What do you need before you apply for WBSO?

A Dutch company with a Chamber of Commerce number, registered as an employer, with the research staff on its own payroll, a business login at the right level, and a technical description of each project. RVO only takes applications for work that has not started yet, so the paperwork has to be in place first.

This is the preparation list for a first WBSO application, the Dutch tax credit for research and development, run by RVO, the Netherlands Enterprise Agency. It follows RVO's own handbook. The order matters, because each item waits on the one before it, and the application itself has to be filed before the research starts.

Before you can log in

• A Dutch company, with a number from the KvK, the Dutch Chamber of Commerce
• That company registered with the Dutch tax office as an employer, with a payroll tax number
• The research staff on the payroll of that same company, not of the parent abroad
• eHerkenning at level 3, the Dutch business login. RVO warns that delivery takes a number of weeks
• A ketenmachtiging, a chain mandate, if an intermediary will file on your behalf

A company that is still being formed cannot request eHerkenning, because it has no Chamber of Commerce number yet. RVO asks those companies to email it instead, when staff will be on the payroll from the start of the next month. Whether a foreign parent changes any of this is covered in WBSO for foreign-owned companies, and the payroll registration itself is in how a foreign company runs payroll in the Netherlands.

Sources:
RVO, Handleiding WBSO 2026, section 2.1
Business.gov.nl, Dutch R&D tax credit scheme (WBSO)

Before you can describe the work

• For each project: what you will develop, the technical problem in the way, and the solutions you will try
• An estimate of the R&D hours and, where they apply, the costs and expenses per project up to 31 December
• A choice between the fixed amount per R&D hour and your actual costs and expenses, which then applies to every application that year
• A separate description of any single expense of EUR 1 million or more
• The technical answers gone through with the engineer who will do the work, on RVO's offline project form

RVO asks for the technology, not the business case, and the portal allows only a limited number of characters. The offline form is a PDF that can be imported later, which is why most teams draft there first.

Source: RVO, Handleiding WBSO 2026, sections 2.1 and 2.2

Before the date passes

• The application filed before the work starts, and at the latest on the last day of a month
• Filed by 20 December if you want the period to start on 1 January
• Filed by 30 September if you want to use WBSO in the last quarter of a year
• Room left inside the maximum of four applications a calendar year

A period starts on the first day of the month after you apply and runs to 31 December, and it lasts at least three months. An incomplete application that is not withdrawn still counts towards the four. The full process is in how to apply for WBSO.

Source: RVO, Handleiding WBSO 2026, sections 2.2 and 2.3

What you take on by applying

• Hours per person, per project and per day, updated within 10 working days
• Project records on the nature, content and progress of the work, updated within 2 months after each quarter
• Records of costs and expenses, if you chose the actual ones
• The whole record kept for 7 years
• The realisation report to RVO by 31 March of the following year

RVO checks these afterwards, on site or remotely. A late realisation report brings a fine, and no report at all means RVO sets the hours worked at zero and fines as well.

Source: RVO, Handleiding WBSO 2026, sections 4.1 to 4.3 and chapters 6 and 7

Sources

1. RVO, Handleiding WBSO 2026 (PDF, in Dutch), checked 22 September 2026
2. Business.gov.nl, Dutch R&D tax credit scheme (WBSO), 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.