A technician takes a company van home each evening. The employer arranges an electric charger beside the house, the lease company handles installation, and payroll reimburses the electricity. Everyone sees a practical solution. Nobody expects the charger to return as an employment question three years later.
The March 2026 Belastingdienst payroll handbook gives employers a clear starting point. Installing or reimbursing a home charger for an employer-provided electric car, up to cost price, is not separate wages. Necessary electrical work, such as an additional meter-cabinet group or consumption meter, receives the same treatment.
A Belastingdienst ruling published on 3 August 2026 adds a newer layer. Employees with eligible home chargers may receive compensation through ERE certificates. That compensation is not wages when it relates to charging a company electric car. It can affect how much electricity the employer may reimburse.
I read this as a human resources matter with a payroll answer, not merely a payroll matter. The employee, the home, the company car and the employment relationship are tied together by equipment fixed to private property.
The same charger can sit in two different worlds
The first distinction is simple but decisive: who owns the car?
For an electric car made available by the employer, the home charger sits within the company-car rules. The employer may also reimburse actual home electricity costs as intermediary costs, provided the payment does not exceed the employee's actual expenditure. The private-use addition for the car remains a separate question.
The position changes when an employee charges a privately owned car. A separate payment for electricity, the charger or related electrical work can be wages when it comes on top of the tax-free kilometre reimbursement. The wallbox may look identical, but the payroll result is not.
That difference deserves clear language in the mobility policy. A sentence saying that the company “supports home charging” is too loose when one employee drives a leased company car and another receives a kilometre allowance for a private car.
Small employers often create these arrangements one person at a time. The first employee receives an installation package from the lease company. The second already has solar panels. The third asks for a fixed rate per kilowatt-hour. Individual solutions feel reasonable until payroll must explain why similar employees are treated differently.
Electricity is no longer one simple reimbursement
An employer can reimburse the actual electricity expense for charging a company car. The official approach uses the integral cost per kilowatt-hour. That calculation includes relevant variable and fixed energy costs. A proportionate part of solar-panel depreciation may also count.
A national average electricity price does not settle an individual arrangement. Household contracts differ, as do fixed charges, solar generation and consumption. The employer therefore needs a defensible link between the charging record and the household's integral cost.
There is another route. Employer and employee can agree a business transaction for onward supply of electricity. The tariff and contract duration must be market-conform when they make the agreement. This can make monthly administration more predictable, but the employer should retain the date, term and commercial basis of the rate.
ERE compensation adds a third cash flow. The household has its energy bill, the employer makes a payment, and the charging arrangement can generate certificate income. When the employer reimburses actual cost, that certificate compensation reduces the integral electricity cost per kilowatt-hour. Under a market-conform onward-supply agreement, it may remain outside the agreed calculation.
For the technician with the company van, the question is no longer just how many kilowatt-hours appeared in the charging record. Payroll must know which reimbursement method applies and whether certificate income changes the amount.
The employment exit reveals the hidden terms
The difficult conversation often arrives when the employee leaves, moves house or receives another car. The charger is still attached to the property. Who owns it, and does anyone have a right to take it back?
Dutch property rules can make the homeowner the owner through attachment to the property, depending on the installation and its intended permanence. A right of superficies may instead preserve ownership for a leasing company. The result depends on the installation, its purpose and the contractual structure.
Payroll treatment at departure also depends on what the parties agreed earlier. If the employee already became the owner when the charger was installed and no return clause applied, leaving it in place does not create a new benefit at that moment. If the employer had a recovery right and later waives it, the remaining value can become an employment-related benefit.
This is where a friendly practical decision can become awkward. HR may believe the charger belongs to the employee, finance may have booked it as company equipment, and the lease contract may say something else. The resignation meeting is a poor time to discover those three versions.
One arrangement, understood by everyone
A small company does not need a large mobility manual. It does need a shared account of what has been agreed.
A useful review starts with every home charger linked to a company car. For each arrangement, the employer should identify the car, employee, address, paying party, intended owner and reimbursement method. The terms should also address relocation, vehicle replacement, the end of the lease and the end of employment.
Payroll needs charging data that matches the chosen method. Finance needs to know whether it is paying actual cost or an agreed commercial tariff. HR needs terms that can be discussed openly with the employee. Any ERE compensation should have a defined place in that same arrangement.
The technician should not need to understand every tax detail. The employee does deserve a clear answer about what is being installed at home, how electricity will be paid and what happens later.
The charger itself is rarely the real problem. Trouble grows in the gaps between a lease order, a payslip, an energy calculation and an employment agreement. Close those gaps while the working relationship is healthy. Then home charging remains what everyone wanted at the start: a practical way to keep the car moving.
Need a clear home-charging file for payroll, contracts and employee exits? We can review it with you
The data, sourcing, and analysis behind this article were conducted by Paolo Maria Pavan. AI was not used to identify sources, build the factual basis, or produce the analytical judgment contained here. AI was used only as a drafting aid. The final English text was personally reviewed, edited, and approved by Paolo Maria Pavan before publication.
