at now

Look at your balance on 1 January and keep your statements. Check the current amounts with the Belastingdienst and follow the news about the Senate. If you want personal advice, talk to a tax adviser.

Sources

• SRA, Box 3: percentages, exemptions and amounts 2026, 8 January 2026
• SRA, House of Representatives agrees to new box 3 system from 2028, February 2026
• SRA, No clarity yet on box 3 from 2028, 28 September 2026
• Eerste Kamer, Oral consultation on box 3, 6 October 2026
• Eerste Kamer, Wet werkelijk rendement box 3 (36.748), accessed 10 October 2026
• Rabobank, Tax free savings in 2026, accessed 10 October 2026
• Grant Thornton, Crypto in box 3: current rules and points of attention, accessed 10 October 2026