Receiving your first provisional tax assessment

If you start a business, you usually only pay your income tax retroactively for the first few years. After you file an income tax return as an entrepreneur for the first time, you can expect to receive your first provisional assessment (voorlopige aanslag) in January of the following year.

What is a provisional assessment?

If you filed an income tax return as an entrepreneur in 2022, the Tax and Customs Administration can estimate your turnover in 2023 and how much tax you will have to pay on it. With the provisional assessment, you pay the income tax and the Health Insurance Act contribution in advance, spread over the year. The advantage is that you do not have to pay a large amount in one go. 

Many entrepreneurs react with alarm when they receive the provisional assessment for the first time. Especially because the payment terms can run parallel to those of the final assessment for a previous year. That is a setback if you have not taken it into account.

What do you do with it?

Based on your previous income tax return, the Tax Administration estimates how much tax you will have to pay in the coming year. If you think you will earn more or less, you can adjust the provisional assessment via Mijn Belastingdienst (in Dutch). This way you avoid having to pay or receive a large amount next year. 

Also inform the Tax Administration if other things in your life change, such as when you start living together or get divorced. These kinds of events affect your general levy reduction and influence how much tax you have to pay. You can update your provisional income tax assessment at any time of the year. 

Tip: do you still not know what to do? Talk to the Tax Administration. This can be done every workday via web chat with tax advisors, between 10:00 and 14:00.

When do you have to pay?

You can pay the provisional assessment in eleven equal instalments. The first payment must be on the account of the Tax Administration no later than 28 February. You can set up an automatic direct debit for this. You can also pay the entire amount in one go.

Did you not receive a provisional assessment?

Should you not receive a provisional assessment? Then you can apply for it (in Dutch) so that you can already start paying income tax and the Health Insurance Act contribution.