Dutch Inheritance Tax 2026: Erfbelasting Rates, Exemptions, Calculator

Inheritance tax in the Netherlands is called erfbelasting, and the first thing to understand about it is who pays. Artikel 36 Successiewet 1956 levies the tax from the acquirer (de verkrijger), not from the estate as a single block. Two people inheriting identical amounts from the same estate can therefore owe very different sums.

What each of them owes turns on one relationship and two numbers. Artikel 32 Successiewet 1956 gives an exempt amount (vrijstelling) that depends on the relationship to the deceased, and artikel 24 sets the rate on what is left, in two brackets divided at EUR 158,669. Both are re-set every 1 January, which is why a rate table with no year attached is worth very little.

One note on vocabulary, because a search in Dutch crosses the border. The tax on a Dutch estate is erfbelasting and it is charged under the Successiewet 1956. The Belgian term successierechten belongs to a different legal system and has no bearing on an estate governed by the Successiewet 1956.

Information last verified on 21 July 2026. This page provides general legal information about Netherlands law and does not constitute legal advice in an individual case.

What is current for 2026

Every amount on this page is indexed. The bracket boundary in artikel 24 and each exempt amount in artikel 32 are re-set on 1 January, so the figures below are read from the Successiewet 1956 in its version in force on 1 January 2026. Next January they will all be different numbers under the same articles.

The change readers still ask about most is a gift rule rather than an inheritance rule. The jubelton, formally the raised gift exemption for an owner-occupied home (schenkingsvrijstelling eigen woning) in artikel 33a Successiewet 1956, no longer exists. The consolidated text of that article now carries nothing but the note that it lapsed on 1 January 2024, and the matching item in the artikel 33 list has been struck out alongside it.

What survives in artikel 33 is the ordinary parent to child gift exemption, EUR 6,908 for 2026. For a child between 18 and 40 it can be raised once, for a single calendar year, to EUR 33,129, or to EUR 69,009 where the money is spent on a study or vocational training whose costs are considerably higher than usual and the raised exemption is claimed in the tax return (aangifte). Neither of those raised amounts has anything to do with buying a home.

Who is taxed, and on what

Artikel 5 lid 1 Successiewet 1956 charges erfbelasting on what each person acquires, after deducting that person's share of the debts, legacies and charges the statute allows. The unit of assessment is the individual acquisition. An estate is not taxed once and then split up.

Artikel 21 lid 1 values what is acquired at its value in normal commercial dealings (waarde in het economische verkeer) at the moment of acquisition. Lid 5 carries the exception most estates run into: a property in use as a dwelling is taken at its WOZ value for the calendar year of the acquisition, or, if the acquirer chooses, at the WOZ value for the following calendar year. That choice is worth attention where house prices moved between the two years.

Artikel 25 adds a rule for couples. Acquisitions under the law of succession by partners are treated as an acquisition by one of the partners, and where they differ in degree of relationship, by whichever of them is most closely related to the deceased.

The 2026 exempt amounts

The list is closed, and the exempt amount is a slice rather than a threshold. An acquisition one euro above the exemption is taxed on that one euro, not on the whole sum. Note that the grandchild line covers kleinkinderen only, which becomes important further down for a descendant in the third or a further degree.

Three other exemptions in the same article come up often. Artikel 32 lid 1 sub 3 exempts an acquisition by a public-benefit institution (algemeen nut beogende instelling, ANBI) outright, so long as the acquisition does not carry an instruction that strips it of its public-benefit character. Sub 8 and sub 9 do the same for an SBBI and a steunstichting SBBI, and sub 5 exempts the value of pension entitlements and lijfrenten in their own right.

The partner exemption is cut by pension rights

Artikel 32 lid 2 is the rule that reaches the largest exempt amount on the list. Where a partner acquires pension entitlements, lijfrenten or rights to periodic payments on the death that are either exempt under sub 5 or not taxable by their nature, half of their value is deducted from the partner exemption. Entitlements under the Algemene Ouderdomswet and the Algemene nabestaandenwet are expressly excluded from that calculation, so the state pension and the survivor benefit are not counted in.

