Selling Portuguese property as a Dutch resident (2026)

Which country taxes the sale?

Portugal taxes the gain. The Netherlands, in 2026, does not tax capital gains on a private second home at all. What it taxes instead is the value of your assets on 1 January each year, in box 3, through a deemed return. A Portuguese home is one of those assets, and the treaty between the two countries removes most of the Dutch charge on it.

	Portugal	Netherlands (2026)
What is taxed	The gain on sale	A deemed return on the home’s value on 1 January (box 3)
Share of gain taxed	50%	The gain itself is not taxed
Rate	12.5% to 48%, set by your worldwide income	36% of the deemed return (article 2.13 Wet IB 2001)
Deemed return	Not applicable	6.00% of the value of “other assets”, which includes a second home
Value used	Sale price and purchase price	Market value, unoccupied and unlet, on 1 January of the previous year
Tax-free amount	None	€59,357 per person, €118,714 for fiscal partners
Treaty relief	Not applicable	Exemption for the Portuguese home via a reduction (treaty article 24(3))
Currency	Euros	Euros, no exchange-rate effect

This guide assumes a private holiday or second home. If you buy, renovate and resell property in a way that goes beyond normal asset management, the Dutch profit can fall in box 1 instead; take advice in that case.

How does Portugal tax a Dutch resident?

As a non-resident of Portugal, you are taxed on 50% of the gain at Portugal’s progressive rates (article 43 of the IRS Code). The rate is set by adding your worldwide income, including your Dutch salary or pension, to the taxable half of the gain; the resulting average rate is applied to the half gain only. The flat 28% rate for non-residents’ property gains ended on 1 January 2023.

The gain is the sale price minus the purchase price (multiplied by an inflation coefficient if you held the home more than 24 months), documented improvement works from the last 12 years, and buying and selling costs. Nothing is withheld at the deed. You file the Portuguese return (Modelo 3, Annex G) between 1 April and 30 June of the next year and pay by 31 August (article 97 of the IRS Code). Because the Netherlands is in the EU, you do not need a Portuguese fiscal representative. The full method is in our guide to capital gains tax for non-residents.

Worked example: the Portuguese tax

A Dutch couple, fiscal partners who own an Algarve villa 50/50, bought it in 2012 for €350,000 and sell it in 2026 for €700,000. Purchase costs of €25,000 are an assumption. Each partner has €60,000 of other worldwide income. Each co-owner declares their half of the gain on their own return. Figures come from our calculator logic, using the 2026 tax table and the 2025 inflation coefficients (the 2026 table is due around November 2026).

Step	Calculation	Whole villa (€)	Each partner (€)
Sale price		700,000	350,000
Purchase price × 2012 coefficient	350,000 × 1.20	−420,000	−210,000
Purchase costs (IMT, stamp duty, deed)	assumed	−25,000	−12,500
Agent 5% + 23% VAT	700,000 × 5% × 1.23	−43,050	−21,525
Energy certificate		−200	−100
Gain		211,750	105,875
Taxable half			52,937.50
Total for rate (half gain + €60,000 income)			112,937.50
Tax on total (2026 table)			42,822.97
Average rate	42,822.97 ÷ 112,937.50		37.92%
Portuguese tax	52,937.50 × 37.92%; no solidarity surcharge below €80,000	≈ 40,144	≈ 20,072

That is about 19% of the gain. If one partner owned the villa alone with the same €60,000 income, their taxable half gain of €105,875 would push them further into the top bracket and over the €80,000 solidarity-surcharge threshold: the bill would be about €44,199, roughly €4,000 more. Try your own figures in the selling calculator.

How does Dutch box 3 treat a Portuguese second home?

