The earnings stripping rule rewards early tax modelling, not last-minute comfort about bank debt.
A founder can leave a bank meeting with a perfectly ordinary loan and still carry a tax question back to the office. The repayment fits the forecast. The interest rate is known. The security is clear. Then article 15b of the Wet Vpb 1969 asks a different question: how much of the net interest can the BV deduct this year?
The signal has to become readable
For 2026, the ordinary frame is clear. Net interest is deductible up to the higher of 24.5 percent of corrected profit or €1,000,000. Any disallowed interest can move forward to later years. That makes the rule a cash-timing issue as much as a financing issue.
The loan is real, the deduction is separate
Many small BVs will never come near €1,000,000 in net interest. That is the first calm point. This is not a daily problem for every café, shop, studio, or consultancy with a modest facility at the bank.
Pressure starts where debt is heavier, profit is thin, property sits in the structure, or financing is spread across several entities. A loan can be perfectly normal for the bank and still create tax friction for the company. The tax return sees a calculation. The bank sees a credit file.
Take a wholesale BV that borrowed to carry more stock and rent extra warehouse space. Sales are steady, but margins soften. The interest bill stays fixed. The founder watches turnover, gross margin, wages, rent, and bank payments. Article 15b looks at corrected profit, which is a tax view, not a management dashboard.
The 2025 relief kept the frame intact
In 2023 and 2024, the main percentage was 20 percent. From 2025, it moved to 24.5 percent. Official tax material described that move as a relaxation. For some companies, that gives breathing room. The structure of the rule stayed in place.
What the signal changes
The Dutch implementation also goes beyond the ATAD1 minimum standard by using a €1,000,000 threshold instead of the €3,000,000 threshold in the directive. The policy aim is broader than anti-avoidance alone. Dutch tax policy also wants a more equal treatment of debt and equity.
That matters in practice. Article 15b is not only a rule for artificial group structures discussed in seminars. It reaches ordinary financing because Dutch tax policy deliberately looks at debt itself. A founder may be right that the bank loan is genuine. The deduction test still runs its own route.
Real estate sharpens the point. From 1 January 2025, qualifying real estate bodies with real estate made available to third parties lost the €1,000,000 deduction space. Around the same time, DNB reported €340 billion in loans outstanding from Dutch banks to Dutch businesses as of March 2026, with just under half going to SMEs.
Where the ledger starts to matter
DNB also reported about €149 billion of business lending to enterprises exploiting real estate. Debt is a policy word, but it is also concrete. It sits in buildings, stock, machinery, land, vehicles, and working capital.
In March 2026, SMEs paid about 3.6 percent on outstanding credit, compared with about 3.1 percent for non-SME businesses. That is a sober financing signal. Smaller borrowers often carry a slightly higher interest cost and less spare administrative capacity.
The weakness usually starts in the reconciliation. The owner-manager sees bank interest, shareholder loans, current-account positions, lease elements, factoring fees, acquisition finance, and property debt. The tax file has to decide what belongs in the net interest balance, what affects corrected profit, and what must be tracked as carried-forward disallowed interest.
What founders should check
A 2024 judgment from Rechtbank Zeeland-West-Brabant, ECLI:NL:RBZWB:2024:2388, shows why labels alone can mislead. The case dealt with a Reference Rate component in non-recourse factoring. The court held that the factoring result was too remote from interest income on a loan or comparable agreement for article 15b. The taxpayer’s ATAD-based argument did not change the outcome.
For a small business, the lesson is plain. A payment can feel interest-like in management accounts and still move differently under tax classification. That is why the financing map should not live only in the bank folder. It belongs in the corporate tax work before the year closes.
The morning question for the owner-manager
I would want the founder from the bank meeting to sit down with one page before signing the next refinancing. Not a thick memo. One page with the BV’s loans, leases, factoring, shareholder balances, property debt, interest income, finance fees, and any interest carried forward from earlier years.
Next to that page, I would want a lower-profit scenario. What happens if margin drops, debtor days stretch, or a tenant leaves? Can corrected profit still carry the interest deduction? Is provisional Vpb still set at the right level? Would a dividend decision still look responsible after the tax calculation?
The answer may be reassuring. For many small BVs, it will be. Reassurance has more value before the cash is committed. Carry-forward can preserve a later deduction possibility. It cannot pay this year’s bank interest, supplier invoice, wage run, or corporate tax assessment.
The earnings stripping rule is not asking founders to fear debt. Debt builds companies when it is priced, documented, and carried by real profit. The rule asks for a second discipline: keep commercial financing close to the tax ledger. The bank meeting may end at noon. The article 15b question is still waiting in the afternoon.
Sources
- Earningsstrippingregeling onder vuur, ATAD wordt versoepeld – Taxence
- Wettenbank – Current statutory rule under article 15b Wet Vpb
- Belastingdienst – Belastingdienst 2026 taxpayer-facing Vpb update
- Belastingdienst – Belastingdienst direct page on the generic interest deduction limitation
- Rijksoverheid – Belastingplan 2025 policy frame and real estate anti-fragmentation
- Rijksoverheid – Official 2025 public tax changes summary
- Wettenbank – Besluit Earningsstrippingmaatregel 2025
- Rechtspraak – Court signal on factoring and article 15b
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