What is WBSO, and what is it worth in 2026?

WBSO is the Dutch tax credit for research and development: it lowers the payroll tax a company pays for its R&D staff. According to RVO's 2026 rates, the reduction is 36% of the first EUR 391,020 of R&D costs, or 50% for a starter, and 16% of everything above that. The company applies before the work starts.

This guide is for a founder who plans to hire engineers in the Netherlands and wants to know what WBSO is before building the budget. It explains what the scheme pays for, how the amount is calculated, and how widely it is used.

WBSO stands for Wet Bevordering Speur- en Ontwikkelingswerk, the Dutch act that first set out the scheme. The rules now sit in the act on payroll tax reductions, but everyone still says WBSO. It is run by RVO, the Netherlands Enterprise Agency, which calls R&D by its Dutch name, S&O.

What does WBSO pay for?

Work that is technically new for the company doing it. RVO accepts two kinds of projects: developing technically new products, production processes or software, and technical-scientific research that looks for an explanation of something not yet known. The company has to organise and carry out the work itself, inside the European Union.

For a development project, RVO checks four things. The company runs into a technical problem, the solution is technically new to it, it shows how the solution works, for example with a prototype, and there is a real technical risk. The project ends once the working principle is shown.

Software is where most founders have questions. RVO's own examples draw the line like this:

• A company that writes its own speech processing for a mobile app may qualify.
• A company that trains a model with an existing machine-learning toolkit for a medical app does not, because it does not develop software of its own.
• Describing models, formulating algorithms, or building new functions from technology that is already available does not count either.

Some work never counts: economic, social or psychological research, building a prototype that can be sold or used commercially, and the hours of staff who are not technically involved, such as a secretary or a designer.

Source: RVO, Handleiding WBSO 2026, sections 1.2, 1.4 and 1.6, and appendix B

What is WBSO worth in 2026?

According to RVO's 2026 rates, WBSO lowers payroll tax by 36% of the first EUR 391,020 of the R&D base, and by 16% of everything above it, with no upper limit. A starter gets 50% on the first part. A full first part is therefore worth EUR 140,767, or EUR 195,510 for a starter, and the 16% continues above it.

The R&D base adds up two things:

• R&D wages: the approved R&D hours times an hourly R&D wage. RVO calculates that wage from what the company's R&D staff earned two years earlier. A company without that history gets a fixed wage of EUR 29 an hour.
• Costs and expenses: either a fixed amount of EUR 10 per R&D hour for the first 1,800 hours and EUR 4 per hour above that, or the actual costs and expenses, estimated per project in advance.

Two examples from RVO

RVO's handbook works through a company that applies for 4,000 R&D hours at an hourly wage of EUR 25. Its R&D wages are EUR 100,000 and the fixed amount adds EUR 26,800, so the base is EUR 126,800. At 36%, WBSO lowers its payroll tax by EUR 45,648. At the starter rate of 50%, the same base would give EUR 63,400.

If the same company applies for EUR 345,000 of actual costs and expenses instead of the fixed amount, its base is EUR 445,000. The first EUR 391,020 brings EUR 140,767. The remaining EUR 53,980 brings EUR 8,637 at 16%, so EUR 149,404 in total.

Self-employed entrepreneurs who pay income tax get a fixed deduction instead: EUR 15,979 in 2026, plus EUR 7,996 for a starter, when they spend at least 500 hours a year on R&D. Who counts as a starter, and why a new Dutch subsidiary often does, is explained in WBSO for foreign-owned companies.

Source: RVO, Handleiding WBSO 2026, page 4, sections 1.3 and 1.5, and appendix A

How many companies use WBSO?

According to the Dutch government, almost 19,000 companies used WBSO in 2025, 97% of them small or medium-sized, and the budget for 2026 rose to EUR 1.8 billion, from EUR 1.6 billion. The projects approved in 2025 added up to EUR 8.7 billion of R&D costs, over more than 90,000 labour years.

That EUR 8.7 billion is the cost of the approved R&D work, not the amount of the tax credit. The credit is the percentage of those costs described above.

Not every company that could use WBSO does. The official evaluation, carried out for the Ministry of Economic Affairs and published in 2025, found that in 2021, 64% of Dutch companies with at least 10 employees and their own R&D used WBSO, down from 73% in 2013. So 36% did not. The evaluators add that the figure understates WBSO's reach, because the scheme is aimed at technically new work rather than all R&D. They concluded that WBSO is still a mostly effective instrument.

Sources:
Rijksoverheid, Ondernemers gebruiken volop WBSO-steun, budget groeit verder in 2026, 19 May 2026
Rijksoverheid, Evaluatie WBSO 2018 to 2022, 3 April 2025

Where WBSO fits in a move to Europe

WBSO does not arrive as a payment. It arrives as lower payroll tax during the year, from the start date on the R&D declaration, which is why the application has to come before the work: see how to apply for WBSO. Why this kind of money usually comes before a funding round is explained in Equity-free money first.

Sources

1. RVO, Handleiding WBSO 2026 (PDF, in Dutch), checked 11 September 2026
2. Rijksoverheid, Ondernemers gebruiken volop WBSO-steun, budget groeit verder in 2026 (in Dutch), checked 11 September 2026
3. Rijksoverheid, Evaluatie Wet Bevordering Speur- en Ontwikkelingswerk 2018 to 2022 (in Dutch), checked 11 September 2026
4. Business.gov.nl, Dutch R&D tax credit scheme (WBSO), checked 11 September 2026

Checked on 11 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.