Box 3 (“income from savings and investments”) does not look at what you earn or gain. On the reference date of 1 January (article 5.2 Wet IB 2001), it adds up your assets, applies fixed percentages to work out a deemed return, and taxes that at 36%. For 2026, according to the Belastingdienst:

Category	Deemed return 2026	Status
Bank balances	1.28%	Provisional, fixed early 2027
Investments and other assets, including a second home in Portugal	6.00%	Final
Debts (above a €3,800 threshold per person)	2.70%	Provisional, fixed early 2027

The deemed return is then scaled down by the share of your assets above the tax-free amount of €59,357 per person (article 5.5), and the result is taxed at 36%. This is the system Parliament built after the Supreme Court’s 2021 “Kerstarrest” ruling, with a counter-evidence rule (tegenbewijsregeling, article 5.25) that lets you be taxed on your actual return instead if you can show it was lower.

Selling the villa during 2026 does not change the 2026 box 3 figure, because only the 1 January position counts. From 1 January 2027 the villa is gone and the proceeds count instead.

What value does the Belastingdienst use for a home abroad?

There is no Dutch WOZ assessment for a Portuguese house, so the law builds a WOZ-like value. Article 5.20(2) of the Income Tax Act says that where no WOZ value exists, the value is set by applying the WOZ valuation rules by analogy. Those rules value a property as at a reference date one year before the start of the tax year (article 18 of the WOZ Act). The Belastingdienst’s guidance puts it in plain terms: report the market value in unoccupied and unlet condition on 1 January of the year before the tax year.

Box 3 year	Valuation date for the Portuguese home	Counts on your return for
2026	1 January 2025	2026, filed by 1 May 2027
2027 (if not yet sold on 1 Jan 2027)	1 January 2026	2027, filed by 1 May 2028

The valuation lags the market by a year. A recent sale price, an agent’s valuation or a local index are reasonable evidence; keep whatever you rely on. The Portuguese tax registration value (VPT) is usually well below market value and is not the figure the Belastingdienst asks for.

How does the Netherlands–Portugal treaty remove the double tax?

The treaty was signed in Porto on 20 September 1999, has been in force since 11 August 2000 and applies to Dutch taxes from 2001. The relevant articles:

Article	What it says
6	Income from immovable property in Portugal may be taxed in Portugal
13(1)	Gains by a Dutch resident from selling immovable property in Portugal may be taxed in Portugal
24(2)	The Netherlands may include those items in the base it taxes
24(3)	But it must exempt items covered by articles 6 and 13(1), by a reduction of Dutch tax calculated under Dutch rules
Protocol XVII	For that reduction, the property’s value is reduced by mortgage debt secured on it

The Dutch rules are in the Decree on the avoidance of double taxation 2001 (Besluit voorkoming dubbele belasting 2001), article 24. The reduction is a fraction of your box 3 tax: the deemed return on the Portuguese home (less the deemed return on debts linked to it) as a share of your total deemed return, applied to the box 3 tax. You claim it on the Dutch return under the question on relief from double taxation (aftrek om dubbele belasting te voorkomen); it is not given automatically.

The exemption is not complete. Since 1 January 2023 the tax-free allowance has been spread pro rata over Dutch and foreign assets, which shrinks the reduction, and Grant Thornton estimates the change costs owners of foreign property hundreds of euros a year. If you use the counter-evidence rule, the decree instead exempts the actual return on the foreign property in full (articles 25aa to 25ad).

Worked example: the Dutch box 3 effect

The same couple has €100,000 in savings and €200,000 in investments, no debts, and the villa was worth €650,000 on 1 January 2025 (an assumption). Their 2026 box 3 position, computed together using the Belastingdienst’s method and 2026 percentages:

Step	Calculation	€
Deemed return, savings	100,000 × 1.28%	1,280
Deemed return, investments	200,000 × 6.00%	12,000
Deemed return, villa	650,000 × 6.00%	39,000
Total deemed return		52,280
Assets (yield base)		950,000
Above the €118,714 allowance	950,000 − 118,714	831,286
Share above allowance	831,286 ÷ 950,000	87.50%
Box 3 income	52,280 × 87.50%	45,745
Box 3 tax at 36%		16,468
Reduction for the Portuguese villa	16,468 × 39,000 ÷ 52,280	−12,285
Box 3 tax payable		4,183

Without the villa, the same savings and investments would produce box 3 tax of €2,889. So the Portuguese home still adds about €1,294 a year in Dutch tax despite the treaty, because the allowance is shared with the exempt villa. That residual charge stops once the villa is no longer held on 1 January.

