Closing your activities in the Netherlands

Until when you remain a VAT entrepreneur

For Dutch VAT your company remains an entrepreneur until the last act of winding up, for example until the remaining stock has been sold. Until then all obligations continue. Every return that is issued to you must still be filed, also when no VAT is due.

The final VAT return

• Remaining stock and assets that you sell: VAT as usual
• Goods you keep after you stop, on which VAT was deducted: this counts as a supply, with VAT on the purchase price or cost price at that moment (Article 3(3)(c) of the Dutch VAT Act)
• VAT on invoices that arrive after you stop remains deductible, if the costs are directly linked to the business
• Capital goods still in their revision period, which is the four years after the year of first use for movable goods and the nine years after for real estate: if they stay behind unused and unsold, the Court of Justice has held that the deduction on them is revised (Vittamed, C-293/21). We check this per asset

Deregistering the VAT number, the OSS and the EC Sales List

• Dutch branch in the KVK (the Dutch Chamber of Commerce) Business Register: you deregister the branch there, and the KVK passes it on to the Dutch tax authorities. A branch of a foreign company can be deregistered online through Mijn KVK
• No KVK registration: the deregistration goes by letter to Belastingdienst/Klantgegevens, Postbus 2891 or 2892, 6401 DJ Heerlen. The Dutch tax authorities then confirm that the VAT identification number has been ended
• OSS, Union and non-Union scheme: stop at least 15 days before the end of the quarter preceding the quarter in which you no longer use it, and file the last OSS return. Corrections after that last return go directly to the country concerned
• Import One Stop Shop (IOSS): stop at least 15 days before the end of the month preceding the month in which you no longer use it
• Stop the OSS before you deregister in the KVK register and end your eHerkenning (the Dutch business login). Otherwise the last OSS returns can no longer be filed
• EC Sales List: only for periods with intra-EU supplies or services, by the end of the month after the period. The last one covers your final period with such supplies

Payroll taxes and corporate income tax

• Payroll taxes: no more staff and no wages expected for at least 12 months? Then you deregister as an employer with the form Melding Loonheffingen Afmelding werkgever, also when your company is established abroad. If you deregister in the KVK register, the form is not needed. Payroll returns continue until the Dutch tax authorities confirm the end date by letter
• Corporate income tax: the Dutch tax liability of a permanent establishment ends when it stops earning income in the Netherlands. A final return is filed for that year. Value that has not yet been taxed, such as hidden reserves in the assets, is taxed in that year (Article 3.61 of the Income Tax Act 2001, which also applies to corporate income tax)

Keep your records

• Accounts and records: seven years
• Records on real estate: the nine years after the year in which the property was first used
• OSS and IOSS records: ten years after the end of the year of the transaction

Example

A German company kept stock in a Dutch warehouse and sold to Dutch consumers. It stops in November 2026.

• Clearance sale of the remaining stock to Dutch consumers: € 12,100, including € 2,100 Dutch VAT at 21%
• Packaging bought in the Netherlands for the clearance: € 500 plus € 105 VAT, deductible
• Final VAT return for the fourth quarter of 2026: € 1,995 to pay, by 31 January 2027
• Then the deregistration letter to the Dutch tax authorities in Heerlen. No EC Sales List, because there were no intra-EU supplies from the Netherlands

This is a worked example, not a client case. The VAT on remaining stock and assets depends on what happens to them.

What we do

We prepare and file the final VAT return for the last period, with the remaining stock, the assets and the revision checked. We write the deregistration letter to the Dutch tax authorities or prepare the deregistration of your branch in the KVK register, stop the OSS or IOSS and file the last OSS return, file the last EC Sales List and prepare your deregistration as an employer. € 195 one-off, excl. VAT. Returns for earlier periods that were never filed: € 325 per quarter. The final corporate income tax return for a permanent establishment: € 495.