Netherlands
Europe's gateway — and the Article 23 licence that defers import VAT instead of paying it at the border
The Netherlands is the Union's logistics gateway — Rotterdam is Europe's largest port — and for a company importing from third countries it holds one specific advantage that decides cash flow: the Article 23 licence lets import VAT be deferred, declared and deducted in the same return rather than paid at the border. The money never leaves the company. That is why so much of the Union's import volume routes through the Netherlands. English is spoken everywhere and decisions are quick and direct.
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Setting up a company
Setting up a company and tax are the part of the profile you cannot assemble elsewhere in an afternoon. The rest of the page is open.
- ·Legal forms
- ·Minimum capital
- ·How long registration takes
Taxes
Setting up a company and tax are the part of the profile you cannot assemble elsewhere in an afternoon. The rest of the page is open.
- ·Corporate income tax
- ·VAT
What it makes and needs
Logistics and transhipment, agri-food and horticulture, chemicals, semiconductors and precision engineering, energy. It buys almost everything — much of the import moves on into the Union rather than to domestic consumption.
Importing into their market
The Union's single market — no duty and no customs declaration. A supply to a VAT-registered customer in Holandska is an intra-Community supply, exempt, with the customer accounting for the tax. It depends on a VAT number checked in VIES and on proof of transport — without both, the exemption falls away and you pay.
THE ARTICLE 23 LICENCE — and it is why importers route through the Netherlands. On import from a third country VAT is normally paid to customs on release and recovered only in the return, so the money sits idle for weeks. The Dutch Article 23 licence means it is not paid at all: it is declared and deducted in the same return. For an importer with regular consignments that is the most concrete advantage this market has. The licence is available to a foreign company too, usually through a Dutch fiscal representative.
If people travel with the goods — installation, servicing, training — that is posting of workers. Notification before work starts, the local minimum wage and allowances, documentation in the host country's language, and an A1 for each. It is inspected and the fines are high.
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