Dividend tax on DEGIRO: how much do you keep net?

A Dutch stock withholds 15% dividend tax by default, which you offset against your Box 3 tax (or get refunded) via your income tax return; US stocks face 30% withholding tax without a registered exemption, 15% with a registered exemption (W-8BEN) at your broker, and Irish-domiciled UCITS ETFs already have that 15% built into the fund's price without you having to do anything yourself.

This article explains the general dividend and withholding tax rules. It is not tax advice — your personal situation (tax treaties, registered exemptions, fiscal partnership) may differ; when in doubt, consult the Belastingdienst or a tax advisor.

Two kinds of withholding tax: Dutch and foreign

Every dividend you receive on DEGIRO has usually already been reduced before it lands in your account — typically 15% on Dutch stocks, and 15% to 30% on US stocks, depending on whether you’ve registered an exemption. What exactly gets withheld — and how much of it you get back — depends on two things: the country where the paying company (or fund) is based, and whether you have registered a tax exemption with your broker yourself.

Dutch stocks: 15%, offset via your tax return

Dividends from a Dutch NV or BV are subject to a standard 15% dividend tax, withheld automatically by the paying entity. You are not necessarily out that money: on your income tax return, you offset the withheld dividend tax against your Box 3 tax liability. If your Box 3 tax works out lower than the amount withheld — for example because your assets fall below the €59,357 (2026) exemption — you get the difference refunded.

Foreign stocks: a maximum of 15% is creditable, even if more was withheld

Foreign stocks come with an important limitation: the Dutch tax authority only lets you offset a maximum of 15% of the gross dividend against your Box 3 tax, per country — even if the actual withholding tax was higher. The amount above that 15% can generally only be reclaimed from the tax authority of the source country itself, which is often not worth the effort for smaller amounts.

US stocks: the difference between 30% and 15%

US stocks are a concrete example of this. The standard US withholding tax rate is 30%. Under the tax treaty between the Netherlands and the US, this can be reduced to 15% — but only if you have a valid tax exemption registered with your broker, the W-8BEN form. At DEGIRO you arrange this under “Tax information” in your account settings; note that your country of residence, tax residence and bank account country need to match for this to apply. Without a registered exemption, the full 30% is withheld, of which you can still offset a maximum of 15% via your tax return — the remaining 15% is effectively lost unless you start a separate reclaim procedure with the US tax authority.

On €1,000 of gross US dividends without a registered exemption, after offsetting a maximum of 15% on your tax return, you’re left with structurally €150 less than with a registered W-8BEN. We regularly see users who paid 30% instead of 15% withholding tax on US dividends for years, purely because the W-8BEN box under “Tax information” had never been ticked — a two-minute setting that can make a structural difference of 15 percentage points a year. Haven’t sorted this out yet? Do it today: every month you put it off is a month you’re needlessly paying double the withholding tax on every US dividend payout.

ETFs: why fund domicile (Ireland vs. Luxembourg) matters

Does it matter where an ETF is domiciled? Yes — and it structurally affects your return. With an ETF, withholding tax applies at two levels: at the fund level, when the fund receives dividends from underlying US stocks, and at the level of the fund’s distribution to you. The country where the fund is domiciled determines the first rate. Irish-domiciled UCITS funds benefit from the tax treaty between Ireland and the US and pay 15% instead of 30% on US dividends; Luxembourg-domiciled funds typically pay the full 30% rate. You never see this as a separate deduction — it is already built into the fund’s price, for both distributing and accumulating share classes.

The result: even through an Irish fund, you still effectively pay around 15%. Take two otherwise identical S&P 500 trackers, one domiciled in Ireland and one in a country without a favourable US treaty: at a dividend yield of roughly 1.5% on the underlying index, the difference between 15% and 30% withholding tax works out to about 0.15 to 0.2 percentage points of annual net return — a gap that, compounded over 20 years, can add up substantially, much like cost drag. Ireland also generally does not add its own withholding tax on distributions to Dutch investors, so an Irish-domiciled fund ends up at roughly the same 15% net drag as a US stock with a registered exemption — without you having to arrange anything yourself.

How ClearAnalyser calculates this for you

ClearAnalyser calculates your PADI and Yield on Cost based on the dividend actually credited to your account net — that is, after withholding tax — so you get a realistic picture of your dividend income straight away, without having to work out yourself what was withheld along the way. Whether that dividend is actually growing is measured by the dividend CAGR, and which other tools track dividends is shown in the DEGIRO portfolio tracker comparison.

Sources: Buitenlandse bronbelasting voor maximaal 15% verrekenbaar, ook als meer is ingehouden — TaxLive (Dutch) · How can I apply for the lower tax rate for US income? — DEGIRO · Ireland vs Luxembourg: Domiciling ETFs in Europe — ETF Stream · Belastingdienst — offsetting foreign withholding tax (Dutch)