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How we calculate net pay and allowances

Net pay: the order matters

Net pay does not follow from a single percentage. Wage tax is first calculated on taxable wage using the brackets, which combine income tax and national insurance contributions; that is why the first bracket looks so much higher than the tax component alone. The tax credits, the general tax credit and the labour tax credit, are then deducted from the tax, not from the wage. Both are reduced above an income threshold, and that reduction is why the marginal rate for middle incomes is higher than the bracket rate suggests.

Pension contributions are withheld before wage tax and lower taxable wage. The income-related health insurance contribution is paid by the employer and does not appear as a deduction on the payslip. The calculators assume one employment contract with the payroll tax credit applied; the 30% ruling has its own calculator.

Allowances: one engine, checked against official examples

The healthcare, rent, childcare and child-budget calculators share one engine and one parameter file. Every 2026 amount, limit and percentage comes from the Dienst Toeslagen Berekening … 2026 leaflets and the acts on wetten.overheid.nl, read on 2026-10-03. The engine follows the leaflets' steps, rounds the monthly amount down to whole euros and applies the general rules of the allowances act: nothing is awarded below €24 a year (article 14) and repayments up to €121 are not collected (article 26a).

Each official worked example is an automated test. The table below is recalculated by the engine every time the site is published; if any result differs, the site is not published. Not modelled: country factors for people living abroad, income of co-residents and children above the exemption, and a benefit partner for part of the year.

14 of 14 official worked examples reproduced to the euro (monthly amount).
Allowance Official example Dienst Toeslagen Our engine
HealthcareSingle, €19,000€129€129
HealthcareCouple €33,200, partner not insured (50%)€103€103
HealthcareCouple living in Belgium (country factor)€91€91
RentAge 20, rent €600, €22,000€295€295
RentCouple + child, rent €1,200, €34,000€492€492
RentSingle, 69, rent €710, €29,000€307€307
Childcare€60,000, 122 h day care at €10.50€1,202€1,202
Childcare€120,000, two children€1,162€1,162
ChildcareSingle, childminder 240 h (cap 230)€1,821€1,821
Childcare€50,000, childminder above max rate€880€880
Child budgetCouple €45,000, children 4 and 8€392€392
Child budgetCouple €45,000, children 13 and 16€533€533
Child budgetSingle parent €30,000, child 8€497€497
Child budgetCouple on Curaçao (90%)€347€347

When we update

Brackets, rates, credits and allowance parameters change on 1 January, and some, such as the minimum wage, also on 1 July. We take the figures from the published tables of the Belastingdienst and the Dienst Toeslagen, not from news reports. Every page shows the date of its last change at the top and in the footer, taken from the site's version history.

Sources