Starting a business as an expat in the Netherlands: 5 simple steps

If you have moved to the Netherlands and want to start freelancing, the paperwork can look intimidating from the outside: KvK, BTW, eenmanszaak, DigiD, none of it is explained anywhere in English in a way that actually tells you what to do next. It is simpler than it looks. Here is the process broken into five steps, in the order you actually do them.

1. Check that you are allowed to freelance here

Before anything else, confirm your residence status covers self-employment.

• EU/EEA or Swiss citizens can freelance freely, no separate permit needed.
• Non-EU citizens generally need a residence permit that allows self-employed work. Some arrive with one already (a partner or family permit, for example); others apply through a specific self-employment route, which the IND assesses against a points system (education, experience, business plan, added value to the Dutch economy).
• US citizens have their own shortcut: the Dutch-American Friendship Treaty (DAFT), a much lighter path than the standard self-employment permit.
• If you already hold a Dutch residence permit that allows any kind of work, check its exact conditions, some permits (highly skilled migrant, for instance) do not automatically cover freelance income on the side.

This part is immigration law, not bookkeeping, so when in doubt confirm directly with the IND before registering. Everything from step 2 onward assumes this box is ticked.

2. Register with the KvK

The KvK (Kamer van Koophandel, the Chamber of Commerce) is where every Dutch business starts to exist, legally. For a solo freelancer this almost always means registering an eenmanszaak (sole proprietorship), the simplest and most common structure.

• Book an appointment at a KvK office (online booking, usually a short wait).
• Bring valid ID, proof of your Dutch address (rental contract or registration at your gemeente), and a one-line description of what you will actually do, in practice.
• You pay a one-off registration fee at the appointment (check kvk.nl for the current amount, it is adjusted yearly).
• You walk out with a KvK number. That number is now your business's identity for everything: invoices, contracts, your bank account, your tax filings.

3. Get your BTW number and understand the small-business scheme

A few days after KvK registration, the Belastingdienst (Dutch tax office) sends you a BTW (VAT) number by post automatically, you do not apply for it separately. From that point, most services and products you invoice for carry 21% BTW on top of your price, which you collect from your clients and pay on to the tax office each quarter.

There is one major exception worth knowing from day one: the KOR (kleineondernemersregeling, small business scheme). If your annual turnover stays under the KOR threshold, you can opt in and stop charging BTW altogether, no BTW on your invoices, no quarterly BTW return, but you also cannot reclaim BTW on your own business costs. For a freelancer with low expenses and clients who cannot reclaim VAT anyway (many private individuals, some businesses abroad), this is often simpler and sometimes cheaper. For a freelancer with real equipment or software costs, the standard regime, charging and reclaiming BTW, is usually better. Worth a real calculation before you pick, and if you want a second opinion, message me and I'll help you work out whether the KOR makes sense for your situation.

4. Open a business bank account and set up basic bookkeeping

The Netherlands does not legally require a separate business bank account for an eenmanszaak, but keeping one anyway is one of the best habits you can build from month one. Mixing personal and business transactions in one account turns a 10-minute monthly bookkeeping job into a multi-hour puzzle at tax time, and makes it far easier to miss a deductible cost or misreport your turnover.

From day one you are legally required to keep records: every invoice you send, every receipt for a cost you want to deduct, kept for at least seven years. It does not need to be fancy. A well-organised folder of PDFs and a simple spreadsheet is enough to start, plenty of freelancers run on that for years. What matters is that it is complete and consistent.

If you would rather have professional bookkeeping in place from day one instead of building the habit yourself, that is exactly what I do: check my service packages here.

5. Know what happens next, every quarter and every year

Registering is the beginning, not the finish line. Once you are trading, three things recur on a schedule:

• Quarterly BTW return (unless you opted into the KOR): report and pay what you collected, minus what you can reclaim on business costs.
• Annual income tax return: your freelance profit is taxed as personal income (box 1), alongside any other income you have. There are real deductions available to freelancers, most notably the zelfstandigenaftrek (self-employed deduction) and startersaftrek (starter's deduction) for your first few years, but both require meeting the hour criterion: roughly 1,225 hours worked in your business over the year. Rates and exact thresholds are adjusted by the government most years, so check the current figures each January rather than relying on last year's.
• Keeping your KvK details current: address changes, activity changes, and eventually deregistering if you ever stop, all go through the KvK, not the tax office.

The paperwork is genuinely manageable once it is set up correctly the first time. Most of the freelancers I work with spend less time on admin per month than they expected to spend once, at the start, figuring out where to even begin.