Company van

Company van and taxes

Do you have a company van for your business? First, find out if the van is also considered a van by the Netherlands Tax Administration. Does your van not meet these requirements? Then, in terms of taxes such as motor vehicle tax (mrb) and private vehicle and motorcycle tax (bpm), your van is considered a car.

Private use of your company van

The rules for the private use of a company car also apply to a company van. Is your van only used for transporting goods? For example, because the vehicle only has a driver's seat. For income tax purposes, you offset the costs of the van against the number of privately driven kilometres (at the actual price per kilometre). You may deduct the remainder from your business profit.

Simplified kilometre record

Does one of your employees drive the van several times in one day? Then keeping a complete kilometre record (autorittenregistratie, in Dutch) can be a lot of work. You may therefore provide proof of the private kilometres driven with a simplified trip registration.

The most important things to include in such a record are:

• Customers’ business addresses (as listed in your company records)
• The number of visits to customers in one day
• The order of the visits

You must have a written agreement with your employee, stating that:

• Your employee keeps a simplified kilometre record
• Your employee does not use the van privately during working and lunch hours
• You keep your customers' business addresses in your records

The Tax Administration and several partner organisations have set up an example of such an agreement (in Dutch) for a simplified kilometre record.

Declaration of exclusive business use for a van

Do you use the company van for business purposes only? Send a statement to that effect, known as a ‘Verklaring uitsluitend zakelijk gebruik bestelauto', to the Tax Administration. You can fill out the statement online using Mijn Belastingdienst Zakelijk.

Once you have filed this statement, you:

• do not have to take into account any private use when calculating your business profit
• do not have to keep a kilometre registration

There are some conditions:

• You are not allowed to use the van for private purposes at all
• If there are any changes in the way you use the van, you must notify the Tax Administration

It is also a good idea to keep work orders and other paper evidence of the company use of your van. This makes it easier to prove you only use the van for company purposes.