The deduction has a hard floor. After the reduction the partner exemption is never less than EUR 213,915 for 2026, however large the pension rights are. The fourth worked example below shows the floor doing its work.

The 2026 rates

Two things about that table are easy to misread. The brackets run on the taxable acquisition, meaning the amount left after the vrijstelling, not on the gross inheritance. And column I is headed partner or afstammelingen in de rechte lijn, descendants in the direct line, which is a narrower group than close family.

Parents are taxed under column II

Parents are ascendants, not descendants, so they fall into column II at 30% and 40%. Artikel 32 does give them a larger exempt amount than a child, EUR 62,110 against EUR 26,230, but that offsets only a small part of the rate difference. A parent inheriting from a child therefore pays substantially more than a child inheriting the same sum from a parent.

This is the single most common reason a reader concludes that an erfbelasting calculator is broken, so it is worth saying plainly rather than leaving it to be discovered. The statute treats the direction of the family line as decisive, and it runs downwards only.

There is no grandchild rate, there is a surcharge

The familiar figures of 18% and 36% appear nowhere in the Successiewet 1956. What artikel 24 actually carries is note 1 to the table: for descendants in the second or further degree, the tax is the amount due under that column, increased by 80% of that amount (vermeerderd met 80% daarvan). The result today matches 18% and 36%, but the mechanism is not the same thing as the output.

The difference is not academic. Expressed as a surcharge on the column I figure, the rule tracks column I automatically if the legislature ever moves it, and it reaches every descendant in the second or further degree rather than only grandchildren. A great-grandchild is a descendant in the third degree and is caught by the same note.

A great-grandchild is also worth a separate word on the exemption side. The artikel 32 line for kleinkinderen covers grandchildren only, so a great-grandchild takes the overige verkrijgers exemption of EUR 2,769 while still being taxed at the column I rates plus the 80% surcharge. The calculator below carries that combination as the Great-grandchild or further descendant option in the relationship list, and applies both the smaller exemption and the surcharge.

The calculator applies artikel 24 and artikel 32 for 2026. Enter the value of what one person acquires, before any exemption, and choose that person's relationship to the deceased; where the acquirer is a partner, a second field appears for the value of the pension entitlements and lijfrenten acquired on the death, which drives the artikel 32 lid 2 reduction and its floor.

Four worked examples

Each example uses a single acquisition by a single person, with no debts, legacies or charges deducted and no usufruct (vruchtgebruik) in play, so the arithmetic stays visible. All figures are the 2026 versions.

One, a child inheriting EUR 400,000. The exempt amount is EUR 26,230, leaving a taxable acquisition of EUR 373,770. The first EUR 158,669 of that is taxed at 10%, giving EUR 15,866.90, and the remaining EUR 215,101 at 20%, giving EUR 43,020.20. The erfbelasting is EUR 58,887.10, an effective rate of about 14.7% over the whole EUR 400,000.

Two, a grandchild on the same figures. The exempt amount is the same EUR 26,230 and the column I calculation produces the same EUR 58,887.10. Note 1 to artikel 24 then increases that by 80%, so the tax is EUR 58,887.10 multiplied by 1.8, or EUR 105,996.78. The surcharge alone costs EUR 47,109.68 more than the child pays on an identical inheritance.

Three, a parent on the same figures. The parental exempt amount of EUR 62,110 is larger, leaving a taxable acquisition of EUR 337,890. Column II then applies: EUR 158,669 at 30% is EUR 47,600.70, and the remaining EUR 179,221 at 40% is EUR 71,688.40. The total is EUR 119,289.10, more than double what the child pays on the same EUR 400,000.

Four, a partner where the pension floor bites. A partner acquires EUR 1,000,000 and also acquires pension entitlements and lijfrenten worth EUR 1,400,000. Half of that pension value is EUR 700,000, which would reduce the EUR 828,035 exemption to EUR 128,035, but artikel 32 lid 2 stops the reduction at EUR 213,915. The taxable acquisition is therefore EUR 786,085: EUR 158,669 at 10% is EUR 15,866.90 and EUR 627,416 at 20% is EUR 125,483.20, for a total of EUR 141,350.10.

