Migration year
The M return: your migration-year tax return.
In the year you arrive in or leave the Netherlands, your income tax return is a different one. Longer, issued only in Dutch, and built around a year in which you were a resident for only part of the time.
M is for migration
It is not a separate tax. It is the ordinary income tax return for the one year in which you both did and did not live here, which is exactly what makes it complicated.
Why it is harder
One year, two sets of rules.
A normal return covers twelve months under one regime. A migration year does not, and almost every section of the return is affected by that.
General information, not advice for your situation. We look at your case before we say anything about it.
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Two tax regimes in a single year
For the part of the year you lived here you are taxed on your worldwide income. For the rest of the year only on income from Dutch sources. Both periods go into one return, each under its own rules.
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Box 3 is measured on 1 January
Your savings and investments are taken from your position on 1 January, which in an arrival year is a date when you were still living somewhere else. The result is then reduced in proportion to the months you were a resident here. It is the part people get wrong most often.
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Assets abroad are part of it
For the period you were a resident, a brokerage account, a property you kept or a second bank account abroad belong in the return. They do not stop counting because they are not Dutch.
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Credits and contributions are apportioned
Tax credits and national insurance contributions are calculated over the part of the year that applies to you. That is usually why what was withheld during the year does not match the final calculation.
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A partner who arrived on a different date
Fiscal partnership is assessed on its own terms, and if the two of you did not arrive together your returns start to depend on each other.
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The 30% ruling changes the picture again
If you have the ruling it affects how boxes 2 and 3 are treated, and those rules were changed recently with transitional arrangements. Whether it still helps in your situation is worth checking rather than assuming.
The part that catches people
Box 3, measured before you got here
Dutch tax on savings and investments works from a position on 1 January. In the year you arrive, that is a date when you were still living abroad and everything you owned was somewhere else. Your box 3 result is then reduced in proportion to the months you were actually a resident.
So two things have to be right at once: what you owned on a date before you moved, including everything outside the Netherlands, and how the year is divided between the period you lived here and the period you did not. Get either wrong and the return is wrong, usually in a way that only surfaces when an assessment arrives months later.
This is also the area where the Dutch rules have changed most in recent years. We work from the rules as they stand for your specific year, not from what was true when you last read about it.
What we do
You give us the picture of your year. We do the reconstruction and the filing.
Get your personal quote- Establish exactly when your Dutch residency started or ended, and what falls in each period
- Work out your box 3 position on the reference date and the reduction for your period here
- Take in your foreign assets and income for the resident part of the year
- Coordinate with your partner’s return if you did not arrive at the same time
- Take the 30% ruling into account where it applies
- File it, follow it, and handle the questions if the tax office comes back
What it costs
Your normal year is included. This one is not.
Your income tax return in an ordinary year is part of your subscription and costs you nothing extra. The migration year is quoted separately, and we would rather be straight about why: it is several times the work, it needs your position on a date before you arrived, and it usually involves income and assets in another country.
It appears as its own line in your quote, so you can see it rather than discover it.
Get your personal quoteQuestions we get a lot
- Is tax advice included in the monthly fee?
- Yes. Every package includes a number of advice hours per year. Only special situations fall outside that, and those are quoted before we start, so you are never surprised by an invoice.
- What does the M in M return stand for?
- Migration. It is the income tax return for the year you moved into or out of the Netherlands, and it exists because you were only a resident taxpayer for part of that year.
- Do I have to file one?
- If you arrived in or left the Netherlands during a tax year, that year is filed as an M return rather than a normal one. It applies to the year of the move only.
- Can I not just do it myself online?
- Some people do. It is longer than a normal return, it is issued in Dutch, and the box 3 and apportionment sections are where mistakes happen. If your only income was a Dutch salary and you own nothing abroad it is manageable. With savings, investments or property outside the Netherlands it usually is not worth the risk.
- Is it included in my subscription?
- Your income tax return in a normal year is included. The migration year is quoted separately, because it is genuinely a different and much larger piece of work. Your quote will state it as its own line so you can see exactly what it costs.
- I moved two years ago and never filed it. Now what?
- It can still be filed. Late is better than never, and the tax office is more predictable about a return that arrives late than about one that never arrives. Tell us the year and we will look at what is involved.
- What about the year after?
- That is a normal Dutch return, and it is included in your subscription. The migration year is the exception, not the new normal.