Prior Visits to the Netherlands and the 30% Ruling: Section 4 Explained

What Section 4 Actually Asks

Section 4 of the official Belastingdienst form (LH 598-1Z61FOL ENG) sits near the end of the application and contains four questions about the employee's history with the Netherlands. Despite their plain English, each one carries weight:

• 4a - Did the employee live in the Netherlands during the 25 years before the first working day? If yes, list every period of residence with start and end dates.
• 4b - Did the employee work in the Netherlands during the 25 years before the first working day? If yes, give the dates and the employer's name and address.
• 4c - Did the employee stay in the Netherlands for private reasons during the 25 years before the first working day? Holidays, family visits, conferences, weddings, study trips. List the dates.
• 4d - During those 25 years, did the employee work outside the Netherlands but under Dutch employment law for a Dutch employer? A Dutch employer's foreign posting, for example.

The employer files the form, but the questions are about the employee. In practice, the employee fills in this section themselves - and that is exactly where things go wrong, because most people simply don't remember every short trip they've made over the past 25 years.

The 25-Year Cooling-Off Rule

Section 4 exists to apply a single rule with a long name: the kortingsregeling, sometimes called the 25-year lookback or cooling-off rule. It comes from Article 10ef of the Uitvoeringsbesluit loonbelasting and works like this:

1. The Belastingdienst counts back 25 years from your first Dutch working day.
2. Within that window, every period during which you lived in the Netherlands or worked here is added up.
3. That total is then deducted from the 60-month maximum duration of the ruling.

The rule is meant to stop "ruling-shopping" - someone leaving the Netherlands for a year and then coming back to claim a fresh 60 months of tax-free salary. But it cuts wider than just the obvious cases. A two-year secondment to Amsterdam in 2010 takes 24 months off your 60. Even shorter visits add up if they don't fall under the de minimis exceptions described below.

What Counts as "Prior Presence"

Section 4 is intentionally broad. The Belastingdienst is not just asking about formal employment or registered residence. Any of the following can count, depending on duration:

• Conferences and business meetings - even a 3-day industry conference in Amsterdam.
• Holidays - a two-week canal-boating trip is a "stay" for these purposes.
• Family visits - if your in-laws live in Utrecht and you visit twice a year, those days count.
• Weddings, funerals, and other family events - regardless of how brief.
• Study programmes and exchanges - Erasmus semesters, summer schools, executive education at Dutch institutions.
• Internships and student jobs - even unpaid internships, when performed physically in the Netherlands.
• Long layovers - typically anything over 24 hours where you leave the airport.

Short transit stops where you stay airside generally do not count. Day-trips on which you arrive and leave the same day are usually not counted in practice, but they are not formally exempt - if asked, declare them.

The De Minimis Safe Harbours

Article 10e.5 of the Uitvoeringsbesluit loonbelasting carves out three "safe harbours" that explicitly do not count as presence under the cooling-off rule. The two work-related and private-related harbours run independently and apply per calendar year:

The two private safe harbours are alternatives, not cumulative. You can either rely on the 6-week annual cap across multiple stays, or one uninterrupted block of up to three months in a single year - but not both in the same year.

These caps reset every January 1. If you spent 4 weeks in the Netherlands in 2019 and another 4 weeks in 2020, both fall within the 6-week annual private safe harbour and are fully exempt. If you spent 10 weeks in the Netherlands in 2019, only 6 of them are exempt under the standard rule (or all 10 if they were one continuous block under the 3-month rule).

Worked Example: Ahmed's Pre-NL History

Ahmed is a software engineer who started his Dutch job on March 1, 2026. The Belastingdienst will look at the 25-year window from March 1, 2001 to February 28, 2026. Here is what he needs to declare:

• Summer school in Leiden in 2019: 14 consecutive days in July.
• Three industry conferences in Amsterdam: 3 days in 2021, 4 days in 2022, 2 days in 2023.
• A wedding in Utrecht in 2024: 5 days.

Now suppose Ahmed had also done a 6-month internship in Rotterdam in 2014. That internship would not fit any safe harbour - it was work, lasted longer than 20 working days in a single year, and was not a private stay. The full 6 months would be deducted from his 60-month ruling, leaving him with 54 months.

How to Declare It on the Form

For each "yes" answer in Section 4, the form requires you to list one or more periods. Each period needs a precise from date and through date in DD-MM-YYYY format. If you used our intake form, those dates feed straight into the structured data the Belastingdienst expects.

Practical advice when filling Section 4:

• Pull together the evidence first. Old passport stamps, conference registration emails, hotel booking confirmations, and flight history from your airline accounts are the easiest sources. Booking.com and Airbnb stay history covers many private stays.
• Don't lump separate trips into one range. Three conferences in Amsterdam in 2022 are three periods, not one. Lumping them inflates the apparent presence and may push you over a safe harbour.
• Be specific with reasons. The Belastingdienst categorises stays as work-related or private to apply the right safe harbour. "Business trip" and "holiday" are clear; "visit" is not.
• Include 4b employer details where relevant. If you previously worked for a Dutch employer (formal employment, not a 20-day business trip), the form requires the employer's full name and address - not just the dates.
• Don't pre-emptively exclude exempt stays. Declare them anyway and let the safe harbour apply. Hiding even an exempt stay risks looking deceptive if it later surfaces from another data source.

Common Mistakes to Avoid

Forgetting old visits

The biggest single problem with Section 4 is not deception - it is genuine forgetting. Most people have made more trips to the Netherlands than they remember. Build a written list before you start filling the form and check it against your records.

Stays before age 18

A common assumption is that childhood holidays don't count. They do - the rule looks at any stay, regardless of age. The same de minimis safe harbours apply, and most childhood holidays will fit comfortably within the 6-week annual private cap.

Treating safe harbours as automatic exemptions to "declare nothing"

The safe harbour exempts the stay from the duration deduction. It does not exempt you from declaring the stay on the form. Skipping declaration of "small trips" gets caught when the Belastingdienst cross-checks against employer business-travel records or border data, and looks bad.

Approximating dates when unsure

If you genuinely don't remember exact dates, use the most accurate range you can substantiate (e.g., "first half of August 2017") rather than fabricating a precise date. The Belastingdienst is far more forgiving of "approximate" than of "wrong".

Frequently Asked Questions

Do I need to declare a 24-hour stopover or layover?

If you stayed airside in transit, no. If you left the airport and stayed even one night, declare it - it is a "stay" for these purposes, even though it almost certainly fits within the private safe harbour.

What if I can't remember the exact dates of an old visit?

Reconstruct from whatever records you have - email confirmations, photo timestamps, payment statements. If a precise date is impossible, declare the most accurate range you can support (e.g., "10-17 August 2014, dates approximate") and keep your supporting evidence in case of follow-up questions.

Does a stay before I turned 18 still count?

Yes. The 25-year lookback applies regardless of age. In practice, childhood holidays almost always fit within the 6-week annual private safe harbour and don't shorten the ruling, but they still need to be declared.

What evidence does the Belastingdienst ask for?

Usually nothing upfront - they trust the declaration on the form. If they query a stay, the typical evidence requested is travel records (flight bookings, hotel reservations), employer business-travel logs, or registration certificates from the institution you attended. Save what you have for at least seven years after submission.

Can I lose the ruling entirely if I forget to declare a visit?

A genuine omission corrected before approval is rarely fatal. Discovered after approval, it can lead to the ruling being reassessed, the duration shortened, or - in cases that look deliberately misleading - revoked. Disclose proactively if you realise something was missed.