Closing a Dutch sole proprietorship and deregistering with the KvK: the tax side

Updated 29 October 2026 · Valorem Tax Advisory, tax adviser with an LL.M. in tax law

Deregistering with the KvK

You deregister your sole proprietorship with the KvK. It is free. You choose the deregistration date yourself: up to one year back or up to 60 days ahead. Temporary deregistration does not exist.

The KvK passes your deregistration on to the tax authority. You do not need to report it separately. Afterwards you receive a letter from the tax authority.

Make deregistering the last step. First finish your last assignments, send your last invoices and cancel rent, leases and subscriptions with their notice periods. Your business bank account is linked to your KvK registration. Ask your bank how long the account keeps working afterwards.

Choose the date carefully

Choose a date after your last business activity. Many business owners choose the end of a month or quarter, or 31 December: that date closes the financial year. If you choose 1 January, you may still have obligations in the new year.

Also match the date to the end date of your contracts, so that rent or insurance does not continue. The tax authority uses the date to decide until when you file returns as a business owner. Your deregistration can also affect benefits (toeslagen).

Your last VAT returns

For VAT you remain a business owner until the last act of winding down your business. Until then you keep filing, as long as returns are waiting in Mijn Belastingdienst Zakelijk. Your VAT obligation only ends once the tax authority has deregistered you for VAT. You receive a letter about your last return.

If you sell remaining stock, tools or a company car when you stop, you charge VAT on that.

If you keep business items yourself, that is also a supply for VAT. You pay VAT on what such an item, or a similar one, costs to buy at that moment. This only applies if you deducted VAT when you bought it. If you bought a car from a private person, without VAT, you pay no VAT when you keep it.

If invoices for costs directly related to your business arrive after you stop, such as your adviser's bill for the last returns, you may still deduct that VAT.

Do you sell to consumers in other EU countries through the OSS? Then deregister from the OSS before you deregister with the KvK.

Getting VAT back in that last return? Read how on reclaiming VAT.

Selling the whole business?

If someone takes over your whole business and continues it, no VAT is due on that transfer. The buyer takes your place for VAT, for example for the adjustment of VAT you deducted earlier on a business property.

For income tax a sale is still a cessation. You settle the profit on cessation, except in the cases below where you roll it over.

Income tax: the profit on cessation

You still file an income tax return for the year in which you stop. You file it in the year after your deregistration. In it you settle with your business.

Profit on cessation (stakingswinst) is the difference between what you get for your business assets and goodwill and their book value. If you take something into private use, its market value counts. Tax reserves are also released when you stop. The profit on cessation is part of the profit of your last year and is taxed at the normal rate.

There are two reliefs. You may apply the cessation relief (stakingsaftrek) of up to € 3,630, once only. There is no hours criterion for it, but you must stop your entire business. And on what remains, as on your normal profit, the SME profit exemption of 12.7% applies.

Did you buy business assets in recent years with the small-scale investment allowance (KIA)? If you sell them, or stop, within five years after the start of the year of purchase, a disinvestment addition may follow.

In the 2025 Spring Memorandum the government announced that the cessation relief would be reduced to € 908 from 2027 and abolished in 2030. Whether and when that happens is not yet certain. If you stop around the turn of the year, have the better date calculated.

Your old-age reserve and an annuity

If you built up an old-age reserve (FOR) before 2023, it is in principle released when you stop and counts as profit. You avoid that by converting the FOR into an annuity. The premium must then be paid within six months after the end of the year.

You can also convert part of the profit on cessation itself into an annuity. You then only pay tax when the payments come in. In 2026 the maximum is € 143,732. It is € 287,445 if you are at most fifteen years below the state pension age or the payments start immediately, and € 574,867 if, among other cases, you are at most five years below the state pension age. Your FOR is deducted from that maximum.

Rolling over instead of settling

In a few cases you do not have to settle straight away. The successor, or your own BV (Dutch private limited company), then takes over your tax book values:

• You transfer the business to someone who has worked in it for at least three years as a partner or as an employee
• You transfer the business tax-neutrally into a BV, subject to conditions. Your old-age reserve must then still be settled

After such a rollover, the successor only gets the cessation relief after running the business for at least three years. Have this looked into beforehand, because the conditions are strict.

A worked example

You stop your sole proprietorship on 31 December. Your van is still in the books at € 4,000 and you sell it for € 9,000 to a car dealer. You have no other business assets or reserves.

• Profit on cessation: € 9,000 minus € 4,000 is € 5,000
• Cessation relief: € 3,630, leaving € 1,370
• After the SME profit exemption of 12.7%, € 1,196 counts towards your income for that year
• You charge VAT on the sale of the van

This is a worked example with round amounts, not a client case.

Keeping your records

You keep your records after stopping too. The legal period is seven years. So download your bank statements and annual overviews before you close the business account.

We wrap it up for you

Valorem files your last VAT returns and your income tax return for the year you stop, and calculates what the profit on cessation costs you. You know the price up front.

A one-off VAT return costs € 175 per period. The income tax return costs € 395, including the profit return with the balance sheet and profit and loss account. If there is more to arrange, such as the sale or the transfer of your business into a BV, you hear the price up front.