Allowances, benefits in kind and provisions

You are permitted to spend part of your taxable salary on tax-free allowances, benefits in kind and provisions for your employees. We refer to this the discretionary margin. In 2025 the discretionary margin is 2,00% of your taxable salary up to €400,000. The discretionary margin over the result of your taxable salary is 1.18%. You can also pay for, issue or make certain items available by means of targeted exceptions and nil valuations.

You pay wage tax in the form of a final levy of 80% over the amount that exceeds the discretionary margin.

Specific exemptions

Specific exemptions are applicable to a number of allowances, benefits in kind and provisions. These are exemptions at employee level for specific costs incurred by your employee. These specific exemptions include, for example, allowances, benefits in kind and provisions for extraterritorial costs, transport, meals, overnight stays, courses, congresses, studies and training courses. These exemptions are usually governed by maximum amounts. Specific exemptions are not debited from your discretionary margin.

If allowances, benefits in kind and provisions exceed the maximum amounts, then the excess constitutes taxed wages for your employee. However, you can also opt to indicate this as final levy wages. When you do not include (part of) the excess in your employee's wages then the excess is debited from your discretionary margin.

Nil valuations

A number of provisions are valued at nil, for example work clothing or refreshments at work. These nil valuations avoid the situation in which provisions at the workplace would be debited from the discretionary margin. These nil valuations are not debited from your discretionary margin. Nil valuations are applicable solely to wages in kind, usually in the form of provisions, and not to monetary reimbursements. If you provide a facility, you continue to be the owner of this facility.