The 7 percent bicycle rule helps employees, but payroll, VAT and travel allowances still have to agree.
A small employer sees the appeal fast. One employee already uses a leased company bicycle in summer, then asks for a more comfortable e-bike in winter. The request sounds sensible, healthy and modest. No car. No parking space. Just a bicycle that gets someone to work.
The economic route comes first
That is where the payroll question starts. A company bicycle is not just a staff perk. Under Dutch wage tax law, a bicycle made available for private use is taxed at 7 percent of the bicycle value each calendar year. Commuting with that bicycle counts for the rule. The value is based on the public recommended retail price in the Netherlands, including VAT.
The benefit looks simple. The payroll record is not.
The bicycle is an asset, not a gesture
A second bicycle is a good test of small-company discipline. Employees want flexibility, and that fits real life. One person may need one bike for summer, rain, child transport, longer commuting days, or travel between work locations.
For the employer, the number of bicycles is only one part of the file. The real questions are what has been made available, from which date, at which value, with which employee contribution, and under which payroll treatment. If the employee pays for private use, that contribution reduces the taxable benefit, but not below zero.
Belastingdienst guidance is clear on one practical point. A company bicycle with a taxable addition does not have to be used only for work or commuting. Private use is part of the arrangement once the taxable-addition route applies. That makes payroll treatment easier in one sense, but it also makes the arrangement more important on paper.
Mileage does not survive unchanged
The next mistake often sits in the travel allowance. The Netherlands raised the tax-free kilometre allowance to €0.25 per kilometre for 2026, with retroactive effect from 1 January 2026. That is useful for own-transport kilometres. It is not a reason to keep paying a tax-free allowance for kilometres travelled with a company bicycle.
Legal form is not the whole story
This is where the winter e-bike request becomes a real payroll conversation. An employee may cycle three days, work from home one day and use a private car on another day. The Belastingdienst handbook allows individual agreements for mixed travel patterns, if they fit the employee’s real circumstances and have enough substance.
That substance matters. A standard allowance copied from last year may no longer fit. If the company bicycle covers certain commuting days, those days need to be separated from private-car or other own-transport days. An incidental change in the pattern does not break the arrangement, but the basic agreement should still reflect how the employee normally travels.
VAT tells a different story
Wage tax and VAT do not move together. That is the part many attractive bicycle plans hide from view. For VAT on an employer-provided or leased bicycle used for commuting, the Belastingdienst states a maximum deduction of €130. For a leased bicycle, that maximum applies to the whole lease term, not per year.
There is another condition. The employer must not have bought or leased a bicycle for that employee in the current calendar year or the two previous years. If another commuting reimbursement or facility is also provided, the VAT rule adds its own 50 percent travel-days condition for the stated period.
So a second bicycle can look light in the wage-tax calculation while bringing little or no VAT relief. That is not a reason to reject the arrangement. It is a reason to stop treating payroll, VAT and staff benefits as separate files. The lease invoice, salary run, VAT booking and travel agreement should tell the same story.
WKR space is still limited
The taxable addition is wage in kind. Payroll tax, employee insurance premiums and the Zvw levy or contribution can come into view, unless the employer validly designates the item as final levy wage under the werkkostenregeling, the WKR. That choice is not a magic cupboard.
Follow one revenue stream
For 2026, the WKR free space is 2.00 percent of fiscal wage up to and including €400,000, and 1.18 percent above that. Spending above the free space leads to an 80 percent final levy. Unused free space cannot be carried forward. In a micro company, a few benefits can fill the room faster than expected.
Shared bicycles sit in a different corner. If a bicycle, including a shared bicycle, is not stored at the employee’s home or residence, or only incidentally stored there, the taxable benefit can be nil. The Belastingdienst treats not more than 10 percent as incidental. A hub bicycle or OV-fiets-type arrangement is not the same as a personal lease bicycle kept at home.
The clean decision is a calm one
The small employer with the winter e-bike request does not need a dramatic policy paper. The company needs a clear answer to ordinary questions. Which bicycle is being provided? What is its recommended retail price? Where is it normally stored? Which days are covered by the company bicycle? Which days still justify another tax-free travel allowance? What has been booked in payroll, VAT and the ledger?
This is not about making the bicycle unattractive. It is about protecting a useful benefit from messy administration. A bicycle plan works best when the employee understands the net salary effect and the employer can explain the treatment without reconstructing the story months later.
A second company bicycle can be a sensible answer to Dutch commuting reality. Rain, distance, hybrid work and family logistics do not always fit one bike. But every extra bicycle adds a line of responsibility. The mature employer does not turn that into fear. It turns it into a record that payroll, VAT and the staff agreement can all recognise.
Sources
- Accountant.nl
- Wettenbank
- Belastingdienst
- Belastingdienst
- Rijksoverheid
- Belastingdienst
- Belastingdienst
- Belastingdienst
Referenced in the article
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