Dutch customary-pay rules ask whether salary, contracts and actual work still tell the same story.
The payroll return has been submitted. The director’s salary looks modest, but manageable. Elsewhere in the accounts sits an invoice for additional work, perhaps from a sole proprietorship or another company. The arrangement has kept cash inside the BV and given each payment a clear label.
Then someone asks what work the director actually performed. Management, sales, technical work, driving, staff decisions and customer negotiations may all sit behind those two neat entries. Suddenly, the labels are no longer enough.
That question is driving renewed attention to director-owner remuneration. The wider 2026 issue is more useful than any one dispute: does the remuneration structure reflect the commercial reality of the work?
The salary number is only the start
The Dutch customary-pay rule applies when someone works for a company or cooperative in which that person has a substantial interest. The BV carries the payroll responsibility as withholding agent, including when no salary or an unusually low salary has been paid.
For 2026, customary salary is generally at least the highest of three amounts: the salary for the most comparable employment, the wage of the highest-paid employee in the company or a connected company, or €58,000. That figure is not an automatic safe salary. A comparison may produce a higher amount.
A lower salary can be possible where a lower wage for the most comparable employment is made plausible. That is where many conversations become too casual. Uneven turnover, cautious withdrawals or pressure on the bank account may explain the founder’s preference. They do not, by themselves, explain the market value of the work.
I read the rule as a demand for coherence rather than a demand for one universal salary. The company needs to understand the director’s duties, authority, hours and responsibility. It also needs to know which entity receives that work and which employment genuinely offers a useful comparison.
An invoice can be real, but it needs real substance
Not every invoice between connected businesses is disguised salary. Official Belastingdienst Kennisgroep positions published in 2026 make that distinction important.
In one position, a genuine services agreement existed between a holding BV and an operating BV. There was no employment relationship with the operating company, so the customary-pay assessment remained at holding level. In a later position, the services agreement lacked real meaning and employment existed within the operating company. The payroll analysis followed that working reality instead.
These are different structures, but together they make a practical point. An invoice has weight when the contract, parties and actual performance support it. It becomes vulnerable when it merely changes the route by which the same director work is paid.
Consider the owner who spends mornings serving customers and afternoons making hiring, pricing and investment decisions. Calling the morning work “operational” and invoicing it separately may look orderly. Yet the company must still explain whether this is truly an independent assignment or simply one part of the owner’s continuing role.
The ledger can flatter the business
A low payroll charge can make a BV look healthier than it is. Operating margin appears stronger. Cash seems available for a dividend, a new vehicle, debt repayment or another employee. The founder may believe that salary has been postponed rather than lost.
If the remuneration position is corrected later, the cash claim reaches the BV after the related turnover has already funded suppliers, VAT, wages or distributions. A tax question then turns into a liquidity problem. The accounts may also have supported earlier decisions on an incomplete view of the cost of founder labour.
This is why director pay belongs in governance, not only in the tax return. Who decided the amount? When was it decided? Which duties and comparisons supported it? Did payroll entries follow that decision? Do service agreements, invoices, time records and annual accounts describe the same division of work?
The unavoidable question is this: what are we accepting or postponing by recording founder work this way, and what cash, tax, people or market result will that decision produce?
A decision made before year-end
The official Belastingdienst checklist for prior consultation gives a useful picture of the facts that matter. It asks about actual duties, the relevant company, working hours, sector, company size, complexity, final authority, experience, management responsibility, comparable employment and the highest employee salary.
That list is valuable even where no prior consultation is sought. It shifts the discussion away from a number selected during the year-end meeting. Remuneration starts to look like a business decision made while the work is being performed.
Back at the small BV, the practical repair is not to rename every invoice as salary. It is to place payroll, contracts and daily work beside each other while there is still time to understand the differences. Unusual or material structures may also justify case-specific discussion with the Belastingdienst before future payroll treatment is fixed.
Dutch founders often carry several roles because small companies require it. That flexibility is commercially normal. The risk begins when the administration describes separate worlds while customers, staff and decision-making reveal one continuous role.
A credible remuneration structure does not need to be elaborate. It needs to be timely, fact-based and consistent. When the work, contracts and payroll tell the same story, the BV sees its real costs sooner. That is not merely cleaner tax administration. It is better judgment about cash, responsibility and the company’s capacity to move forward.
If salary, invoices and actual duties no longer align, review the remuneration structure before it becomes a payroll-tax and liquidity issue.
The data, sourcing, and analysis behind this article were conducted by Linda Pavan Geraedts. 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 Linda Pavan Geraedts before publication.
References
- Gebruikelijk loon terecht via loonheffing nageheven - Taxence
- Belastingdienst - 2026 customary-pay benchmark and comparison test
- Belastingdienst - Payroll-tax character of customary director pay
- Belastingdienst Kennisgroepen - Work across a holding and operating company, and the limits of invoice routing
- Belastingdienst - Evidence expected for a lower customary salary
- Belastingdienst - Available route for case-specific certainty before remuneration is fixed
- Rechtspraak - Official court record for the submitted judgment
- Wettenbank
