Register a company in the Netherlands as an EU citizen: from Spain, Portugal, Poland, the Baltics or Ireland

Every month founders from Spain, Portugal, Poland, Latvia, Italy, Ireland and Belgium ask us the same question in different words: can I put my business in a Dutch company and keep living where I live? The answer is yes, and it has been the answer for years for webshops, marketplaces, trading companies, software companies and consultants who sell across the EU and want one company that banks, customers and platforms in every member state accept without questions.

What they are looking for is not lower tax alone. It is a country where the trade register and the tax office work in English, where a company is registered in weeks and not months, where the bank opens the account on a complete file, where the courts and the contracts are predictable, and where one VAT number covers the whole EU. That combination is why the Netherlands has one of the largest concentrations of foreign-owned companies in the EU.

Who this fits, and who it does not

• A webshop or a marketplace that sells in several EU countries. Fits. One VAT number with the One Stop Shop, Dutch payment providers and banks that accept the BV at once, and the Article 23 licence if you import from outside the EU.
• A trading company that buys and sells across borders. Fits. Contracts in English, a country that banks and customs offices in Germany, France and Scandinavia know, and Rotterdam and Schiphol for the goods.
• A software or consulting company with customers in more than one country. Fits, provided the company is really run from here: a Dutch director or you taking the decisions here, books in the Netherlands, an address that is more than a mailbox.
• A product that your own country makes difficult. Fits. A German media shop, a Latvian appliance exporter and a Portuguese platform came to us for exactly this reason: the rules or the banks at home blocked the business, and a Dutch company did not.
• A local service business with customers only in your own town. Does not fit. You would pay for two administrations and gain nothing. Stay where you are.

Your home country next to the Netherlands

The choice is rarely about the tax rate alone. The table puts the things founders compare next to each other.

Headline rates and standard setups as at September 2026. Your own country also taxes you personally on salary and dividends; that part does not change by moving the company.

The three things that decide whether it works

1. Where the company is really run

A Dutch BV pays Dutch corporate tax when its management and its activity are in the Netherlands. If you take every decision from your kitchen table in Valencia and the company has only a mailbox in Amsterdam, Spain can claim the company as a Spanish taxpayer under the tax treaty, and the Dutch tax office will agree with them. The setup that works: a Dutch address with a real office service, books kept in the Netherlands, board decisions recorded here, and a written agreement that describes what you do from home and at what price. Many founders add a second director in the Netherlands for the bank and for signing; others move within a year. Read what substance means for a Dutch BV.

2. Your own salary and dividends

You keep paying income tax where you live. The Dutch rule that a director must receive a customary salary applies to a Dutch BV, but the salary is taxed in your country of residence under the treaty, and in the start-up years the tax office agrees to a lower amount on request. Dividends from the BV to you are taxed at home as well, with the Dutch withholding tax credited. How that works per country is part of the written proposal.

3. VAT and the goods

The company charges Dutch VAT on Dutch sales and, through the One Stop Shop, the VAT of the customer's country on consumer sales across the EU, in one quarterly return. Business customers in other EU countries are invoiced without VAT. Goods from outside the EU come in under the Article 23 licence without paying import VAT at the border. The detail: VAT for a Dutch company selling across the EU and fiscal representation and Article 23.

The steps, from your country

1. The written proposal. You tell us what the business does, where the customers are, whether you keep living at home, and whether you want a holding above the operating company. You receive the structure, the steps and the complete price in one document.
2. Identification. The notary identifies you by video call. As an EU citizen your passport is enough; documents from an EU country need no apostille.
3. The deed and the KVK. The notary signs the deed and registers the company with the KVK the same day. You receive the KVK number and the extract.
4. Tax number, VAT number, address. The tax office issues the corporate tax number; we apply for the VAT number and, if you import, the EORI number. The registered address is arranged through our address partner, in Amsterdam or cheaper outside it, and you manage it in your own account.
5. The bank. Dutch banks accept EU-resident owners on a complete file; a payment institution is the faster start. See opening a Dutch business bank account from abroad.
6. Bookkeeping and returns. Holdwise keeps the books, files the VAT returns and prepares the annual accounts and the corporate tax return, in English, on a fee agreed in advance. See corporate services in the Netherlands.

Holding above the operating company

Most founders set up two companies at once: a personal holding that owns the operating company. Profit and a future sale go up to the holding free of corporate tax under the participation exemption, and the holding is the place where your money grows at 19% until you take it out. Both companies are set up in one notary session. See the Dutch holding structure for non-residents.

Why founders choose the Netherlands over the alternatives

Not because it is the cheapest; Estonia and Latvia are cheaper on paper. Because the whole system works in English, because a Dutch BV is accepted by banks, marketplaces and enterprise customers in Germany, France and the Nordics without a second look, because the tax treaties cover practically every country, and because the setup is done in three weeks from your own desk. The full picture with the numbers: why the Netherlands for a business.

In your language

Abrir una empresa en los Países Bajos desde España · Abrir empresa na Holanda a partir de Portugal · Créer une société aux Pays-Bas depuis la France · Aprire una società in Olanda dall’Italia · BV gründen aus Deutschland