If you hold Bitcoin, ether or another crypto coin as a private individual in the Netherlands, you meet the tax authority in box 3, the tax on wealth. It is not the price gain itself that is taxed, but the holding. For that, the Belastingdienst (the Dutch tax authority) works with a deemed return (in tax language the notional, or forfaitair, return): a fixed, assumed percentage on the value of your crypto on one date each year, regardless of the profit you actually made. Whether your coins rose or fell, the levy starts from that assumed percentage, not from your real result.<\/p>\n
This article covers box 3 specifically. For the wider picture, including the bv route and the annual return, see our overview of crypto tax in the Netherlands<\/a>.<\/p>\n Crypto sits in box 3 under ‘other assets’. Since the 2025 tax return, the Belastingdienst has had a separate tick box for it, labelled ‘Cryptobezittingen’ (crypto holdings). That makes a difference. Crypto does not count in the lower-taxed bank-deposits category, but in the more heavily taxed ‘other assets’ category: that is precisely the category with the highest deemed return.<\/p>\n For most investors this all plays out in the private sphere. Trading actively and systematically, mining or staking can, however, fall in box 1: the tax authority then treats the activity as work rather than as investing.<\/p>\n The levy turns on one moment: the reference date (peildatum), meaning the day on which the tax authority establishes the value of your wealth. That is 1 January at 00:00. The value that counts is the market value (waarde in het economisch verkeer): the price on the platform you use, converted into euro.<\/p>\n On that value the Belastingdienst applies the deemed return. For 2025 it is 5.88 percent; for 2026 it is 6.00 percent. The 2026 Tax Plan initially proposed 7.78 percent, but an amendment in November 2025 kept the rate at 6.00 percent. On the return calculated in this way you then pay 36 percent tax.<\/p>\n Not all of your wealth is taxed. Everyone has a tax-free allowance (heffingsvrij vermogen): a part of your wealth that stays outside the levy. That threshold is 57,684 euro (2025) and 59,357 euro (2026) per person; tax partners together count double.<\/p>\n An example makes it concrete. Suppose you are single and, on 1 January 2025, hold 150,000 euro in crypto. After deducting the tax-free allowance of 57,684 euro, a taxable base of 92,316 euro remains. On that, the tax authority applies a 5.88 percent deemed return: 5,428 euro. That return is taxed at 36 percent, or 1,954 euro.<\/p>\n Expressed over the part above the tax-free allowance, the effective burden therefore works out at roughly 2.12 percent (2025). For 2026, with the higher deemed return of 6.00 percent, that burden rises to around 2.16 percent.<\/p>\n Since 2025 there has been a counter-evidence scheme (tegenbewijsregeling): the option to show that your actual return was lower than the deemed one. If your real return turns out lower, the tax authority taxes that lower amount and refunds what you overpaid. If it turns out higher, you do not have to pay extra. In effect, tax is thus levied on the lower of the two: the notionally calculated or the actual return. You report this through the Opgaaf werkelijk rendement form (statement of actual return), available in Mijn Belastingdienst since the summer of 2025.<\/p>\n What counts as actual return? All direct income plus all changes in value, including those not yet realised. For crypto that comes down to the value on 31 December minus the value on 1 January, less anything you bought in the meantime. Note: this calculation allows no deduction of costs, no tax-free allowance and no offsetting between years.<\/p>\n That a counter-evidence scheme exists at all is down to the courts. In its ruling of 24 December 2021 (the so-called Christmas ruling<\/a>, or Kerstarrest), the Supreme Court rejected the old box 3 system: that system breached the European Convention on Human Rights (ECHR), because it taxed people on a return they had not earned. On 6 June 2024 the Supreme Court held<\/a> that the repair system also falls short, to the extent that the deemed return is higher than the actual one.<\/p>\n The legislator is therefore working on a new system that taxes the actual return. Introduction in 2027 proved unfeasible and the current bill has stalled too: the Senate postponed its vote and the government is amending the bill through a novelle. Under that plan, the capital gains tax, a levy on realised gains, will cover financial instruments such as shares and bonds from 2028; for crypto the switch is planned only for 2030, through a separate bill. Those dates may still shift. Until then the deemed return remains the basis, with the counter-evidence scheme as a safety net. We track the current state of the parliamentary process and the percentages for this tax year in Crypto tax in 2026<\/a>.<\/p>\n For completeness: participation in the Callisto Capital fund is possible from 100,000 euro. Anyone considering it should first read the fund documentation and discuss their own situation with a tax adviser.<\/p>\nWhich box and which category<\/h2>\n
How the levy is calculated<\/h2>\n
A worked example<\/h2>\n
The counter-evidence scheme<\/h2>\n
The Christmas ruling and a new system<\/h2>\n