Payroll and director salary
Paying yourself, properly.
If you run a Dutch BV you are almost certainly your own employee. That means a wage tax number, a defensible salary and a payroll run every month. We set it up and keep it running.
You do two things
Pay the salary and pay the wage tax. Everything between the rules and those two payments is ours: the registration, the calculation, the payslip and the filing.
Director payroll
What a director-shareholder needs.
Five things have to exist before your first payslip makes sense. We put all five in place.
These are examples of topics we may review. Any advice depends on your individual circumstances.
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Your wage tax number
Before anyone can be paid, your BV has to be registered as an employer. We request that registration and build the payroll around it.
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The current account agreement
A written agreement between you and your own BV for money that moves between the two. Unglamorous, and one of the first things a tax inspector looks for.
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Your director salary, reviewed
The Dutch rules expect a director-shareholder to be paid a defensible salary. Too low invites questions, too high costs money. Setting it once is not enough: we look at it with you as soon as your business changes, and at year end in any case.
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The monthly run
Payslips, the wage tax return and the payment instruction. You pay the salary and the tax. That is the whole of your involvement.
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The 30% ruling, if it applies
The ruling is applied through payroll, so it needs a Dutch employer. If you qualify, we file it and run it every month. Whether you qualify is something we check before you build plans around it.
When you hire
Staff payroll, priced per payslip
Your first employee
A contract, the registration, and the payroll set up before the first payday rather than after it.
Monthly payslips and filings
Per payslip, so a team of two does not carry the cost of a team of twenty.
Changes during the year
Salary changes, someone joining, someone leaving, sick leave. You tell us in a sentence, we handle the paperwork.
A price built around your company
Director payroll, staff payslips and the 30% ruling each appear as their own line, so you can see what you are paying for. Answer a few questions and receive your personal quote within 15 minutes.
Questions 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.
- Do I need payroll if I am the only person in my BV?
- Almost certainly, yes. A director-shareholder of a Dutch BV is normally expected to be on the payroll, which means a wage tax number, a salary and monthly filings even though you are the only one being paid.
- What should my director salary be?
- There is a rule about what counts as a reasonable salary for a director-shareholder, and the answer depends on your role, your sector and what your company earns. We work it out with you and come back to it as soon as something changes — a strong year, a first employee, a second company, a different dividend plan — and at year end in any case. Waiting until next year is sometimes too late.
- Can you apply for the 30% ruling for me?
- Where it is realistic, yes, and we run it monthly through your payroll. It is not automatic for a founder who moved here on their own initiative, so the first step is checking whether the route is open in your case.
- I have an eenmanszaak. Do I need this?
- Not for yourself. A sole proprietor is not on a payroll and takes money out of the business directly. You would only need payroll once you take on staff.
- What does it cost?
- Director payroll is a monthly amount per director and staff payroll is priced per payslip, so it scales with what you actually have. Both appear as their own lines in your quote.