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Netherlands or Ireland: which is better for a European company?
It depends on one question more than any other: whether anyone in your group lives in Europe. Ireland requires a director resident in the European Economic Area or a bond in its place. The Netherlands does not. After that the split is tax rate against research relief and treaty reach.
Ireland and the Netherlands are the two countries a founder from outside Europe usually ends up choosing between. Both are small, English-working, inside the single market, and both have spent decades attracting foreign companies. Most of what is written about the choice is written by someone who sells one of the two answers, so this page does something duller and more useful: it puts the published rules side by side and says where each one wins.
| Netherlands | Ireland | |
|---|---|---|
| Tax on trading profit | 19% up to EUR 200,000, then 25.8% | 12.5% |
| Tax on rental and investment income | the same two rates | 25% |
| A director resident in the EEA | not required | required, or a bond in its place |
| Headline research relief | 36% of the first EUR 391,020 of R&D costs, 16% above that | 30% of qualifying expenditure |
Sources:
Belastingdienst, Tarieven voor de vennootschapsbelasting (in Dutch)
Revenue, Corporation Tax: basis of charge
Companies Act 2014, section 137
Revenue, Research and Development tax credit
RVO, Handleiding WBSO 2026 (PDF, in Dutch)
Does the Irish rate of 12.5% really apply to you?
Yes, if your profit comes from trading. According to Revenue, the Irish tax authority, there are two rates: 12.5% on trading income, and 25% on income from an excepted trade and on non-trading income such as rent and investment returns. The rate that made Ireland famous is the trading rate, and an operating company is normally trading.
The fifteen per cent you may have read about is a different thing and it probably does not reach you. The global minimum rules apply to groups with annual turnover of EUR 750 million or more in at least two of the four preceding years, and they work as a top-up on the tax already paid. Below that turnover the published Irish rates are the rates.
Sources:
Revenue, Corporation Tax: basis of charge
Revenue, What are the Pillar Two rules?
The Irish rule that stops most founders from outside Europe
This is the difference nobody puts in a comparison table, and for our readers it decides more cases than the tax rate does.
Section 137 of the Companies Act 2014 says that at least one of the directors of an Irish company must be a person resident in a state of the European Economic Area. A company with no such director has to hold a bond, in the prescribed form, to the value of EUR 25,000 instead.
Read that against a founding team in Seoul, Taipei, Istanbul or San Francisco with nobody living in Europe. Either you appoint a European resident as a director of your company, with everything that means for control, or you buy and maintain a bond. Neither is impossible. Both are a cost and a decision you have to take before the company exists.
The Netherlands sets no equivalent requirement. Directors and shareholders of a BV, the Dutch private limited company, can live anywhere, and the Chamber of Commerce registers directors resident abroad as ordinary business. What the Dutch company needs is an address here, not a resident owner. That question is worked through in do you need to live in the Netherlands to run a BV.
Sources:
Companies Act 2014, section 137
Business.gov.nl, Starting a business in the Netherlands from abroad
What each country gives back for research
Both countries pay you to do research, and they do it in ways that are not directly comparable, so be careful with anyone who presents them as one number against another.
Ireland gives a credit against corporation tax. Revenue calculates it at 30% of qualifying expenditure for accounting periods beginning on or after 1 January 2024, up from 25% before that.
The Dutch scheme reduces payroll tax rather than profit tax. It runs at 36% of the first EUR 391,020 of research wage and other costs and 16% above that, with a starter rate of 50% in the first bracket. Because it comes off wage tax, a company with engineers on the payroll and no profit yet still receives it, which is the situation most companies are in when they arrive. How that works for a company owned abroad is set out in WBSO for a foreign-owned company.
Sources:
Revenue, Research and Development tax credit
RVO, Handleiding WBSO 2026 (PDF, in Dutch)
When Ireland is the better answer
We plan and run landings in the Netherlands, so treat what follows as the part we have least interest in writing.
Ireland wins on the rate, plainly. On trading profit the gap against the Dutch rates is wide enough to matter to any company that expects to be profitable soon, and it applies from the first euro rather than above a bracket.
It wins again on law and language. Ireland is a common law country, so a lawyer in New York, London, Singapore or Hong Kong reads an Irish company's constitution and shareholder agreements in a form they already know. The whole system, courts included, works in English rather than working in English as a courtesy. For a company whose investors and counsel sit in common law jurisdictions, that removes friction that never appears on a cost sheet.
And if someone in your group already lives in Ireland or anywhere else in the European Economic Area, the director rule above costs you nothing, and the case tilts further.
When the Netherlands is the better answer
The Netherlands wins when nobody in your group lives in Europe yet, for the reason set out above. It is the shorter path to a company that exists.
It wins for companies whose spending is engineers rather than profit, because the research scheme pays against wages and arrives before profitability does.
And it wins on reach. Profit that leaves a Dutch company on its way home runs into the Dutch treaty network, which is one of the widest in Europe, and that is a question about your own country rather than about the Netherlands. Which treaty applies to your group is worked through in tax treaties and the Netherlands.
None of this is advice about your situation, and both countries change their rules in the autumn budget. Check the dates on this page against the two sources below before you act on it.
Sources
- Revenue, Corporation Tax: basis of charge, checked 23 September 2026
- Revenue, What are the Pillar Two rules?, checked 23 September 2026
- Revenue, Research and Development tax credit, checked 23 September 2026
- Companies Act 2014, section 137 (irishstatutebook.ie), checked 23 September 2026
- Belastingdienst, Veranderingen vennootschapsbelasting 2026 (in Dutch), checked 23 September 2026
- RVO, Handleiding WBSO 2026 (PDF, in Dutch), checked 23 September 2026
- Business.gov.nl, Starting a business in the Netherlands from abroad, checked 23 September 2026
Checked on 23 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.
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