Paying a dividend from your BV: how it works

Taking profit out of your BV is a decision with a test, a filing and a deadline attached. This is what has to happen, in what order, and which part of the question belongs with a tax specialist rather than your bookkeeper.

What a dividend distribution is

A dividend is a distribution of profit to the shareholders of your BV. It is not salary and not a cost: the BV has already paid corporate income tax on it, and what remains can go to the shareholders. For a founder with a holding, that is the usual route for moving money up from the operating company.

A distribution is a decision, not a transfer. The general meeting resolves to distribute and the board has to approve it. You record that decision, because it is the support for the entry and the first thing an adviser asks for in a due diligence.

First the question of whether it is allowed

A BV may not distribute what it cannot spare. The board has to test whether the company can keep paying its debts after the distribution. If it cannot and the BV distributes anyway, directors can be held liable. That is not a theoretical risk at a startup, where the cash position can shift from month to month.

In practice it means supporting the distribution with figures that are current: your cash position, your obligations and your expected spending for the period ahead. An administration that is months behind cannot answer that question.

Dividend tax: withhold, file, remit

On a distribution to a private shareholder the BV withholds dividend tax. The rate is 15 per cent. You do not pay it out of your own pocket: you withhold it from the distribution, so the shareholder receives the amount less the dividend tax.

The dividend tax return is due within one month of the day you made the dividend available. That is a short window, and it is the return most often forgotten because it does not sit in the fixed rhythm of VAT and payroll taxes.

From operating BV to holding: the participation exemption

If the operating BV distributes to a holding that owns at least 5 per cent of the shares, as a rule no dividend tax has to be withheld. That is the participation exemption, and it is one of the reasons many founders hold their operating company through a personal holding.

In the books it is still one transaction with two sides: a distribution in the operating BV, participation income in the holding. Those two have to match, just like the management fee and the current account.

What you pay privately: box 2

If you take the dividend all the way to your private account, that income falls in box 2, income from a substantial interest. In 2026 box 2 has two brackets: 24.5 per cent up to 68,843 euros and 31 per cent above that. The dividend tax the BV already withheld is an advance levy, so it is set off against what you owe in box 2.

These percentages and the bracket threshold change every year. So never calculate with a number from an article, including this one: check it with the Belastingdienst or have it verified.

Dividend or salary: why we say nothing about it

The question every founder asks is what the best mix of salary and dividend looks like. That is a tax question, and one that depends on your customary salary, your box 2 position, your plans for the BV and sometimes on agreements with investors. We do not advise on it, because it is a different profession with different responsibility.

What we do is make sure the figures you base that choice on are correct and current, and that whatever you decide lands correctly in both administrations and in the returns.

What has to be right in your administration

• The shareholder resolution, with the date the dividend was made available.
• The entry for the distribution and, while it is unpaid, the liability to the shareholder or the current account.
• The withheld dividend tax as an amount to remit, with the return filed within one month.
• In a holding structure: the same transaction on both sides, distribution and participation income.
• The treatment in the year-end close, because a distribution changes your equity.

In short

• A dividend is a distribution of after-tax profit, based on a recorded decision.
• The board first has to test whether the BV can keep paying its debts after the distribution.
• For a private shareholder the BV withholds 15 per cent dividend tax, with a return within one month.
• To a holding with at least 5 per cent of the shares the participation exemption applies as a rule.
• Privately it falls in box 2, with two brackets in 2026, and the withheld dividend tax is an advance levy.