The four lines are the whole point of the rate table. The same EUR 400,000 produces three different tax bills depending only on who receives it, and the spread between the cheapest and the most expensive of them is close to EUR 60,000.

Who counts as a partner

The partner exemption is by far the largest, so the definition matters. Spouses and registered partners are partners for the Successiewet through the general partner rule of the Algemene wet inzake rijksbelastingen, and nothing further is required of them.

Artikel 1a Successiewet 1956 then sets out when two unmarried people count. Throughout the six months before the death, both must be of full age, registered at the same address in the basisregistratie personen or a comparable foreign register, bound by a mutual duty of care under a notarial cohabitation contract (notarieel samenlevingscontract), not blood relatives in the direct line, and not meeting those same conditions with anyone else.

Lid 3 relaxes one of them. The notarial cohabitation contract is not required for people who were registered at the same address for an uninterrupted period of at least five years up to the death. Below that, and without the contract, a surviving cohabitant is an overige verkrijger with an exempt amount of EUR 2,769 and column II rates of 30% and 40%.

Filing the tax return (aangifte) and paying

Artikel 37 lid 1 Successiewet 1956 imposes erfbelasting by way of a formal assessment (aanslag), so the Belastingdienst assesses on the basis of an aangifte rather than the acquirer simply paying a self-calculated amount. The obligation sits with the heirs. Artikel 72 lid 1 places an executeur under the same statutory obligations as the heirs, and lid 2 does the same for an estate liquidator (vereffenaar) appointed by the court, which is why in most administered estates the executeur files.

Artikel 45 lid 1 governs the deadline, and it does so from the other direction than readers expect. It requires the inspecteur to fix the filing period so that it does not expire earlier than twenty months after the death; the Belastingdienst names the actual date in its aangiftebrief. Lid 2 suspends that twenty-month period for as long as the estate is left unadministered and no vereffenaar has been appointed, and restarts it on certain later events, such as an acceptance following an earlier rejection.

Interest runs on the same clock. Artikel 30g lid 2 onderdeel a Algemene wet inzake rijksbelastingen calculates belastingrente on an erfbelasting assessment over the period beginning twenty months after the death, Lid 4 then charges no belastingrente at all, but only where the assessment is made in accordance with the aangifte and that aangifte was received before the first day of the twenty-first month after the death. Filing inside that window is therefore not enough on its own: where the Belastingdienst departs from the return, the lid 2 period governs and interest runs.

What a calculation of this kind does not settle

The arithmetic above, and the calculator that reproduces it, model the artikel 24 rates and the artikel 32 exemptions. Several common features of a real estate sit outside that, and each of them changes the taxable acquisition before any rate is applied.

A vruchtgebruik is the clearest example. Artikel 21 lid 11 values what is acquired subject to a usufruct at the unencumbered value less the value of that charge, and lid 14 leaves the valuation rules and the percentage to be used to an algemene maatregel van bestuur, which works from the age of the usufructuary. The split between a usufruct and the bare ownership therefore has to be established first, and only the resulting figures belong in a calculation.

The statutory division (wettelijke verdeling) of artikel 4:13 BW is a second case. The surviving spouse takes the estate goods and each child receives a money claim instead, and the child is still an acquirer for erfbelasting at the death even though nothing is paid out, with artikel 21 lid 15 Successiewet 1956 valuing that claim as an interest-free claim in the cases it describes. How the division itself works is set out on the Dutch inheritance page.

Business assets are the third. Artikel 35b Successiewet 1956 and the articles around it provide conditional exemptions for business succession, which turn on continuation conditions rather than on the relationship, and none of that is modelled here. Where an estate holds a business, a substantial shareholding, foreign assets or a vruchtgebruik, the figures produced by any general calculation are a starting point rather than an answer.

Who acquires, and therefore who is assessed, is decided before any of this by the will or by the statutory order. The formal requirements a will has to meet are on the Dutch wills page, and a forced heir (legitimaris) acquires under the law of succession and is taxed as an acquirer like anyone else, which the forced share page sets out. The wider structure of Dutch succession is on the Netherlands wills and estates section page.