First-year tax as a freelance personal trainer in the Netherlands

Meet the 1,225-hour criterion in 2026, and you deduct €1,200 self-employed deduction from your profit — as a starter, an extra €2,123 starter's deduction is added on top. On what remains, 12.7% SME profit exemption is tax-free. Those four items decide what you actually keep in your first year.

Important: this article is informational, not tax advice. The figures come from the Dutch tax office (Belastingdienst), as of September 2026; for your own return, talk to your accountant or the Belastingdienst directly.

The hours criterion: 1,225 hours — the key to every other deduction

Without meeting the hours criterion, there is no self-employed deduction and no starter's deduction. The threshold is 1,225 hours per calendar year spent on your business — roughly 24 hours a week. That does not need to be billable client time: acquisition, bookkeeping, maintaining your website, and travel time between sessions all count in full.

Start in July, and the full 1,225 hours still apply for that calendar year — there is no pro-rating. For most starting personal trainers running several clients a day, that is achievable; with a handful of clients alongside a part-time job it usually is not, and the whole deduction falls away.

Self-employed deduction: €1,200 in 2026 — and it shrinks every year

The self-employed deduction (zelfstandigenaftrek) is a fixed amount you subtract from your profit once you meet the hours criterion, have not yet reached state pension age, and the Belastingdienst recognises you as an entrepreneur for income tax purposes. In 2026 that is €1,200 — a steep downward line: €2,470 in 2025, €1,200 in 2026, and €900 from 2027 onward. The government is phasing this deduction down step by step.

Starter's deduction: an extra €2,123, up to 3 times in your first 5 years

As a starter, an extra €2,123 is added on top of the self-employed deduction — €3,323combined in 2026. Unlike the self-employed deduction, the starter's deduction is not being phased down.

• You can apply it a maximum of 3 times within your first 5 years as an entrepreneur.
• Condition: you were not recognised as an entrepreneur in one or more of the preceding 5 calendar years.
• And: you did not apply the self-employed deduction more than twice already in that period.

In practice: starting earlier means claiming the starter's deduction in your strongest years, before the regular self-employed deduction is phased down further.

SME profit exemption: 12.7% of what remains

After the entrepreneur's deduction (self-employed deduction plus any starter's deduction) has been subtracted from your profit, the SME profit exemption (mkb-winstvrijstelling) applies: in 2026, 12.7% of that remaining profit is exempt from tax. This is not something you fill in yourself — the Belastingdienst applies it automatically in your return.

A worked example

Say you make €40,000 profit before deductions in your first year, and you qualify as a starter meeting the hours criterion:

• €40,000 profit − €3,323 entrepreneur's deduction (self-employed + starter's) = €36,677
• − 12.7% SME profit exemption on €36,677 = €4,658 exempt
• = €32,019 taxable profit, on which you then pay income tax (box 1) and the Zvw health-insurance contribution

The last step — what you actually pay in income tax on that €32,019 — depends on your total income and the current box 1 brackets; work that through with your accountant or the Belastingdienst's own calculator. This article stops at what gets deducted, not at what you ultimately transfer.