The short answer surprises most people: in the standard situation you pay no income tax on the rent itself. You pay on your assets. But there are three places where it goes wrong, and one of them got a good deal more expensive on 1 January 2026.
A holiday home you do not live in yourself is a second home. That falls into box 3, with your assets. And that means something important: you are taxed on the value of the property, not on what you earn with it.
In 2026 the tax administration assumes a notional return of 6 percent of the value. On that notional return you pay 36 percent tax. You pay only on the part of your total assets above 59,357 euros per person on 1 January 2026.
For the value the tax administration looks at the WOZ value as at 1 January of the year before. So in your 2026 return you use the WOZ value of 1 January 2025.
In the standard situation you do not declare it. That feels too good to be true, but it follows logically from box 3: tax is already levied on the holding, so it is not levied again on the proceeds.
Two exceptions, and they are below: if you opt for your actual return, and if you provide extra services.
Since the counter-evidence scheme came in, you may have what you actually earned taxed instead of the notional 6 percent return. That is favourable if your property brought in little or fell in value.
But watch what counts in that case: with an actual return, the rent received and the change in value of the property both count as income. Interest paid on a loan comes off again. So a good year with plenty of bookings and a rising WOZ value can work out worse.
Work out both sides before you choose. And keep track of your bookings, because without the figures you cannot support that choice.
Reference date 1 January 2026. Value based on the WOZ as at 1 January 2025.
Box 3 assumes normal asset management: you own something and you let it out. Do more than that and the character changes, and the tax administration can treat your income as income from other activities or even as business profit. You then do pay on the actual proceeds, at the box 1 rate.
Where that line sits is not a fixed number. It is about the nature and the scale of what you add. Let the place bare and clean between stays and you are generally safe. Offer breakfast, daily cleaning, bike hire and excursions and it starts to look like a business. If you are in the grey zone, put it to someone.
This is the biggest change of the year, and plenty of articles you find online still date from before it.
The tax administration is brief about it: providing accommodation in hotels, guest houses and holiday businesses for a short period carries the 21 percent rate from 1 January 2026. It used to be 9 percent.
If your guest paid in 2025 for a stay in 2026, the 21 percent rate applies all the same.
If you stay under 20,000 euros of turnover per year, you can join the small businesses scheme. You then charge your guests no VAT, but you can no longer reclaim any either.
Be careful if you deducted VAT on purchase or renovation: joining the scheme within the nine-year adjustment period means paying part of that deducted VAT back. Work that through before you switch.
Your guest pays it, but you collect it and pass it on to the municipality. The rate differs per municipality: sometimes a fixed amount per person per night, sometimes a percentage of the overnight price. Check it with your own municipality, because there is no national rate.
Put it separately in your quote. A guest who sees an unexpected line on the bill afterwards books somewhere else next time.
Are you letting your own house temporarily, while you are on holiday for instance? Then different rules apply. That does not fall under box 3 but under the owner-occupied home rules in box 1, and there you do have to declare part of the rental income.
That is a different story from a second home you let out structurally. Do not mix the two up.
In the standard situation, no. Your holiday home falls into box 3, where tax is levied on your assets rather than on the rent you receive. If you use the counter-evidence scheme and have your actual return taxed, the rent received and the change in value do count. If you provide extra services, different rules apply and the income can shift to box 1.
In 2026 you pay 36 percent tax on a notional return of 6 percent of the value. You pay only on the part of your total assets above 59,357 euros per person on 1 January 2026. The tax administration uses the WOZ value as at 1 January of the previous year.
Short-stay accommodation is subject to VAT. That rate went up from 9 to 21 percent on 1 January 2026. If you stay under 20,000 euros of turnover you can use the small businesses scheme: you then charge no VAT and cannot reclaim any either. Watch out that this can affect VAT you deducted at purchase.
As soon as you do more than normal asset management. If you provide extra services, or let so actively that it looks more like running a business than investing, the tax administration can treat the income as income from other activities or as business profit. You then pay tax on the actual proceeds. Exactly where that line sits depends on your situation.
Your guest pays it, but you collect it and pass it on to the municipality. The rate differs per municipality, sometimes a fixed amount per person per night and sometimes a percentage of the overnight price. Charge it separately in your price and it stays clear for you and your guest.
Every rate and amount on this page comes straight from the Belastingdienst. Check them by all means; rules change and this page is from July 2026. The source pages are in Dutch, because that is how the tax administration publishes them.
If you want to be able to choose between a notional and an actual return, you have to know what you earned. Vakantiemodule keeps track per booking of what was paid and when, and you export it in one click.