Your income tax return usually has to be filed by 1 May. If you can’t make it, because your bookkeeping isn’t finished or you are missing documents, you can request an extension. That prevents a penalty. But an extension is not a free pass, and it only works if you arrange it in time.
Until when can you request an extension?
You request an extension before the date your return is due. For most entrepreneurs that is 1 May. If your letter from the Tax Administration (Belastingdienst) states a different date, that date applies. Once that date has passed, you can no longer request an extension. The Tax Administration’s advice is then: file your return as soon as possible.
How much extra time do you get?
If you request an extension yourself, the Tax Administration gives you 4 extra months. With a deadline of 1 May, you then have until 1 September.
If you work with an accountant who has a BECON number, the extension can be longer. A tax service provider requests an extension for all of its clients at once through the BECON scheme. That runs until the end of April of the following year. The Tax Administration does expect the returns to come in spread out according to a fixed schedule. TaxMate requests this BECON extension for its clients.
An extension is not a right
The Tax Administration may grant an extension, but is not obliged to. An extension can also be refused or withdrawn, for example if you are late structurally. So don’t count on it working out by itself every year.
What an extension does and doesn’t do
As long as you have an extension, you are not late and you won’t get a penalty for late filing. You do usually pay tax interest (belastingrente) on the assessment you receive later. An extension also shifts the Tax Administration’s own deadlines: the period for issuing your assessment and the period for an additional assessment are both extended by the length of your extension.
No extension for VAT
VAT returns generally cannot be extended. They have to be filed and paid on time every period. If you are behind on your VAT, tackle that first. What happens when your VAT return is late, you can read in Late VAT return: the penalty and what to do now.
Deferral of payment is something else
An extension for filing is about when you submit your return. Deferral of payment is about an assessment you have already received and cannot pay on time. Entrepreneurs can ask for a short deferral of up to 4 months after the last due date of the assessment. That short deferral does not apply to paying your VAT return. If you need more time, you can apply for a payment arrangement of in principle no more than 12 months. Entrepreneurs do this with the form ‘Verzoek betalingsregeling en uitstel van betaling voor ondernemingen’. Interest keeps running on the outstanding amount during a deferral of payment too.
Late and no extension requested?
Then file your return as soon as possible. After the deadline, you first receive a reminder and then a formal demand. If you still don’t file, the Tax Administration can impose a penalty for failure to file. Since 2025 it is €469 as standard and it can rise to €6,709. The Tax Administration can also estimate your income and issue an assessment. How to deal with that, you can read in An assessment based on an estimate: what now?.
Are several returns outstanding? Then see our page on a bookkeeping backlog for how we clear such a backlog together with you.