Invoice generator › Dutch clients

Invoicing a client in the Netherlands

The Netherlands is one of the easier markets to invoice into: English is standard, euro is standard, and payment is usually prompt. What holds an invoice up is almost always a missing reference rather than a disagreement.

• Reverse charge
• btw-nummer
• KvK

Two numbers, and they are not the same thing

Dutch businesses have a btw-identificatienummer — the VAT identification number, usually shortened to btw-id — and a KvK-nummer, the Chamber of Commerce registration. For deciding how to treat VAT you need the btw-id.

It is fourteen characters: the country code NL, then nine digits, then the letter B, then a two-digit subnumber. So it looks like NL123456789B01. If what your client sends you does not match that shape, they have sent you something else.

There is a second Dutch number that causes real confusion, and it is worth knowing about because it is the one clients often send by mistake. The omzetbelastingnummer — the ob-nummer — has the same shape but different content: for a self-employed person it contains their citizen service number, the BSN. The Belastingdienst separates the two deliberately, for privacy, and states that the ob-nummer is only for contact with the tax authority while the btw-id is the one that belongs on letterhead, invoices and websites.

So if a Dutch freelancer sends you a number and asks you not to publish it, that is why — and it is the wrong number for your invoice. Ask for the btw-id.

The KvK number is not a tax number, but it is worth asking for anyway. Larger Dutch organisations often want it on the document for their own matching, and having it makes your invoice look like it came from someone who has done this before.

Validate the btw-nummer in VIES before you zero-rate anything. Our VAT checker runs the lookup and tells you what the answer means for the invoice rather than just returning valid or invalid.

The wording Dutch bookkeeping expects

For B2B services the general EU rule applies: the supply is taxed where the customer is, you invoice without VAT, and the Dutch client accounts for it. The document has to say this. In Dutch the mechanism is called btw verlegd, and a bilingual note is the safest formulation:

"Btw verlegd — reverse charge. VAT to be accounted for by the recipient."

btw verlegd is the phrase Dutch bookkeeping looks for — literally, VAT shifted. Two words, and it is the formulation their accountant recognises immediately. Keep it in Dutch on the document even when the rest of the invoice is in English, and put the English alongside it for your own records.

Both VAT identification numbers go on the document, and on the Dutch side that is not a courtesy. The Netherlands government's own guidance for businesses states that when you supply goods or services to another EU country you must also show your customer's VAT identification number, so an invoice without it is incomplete rather than merely unhelpful.

There is a second rule worth knowing, because it removes an option you might otherwise reach for. Simplified invoices — the short form allowed for small amounts — are not permitted for services where the VAT has been reverse charged to the recipient. Whatever the amount, a reverse charge invoice has to be a full one.

An invoice showing no VAT, no explanation and no client VAT number is the version that comes back.

Getting paid, which here is usually the easy part

The customary term is 30 days from the invoice date — betaling binnen 30 dagen. Note that it runs from the invoice date rather than from delivery or from receipt, which is worth stating explicitly on the document so there is nothing to interpret. As with any market convention, agree it in the quote rather than introducing it on the first invoice.

Payment arrives by SEPA transfer. Give IBAN and BIC, and make sure the account holder name matches the business name on the invoice — that mismatch is the single most common cause of a payment being parked for manual review.

Many Dutch companies, including quite small ones, run a purchase-order process. Ask for the PO number before you start the work, not when you invoice. Asking at the invoicing stage means somebody has to raise a retrospective PO, which is exactly the kind of small favour that turns into a three-week delay.

Some larger organisations use an invoicing portal and will not accept an emailed PDF at all. Find out which at the start of the engagement: discovering it after you have sent three unanswered emails is a bad way to begin a client relationship.

Language, and the description that avoids questions

English is entirely normal for business documents in the Netherlands, and a Dutch client will not think less of an English invoice. You do not need a translated document, which makes this an easier market than Germany in that one respect.

What matters more is the line description. Dutch accounts teams tend to match invoices against what was agreed rather than reading the total and paying it, so a line that references the agreement — the proposal date, the project name, the phase — clears faster than a generic service description.

The freelance-heavy market cuts both ways

The Netherlands has an unusually high proportion of self-employed workers, which means Dutch companies are used to engaging freelancers and their processes are set up for it. That is good: you will rarely be the first freelancer they have paid.

It also means they know the market rate, and they know what a competent freelance invoice looks like. There is no advantage to be gained from elaborate documents, and there is a real cost to sloppy ones.

If you are invoicing from outside the EU

The principle is the same as for any other EU client, and so is the wording on your side. Under Swiss VAT law a service supplied to a business abroad has its place of supply where the customer is (art. 8 LTVA), which puts it outside the scope of Swiss VAT, and the invoice should say so alongside the reverse charge note:

"Place of supply outside Switzerland — not subject to Swiss VAT (art. 8 LTVA). Btw verlegd — VAT to be accounted for by the recipient."

What you cannot do from outside the EU is rely on your own VAT number being in VIES, because it will not be there. Expect the Dutch client's bookkeeper to ask about that once, and have the answer ready rather than treating it as a problem.

Build it

The invoice generator holds both VAT numbers, the reverse charge note, a PO reference field and a stated due date, and gives you a clean PDF. Free, no account, nothing stored on a server.

Frequently asked questions