Mortgage interest deduction for expats works the same way it does for Dutch homeowners: interest paid on a mortgage for your primary residence is deductible from your Box 1 income, as long as you qualify as a Dutch tax resident and the mortgage is an annuity or linear type. What trips up most expats is not the rule itself, but how it interacts with the 30% ruling, the amount added back to your taxable income, and which purchase costs actually count.
Say you earn a gross salary of 75,000 euros and pay 9,000 euros in mortgage interest over the year. That 9,000 euros is subtracted from your taxable income in Box 1, which is the part of the Dutch tax system that covers income from work and homeownership. In 2026, the benefit you actually receive is capped at a rate of 37.56 percent, even if your income falls in a higher tax bracket.
That cap matters if you earn well. If your taxable income in 2026 is above 79,137 euros, the portion of your income above that threshold is taxed at 49.5 percent, but you still only get the mortgage interest deducted back at 37.56 percent. The gap between what you pay in tax and what you get back on the deduction is the price of being a higher earner under this system.
| Item | 2026 figure |
|---|---|
| Maximum deduction rate | 37.56 percent |
| Top income tax bracket starts at | 79,137 euros |
| Eigenwoningforfait rate (most homes) | 0.35 percent of WOZ value |
| Maximum deduction period | 30 years from mortgage start |
If you moved to the Netherlands for a job and bought instead of rented, you are not treated any differently from a Dutch national for this deduction. What matters is your tax residency status, not your passport or permit type.
As long as you are treated as a Dutch tax resident, whether or not you benefit from the 30% ruling, you can claim mortgage interest deduction on your primary residence, because that home falls under Box 1 regardless of the ruling. The advisory team sees this misunderstanding often: expats assume the ruling and the deduction are linked, when they actually run on separate tracks.
Only annuity and linear mortgages qualify for the deduction, a rule that has applied since 2013. If you took out an interest-only mortgage before that date, you keep your deduction rights under a transitional arrangement, but new interest-only mortgages taken out today do not qualify at all.
The 30% ruling lets qualifying highly skilled migrants receive 30 percent of their salary tax free for up to five years, and in 2026 that percentage is still 30 percent. From January 2027, the tax free share drops to 27 percent for anyone whose ruling first started in 2024 or later, while people who already had the ruling before 2024 keep 30 percent for the rest of their term.
Here is the part that surprises people: the tax free portion of your salary is not taxed in Box 1 in the first place, so there is nothing for the deduction to offset on that slice of income. Most lenders also calculate your borrowing capacity on your full gross salary, as if the whole amount were taxable, so the ruling mainly improves your net income rather than how much you can borrow.
Some lenders go further and stress test your affordability for the period after your ruling ends, since the deduction interaction changes once it expires. It is worth asking directly how a lender handles that transition before you commit.
Owning a home in the Netherlands comes with a catch: alongside the deduction, you also have to add an amount back to your taxable income called the eigenwoningforfait, the imputed rental value of your own home. In 2026, this is 0.35 percent of your home’s WOZ value, which is the value your municipality assigns for tax purposes, with a higher rate applying above 1,350,000 euros.
In practice, this means the deduction is never a pure gain. You deduct the interest, but a percentage of your home’s value gets added back on the other side, which partially cancels out the benefit. For homeowners who have paid off most of their mortgage, a separate arrangement called the Wet Hillen used to soften this further, but that relief is being reduced in 2026, so it counts for less each year.
In the year you buy your home, a number of one-off costs are deductible on top of the ongoing interest, and knowing which ones qualify can make a real difference on your first tax return as a homeowner.
Two costs people often assume are deductible are not: transfer tax (overdrachtsbelasting) and the fee for a buyer’s agent (aankoopmakelaar). Both come out of your own funds with no tax offset, so budget for them separately. Instead of waiting for your annual return, you can also apply for a provisional monthly refund (voorlopige teruggaaf), spread across the year rather than paid as one lump sum. If your situation involves a temporary contract, foreign income, or a partner who is not yet a tax resident, it is worth a second opinion before you file; reach out through this contact page if you want that checked.
The deduction is not indefinite. You can claim it for a maximum of 30 years from the date your mortgage started, after which it stops regardless of how much of the mortgage remains outstanding.
There is one quirk worth knowing if you are buying an older property with an assumed or transferred mortgage: for mortgages that started before January 1, 2001, the 30-year clock was set to begin on that date, which means those deductions run out in 2031. For any mortgage you take out today, the 30 years simply start counting from your own completion date.
Say you are a highly skilled migrant on the 30% ruling, earning above the top tax bracket, and trying to work out whether buying now still makes sense once the eigenwoningforfait and the 37.56 percent cap are factored in. That depends on your salary structure, allowances, and how long your ruling has left to run, so a generic calculator will not give you a reliable answer.
An advisor who works with expat cases daily can model your actual net benefit across lenders, flag which one weighs your allowances and ruling correctly, and help you decide whether a provisional monthly refund or the annual return route suits your cash flow better.
Reach out via @dekredieter, visit www.kredieter.nl, or call 020-5753320 to talk through your own numbers.
Yes. If you and your partner are registered as fiscal partners for Dutch tax purposes, you can divide the mortgage interest deduction between you in any ratio you choose, including 100/0 or 50/50. This flexibility lets couples optimise the split based on who earns more and who benefits most from the deduction each year.
Only if the mortgage was taken out before January 1, 2013, in which case it keeps deduction rights under a transitional arrangement. Interest-only mortgages arranged from 2013 onward do not qualify at all; only annuity and linear mortgages, which both involve gradually repaying the principal, are eligible for new deductions.
You do not have to wait. You can apply for a provisional monthly refund, called a voorlopige teruggaaf, which spreads the tax benefit across the year in your monthly net pay instead of arriving as one lump sum after you file. Many homeowners prefer this because it improves monthly cash flow rather than a single annual payout.
The deduction is tied to Dutch tax residency and to the home being your actual primary residence. If you emigrate, stop living in the property, or start renting it out, your right to claim the deduction generally changes or ends, so it is worth checking your specific situation with an advisor before you move.
