1In short
2The tax treaty
- Employment income
- Art. 14: taxed in the country where the work is done
- 183-day exception
- The home country keeps the right only for a stay of 183 days or less in any 12-month period, paid by an employer from the home country and not borne by a branch in the other
- Resident of both?
- Art. 4(2): permanent home, then centre of vital interests, then habitual abode, then nationality
- Dutch relief
- Art. 22(2)(b): exemption by reducing Dutch tax
- Germany's relief
- Art. 22(1)(a) and (d): exemption with progression
3Living in one country, working in the other
If you live in Germany and work for a Dutch employer (or the other way round), the employer's country taxes the pay for the days you work there, and your country of residence the pay for the days you work at home or elsewhere in that country. There is no official formula; in practice the salary is split by working days.
Example: €60,000 a year, 220 working days, of which 2 days a week at home (88 days).
| Salary | |
|---|---|
| Taxed in the Netherlands (employer's country) | €36,000 |
| Taxed in Germany (country of residence) | €24,000 |
Germany then relieves double tax on the Dutch part: it exempts that salary but counts it for the rate on the rest.
4Moving from Germany to the Netherlands
From the day you live here, the Netherlands taxes you as a resident. Before that it taxes nothing, because you neither lived nor worked here. For your first year you file an M-form (migration return), due 1 July of the following year.
Germany assesses the year of the move as one year: the German salary is taxed in Germany, and the Dutch salary counts for the German rate (progression, § 2(7) and § 32b EStG).
With the 30% ruling the Dutch tax is lower. The M-form estimator and the cross-border calculator work out your own dates and salary.
6Checklist
Part of Cross-border tax in the Netherlands. Per country: Germany · Belgium · The United Kingdom · India · Poland · Romania. Work out your own case with the cross-border salary calculator.
Sources
This article is based on these official pages. If anything here differs from them, the official page is right.
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Cross-border salary calculator
5Social security
Within the EU you pay social security in one country only. A Dutch employer means Dutch social security, unless you live in Germany and do 25% or more of your work there: that indicates a substantial part, and then Germany's system applies (Regulation 883/2004 Art. 13; 987/2009 Art. 14(8)).
Working from home between 25% and 50% of the time? Under the EU framework agreement on cross-border telework (since 1 July 2023), employer and employee can jointly ask to stay in the employer's system; Germany and the Netherlands have both signed it.
Posted to the Netherlands by an employer in Germany? Its social security can continue for up to 24 months with an A1 certificate (Art. 12).