Older arbo disputes and current WKR choices do not live under the same Dutch payroll rule.
The invoice looks harmless at first. A BV pays for a gym subscription, or for personal training, because the founder spends long days at a desk and wants to stay fit enough to keep the company moving.
The signal has to become readable
Then the bookkeeper asks the right question. Is this payroll, an arbo provision, a WKR item, or private spending on the company card?
That question matters because the year matters first. A payroll cost from 2019 can sit under a different legal frame than the same expense in 2026. For a small BV, that difference decides where the cost lands and how the file should read.
The year changes the rule
On 24 May 2024, the Hoge Raad ruled in ECLI:NL:HR:2024:745 on the old wording of the arbovrijstelling. Under that text, the exemption was not limited to provisions an employer was strictly obliged to provide under the Arbowet.
The older test looked at whether the provision flowed directly from occupational health policy under the Arbowet. The court also accepted that policy aimed at preventing sickness absence could fall within that frame, even when it also supported health or wellbeing in a broader sense.
That still matters for old objections and older payroll years. A 2019 invoice does not live in today’s rulebook. A founder who tries to use that older outcome as a shortcut for current payroll will usually miss the point.
From 1 January 2022, the route became narrower. Belastingdienst says it is no longer enough that a provision flows from occupational health policy. The employer must assess whether the provision directly relates to obligations under the Arbowet. Rijksoverheid put the same line in parliamentary answers: under the current rule, the exemption concerns mandatory arbovoorzieningen.
A DGA is still payroll
The DGA often creates false comfort. The founder controls the BV, approves the payment, uses the service, and may see the company as an extension of personal effort. That is human. Payroll does not work by feeling.
What the signal changes
Belastingdienst says a BV withholds payroll taxes on the DGA’s salary. If the DGA receives salary from the BV, the same tax rules apply as for other employees. That does not answer every arbo question, but it does place the benefit inside a wage discipline.
That is where the paper trail becomes serious. The invoice should show who received the benefit. The wage record should show how the BV treated it. The ledger should not quietly mix the founder, a partner, family members, another group company, and the BV’s own employees.
In a family business, that separation is not cold formality. It protects trust. A membership for the working founder, a partner who works elsewhere, and a child on the same contract may look like one monthly charge. For payroll, they are different people.
WKR is where the cash moves
If a health cost does not fit the targeted arbo exemption, the next question is often the werkkostenregeling. Belastingdienst gives sport subscriptions as examples of benefits that may sit in the WKR rather than in a targeted exemption.
For 2026, the WKR free space is 2.00 percent of fiscal wages up to and including 400,000 euros, and 1.18 percent above that amount. If untaxed benefits exceed the free space, the employer pays an 80 percent final levy on the excess. Targeted exemptions do not reduce the free space. WKR benefits do.
That makes classification a cash decision, not just a tax label. A small employer may already use the free space for gifts, staff events, meals, phones, allowances, or wellbeing costs. A gym bill treated too loosely can eat room the employer thought was still available.
Timing matters as well. WKR treatment works best when the employer makes the choice in the year itself and the wage record follows that choice. Once a review starts, a correction usually costs more. The benefit has already been used. The cash has already left.
What the Arbo file must show
The Arbowet gives the workplace layer. Article 3 requires the employer to care for employee safety and health in relation to work. Article 5 requires a written RI&E, with a plan of action that shows the measures, their link to the risks, and their timing.
What founders should check
For current payroll, that story comes before the invoice amount. What work risk is being addressed? Which employee or employee group is involved? Where is the measure used or consumed? Has the employee given up salary, holiday budget, bonus, or another taxable claim to receive it?
The 2026 Handboek Loonheffingen gives familiar examples: an ergonomic office chair, a footrest for screen work, screen glasses, protective clothing, safety glasses, and medical examinations. It also says salary exchange, or using a taxable wage component for the provision, counts as an employee contribution in this context.
That is not a small detail. An employee contribution can block the arbo route under current rules. In a DGA situation, it can also weaken the credibility of the whole wage file.
The same handbook notes that stop-smoking courses and chair massage no longer fall automatically under the targeted arbo exemption from 1 January 2022, though individual situations may still qualify. The line is narrower now. That is the point. The employer must fit the facts to the rule, not the other way around.
Back to the invoice on the desk
So we return to the bookkeeper with the gym invoice. The question is not whether the founder should train. Many founders should take health more seriously than they do. The question is whether the BV can carry the cost under the right payroll rule for the right year.
For old years, the broader Hoge Raad line may matter when the facts support a clear occupational health policy link. For current years, the BV should not lean on that old comfort. The current route is narrower: mandatory arbo connection, no employee contribution, clean employee identity, correct WKR treatment, and a ledger that tells the same story as the payroll record.
There is no need for drama here. There is only the ordinary discipline of a good small company. Health costs can be legitimate. WKR can be useful. Arbo policy can protect real people doing real work.
But a BV gym bill needs the right year first. After that, it needs the right person, the right reason, and the right place in payroll.
Sources
- Personal training dga valt onder arbovrijstelling – Taxence
- Rechtspraak – Target judgment verification
- Rechtspraak – Pre-2022 arbovrijstelling and the Hoge Raad line
- Belastingdienst Kennisgroepen – Post-2022 narrowing of the arbovrijstelling
- Rijksoverheid – Government response after the healthy lunch judgment
- Belastingdienst – Current Belastingdienst payroll guidance for arbovoorzieningen
- Belastingdienst – WKR fallback, free space, and 80 percent final levy
- Belastingdienst – DGA as payroll subject
The Polder is written for readers who need the Dutch business environment translated into practical meaning. Corrections, source policy and editorial accountability are part of the publication record.