After the sale the picture flips. Proceeds sitting in a Dutch account on 1 January 2027 are ordinary box 3 assets with no treaty reduction. As an illustration only, using the 2026 percentages and allowance (the 2027 figures are still being debated): €600,000 of proceeds added to savings gives box 3 tax of about €6,550 on the couple’s assets, versus €4,183 while they held the villa. Invested at the 6% deemed rate, the figure would be higher.

Can the actual-return rule help in the year of sale?

Possibly, but rarely. Under the counter-evidence rule you are taxed on your actual return only if it is lower than the deemed return (article 5.25). Actual return includes rent, the use value of a home you use yourself, and changes in the value of all your assets, so a year in which the Portuguese home rose sharply in value, or was sold at a large profit, is unlikely to qualify. The decree then exempts the actual return on the Portuguese property, but the comparison is made first. Ask your adviser to run both methods before you file.

Who taxes what, and when?

For a sale completed in 2026:

What	Country	Based on	Deadline
Portuguese capital gains tax (Annex G)	Portugal	50% of the gain, progressive rates	Return 1 Apr to 30 Jun 2027; pay by 31 Aug 2027
Box 3 for 2026, villa included, treaty reduction claimed	Netherlands	Villa value on 1 Jan 2025	Return by 1 May 2027 (extension to 1 Sep 2027 on request)
Box 3 for 2027, proceeds included, no reduction	Netherlands	Assets on 1 Jan 2027	Return by 1 May 2028
Dutch tax on the gain itself	Netherlands	Not charged in 2026	Not applicable

The extension date is the Belastingdienst’s usual practice (it applied to 2025 returns); confirm it on your filing letter.

What happens to box 3 from 2028?

This is unsettled, and it matters if you are deciding whether to sell before or after 2028.

Date	Step
12 February 2026	Tweede Kamer adopts the bill for a box 3 based on actual return (Wet werkelijk rendement box 3), to start in 2028
Spring–summer 2026	The government says it will amend the bill; the Eerste Kamer debates it but does not pass it
15 September 2026	No amending bill on Budget Day; the Eerste Kamer postpones its vote until further notice
29 September 2026	Government letter: most assets to move to a capital gains model from 2028, all by 2030; the Eerste Kamer is asked to pause its handling of the bill
5 October 2026	Eerste Kamer meets the ministers to decide whether to pause; no decision published at the time of writing

In both the adopted bill and the September 2026 proposal, real estate falls under a capital gains tax on realisation: the gain would be taxed when you sell, with annual rent or a fixed addition taxed in the meantime. Van Lanschot Kempen reports that the starting value for homes would be the value as of 1 January 2028, so gains built up before then would not be caught. How the Portugal treaty exemption would apply to a foreign home under the new model is not covered in guidance we could find. Until the Eerste Kamer votes, treat all of this as a proposal.

Key points

• Portugal taxes 50% of the gain at 12.5% to 48%; for a Dutch resident this is normally the only tax on the gain itself in 2026.
• Dutch box 3 taxes a deemed 6% return on the home’s value on 1 January (market value one year earlier) at 36%, not the sale profit.
• The 1999 Netherlands–Portugal treaty (article 24(3)) exempts the Portuguese home through a reduction you must claim; since 2023 a small Dutch charge usually remains.
• After the sale, proceeds held on 1 January are fully taxable in box 3 with no treaty reduction.
• Both countries use the euro and you need no Portuguese fiscal representative.
• A 2028 box 3 reform that would tax property gains on sale is not yet law; check its status before timing a sale around it.