WBSO: Research & Development Tax Credit

The WBSO (R&D tax credit) of the Ministry of Economic Affairs and Climate Policy is intended to provide entrepreneurs with an incentive to invest in research.

With the WBSO, companies can lower the wage costs for R&D and other R&D costs and expenditures, such as prototypes or research equipment. You can deduct the tax benefit in your tax return to the Netherlands Tax and Customs Administration. Companies pay less wage tax and lower national insurance contributions, and self-employed individuals can make use of a fixed deduction.

Applications
Applications must be received one month before the start of the period for which this facility is required. The application of self-employed entrepreneurs covers the period from the date of submission to the end of the calendar year.

Purpose of WBSO
For the purpose of this act, research and development is defined as:

• development of technically new physical products, physical production processes, software or components thereof;
• technical-scientific research seeking to explain phenomena in fields such as physics, chemistry, biotechnology, production technology and information and communication technology.

Conditions
In order to take advantage of the WBSO, there are several conditions. The most important are:

• You yourself develop new software, a (tangible) product or production process, or you do technical-scientific research.
• The R&D project takes place within the European Union.
• You take a planned approach to the R&D work, with several project phases, for example.
• Your company pays income tax and/or payroll tax.
• The R&D work has not yet taken place. You can only apply for WBSO for future work.

Consult the website of RVO (see below) for all conditions.

WBSO applications
You can now submit a WBSO application for 2023. Note that you can always apply for WBSO, but only for future work. So you always submit an application in advance.

More information
For more information about WBSO please visit the RVO website.