How does an Indian company set up in the Netherlands?

An Indian company usually opens a Dutch BV under the Indian parent. The tax treaty between the two countries has been in force since 1989 and was amended by a protocol in 2012. Its most-favoured-nation clause is the part advisers spend time on, and the Dutch government's published position on it dates from 2012.

India and the Netherlands have one of the busiest investment relationships in this set, and almost none of it is startup traffic. It is large corporates, services companies and holding structures. A founder arriving into that landscape inherits its advantages, a deep bench of advisers who know the route, and one live technical argument that nobody on either side has closed.

The treaty, the protocol, and the clause

According to the Dutch Ministry of Finance overview of treaties on direct taxes, the convention between the Netherlands and India was signed on 30 July 1988 and entered into force on 21 January 1989. A protocol signed on 10 May 2012 entered into force on 2 November 2012.

The part that generates work is the most-favoured-nation clause in the protocol to the original convention. The Dutch position is published in a formal decision of the State Secretary for Finance of 28 February 2012, still in force, which sets out what happened when Slovenia joined the OECD. It states three things a company should know. The most-favoured-nation clause in article 7 has no automatic effect. A rate of 5% applies to participation dividends paid by a company resident in the Netherlands to a company resident in India, with retroactive effect to 21 July 2010. And on portfolio dividends, where a company holds less than a tenth of the capital, a rate of 10% continues to apply, a rate taken from the India-Germany treaty of 1995.

The same decision says the Indian dividend distribution tax cannot be treated as a withholding tax under the dividend article, and so is not creditable under the relief article.

That is what the Dutch government publishes. It does not speak for the Indian tax administration, and how the clause is applied on the Indian side is a question to put to an Indian adviser before relying on any rate. How the Dutch network works generally is in does the Netherlands have a tax treaty with your country.

Sources:
Wetten.overheid.nl, Besluit belastingverdragen India, IFZ 2012/54M (in Dutch)
Rijksoverheid, Verdragen op het gebied van directe belastingen per 1 juli 2026 (PDF, in Dutch)

Invest India faces the other way

Founders often assume India's flagship agency is the outbound counterpart of the NFIA. It is not. Invest India describes itself as the national investment promotion and facilitation agency of the Government of India, set up in 2009 as a not-for-profit company under the Department for Promotion of Industry and Internal Trade, and it is the first point of contact for investors coming into India.

So an Indian company expanding outward uses a different door. The Embassy of India in The Hague runs an economic and commerce section with a commercial wing, and asks companies with trade queries to send a company profile form by email. It also publishes guidance on setting up in the Netherlands and links to the Dutch side.

The Dutch side is well staffed in the other direction. The NFIA's annual report lists offices in New Delhi, Mumbai and Bangalore, and the Netherlands keeps an embassy in New Delhi with consulates-general in Mumbai and Bangalore, so a first conversation is usually easier to arrange at home than in The Hague: see what the NFIA does for foreign companies.

Sources:
Invest India, About us
Embassy of India, The Hague, commercial representative and trade queries

There is no Indian visa route, and that is the point

Indian nationals use the ordinary Dutch routes, and no treaty or agreement softens them. There is no India entry among the IND's exceptions by treaty, which cover Turkish citizens, San Marino and Israel under the Benelux treaty, and article 8 of the European Convention on Human Rights. An Indian national normally needs an MVV, a provisional residence permit, because India is not on the IND's exempt list.

One difference is worth planning around. For a residence permit as a self-employed person, RVO applies a points system, and the IND states that this system is set aside only for Turkish nationals, long-term EU residents from another member state, and people practising an independent profession. An Indian founder moving in person is assessed on points, which is a heavier test than a Turkish or American founder faces.

For staff, the route is the highly skilled migrant permit or the intra-corporate transferee permit, both of which need the Dutch company to exist first, and the highly skilled migrant route needs it to be a recognised sponsor. The comparison is in which visa route fits your team.

Sources:
IND, Residence permit for self-employed person
IND, Provisional residence permit (mvv)

How much traffic is there already?

A great deal, and it is growing fast on the services side. According to CBS, the Dutch statistics office, the Netherlands imported goods and services worth 17.4 billion euros from India in 2024, an increase of 9.5 billion euros compared with 2020, and goods imports alone reached 10.8 billion euros, almost triple the value supplied in 2020.

On the investment side the Indian government publishes its own view. The Embassy of India in The Hague states that the Netherlands is the fourth largest destination of foreign investment by Indian companies, with cumulative outward investment of USD 29.190 billion, and that the Netherlands is the fourth largest source of foreign direct investment into India. Those are Indian figures on an Indian fiscal year, so they will not reconcile line for line with Dutch statistics, and they are useful for scale rather than precision.

Sources:
CBS, Imports from India have more than doubled in four years
Embassy of India, The Hague, bilateral trade and investment

What an Indian group usually sets up

A Dutch BV under the Indian parent. For companies selling software or services into Europe, the question that arrives with it is where the work is actually performed and by whom, because that determines whether the Indian parent itself has a taxable presence here. That is the permanent establishment question, and it is better settled in month one than in year three: see when does a foreign company have a permanent establishment in the Netherlands.

Where this fits in a move to Europe

The advantage of arriving into a mature corridor is that the advisers, the banks and the notaries have seen the structure before. The risk is inheriting a structure designed for a large corporate when you are a company of twenty people. Start from the sequence in the first ninety days in the Netherlands, and see the corridors pages for how we work with companies landing from outside Europe.

Sources

1. Rijksoverheid, Verdragen op het gebied van directe belastingen per 1 juli 2026 (PDF, in Dutch), checked 22 September 2026
2. Wetten.overheid.nl, Besluit belastingverdragen India, IFZ 2012/54M (in Dutch), checked 22 September 2026
3. Invest India, About us, checked 22 September 2026
4. Embassy of India, The Hague, bilateral trade and investment, checked 22 September 2026
5. IND, Residence permit for self-employed person, checked 22 September 2026
6. CBS, Imports from India have more than doubled in four years, checked 22 September 2026

Checked on 22 September 2026. This page is general information, not legal, tax or investment advice. Rules change: check the official source, or ask an adviser, before you act on it.