Municipal taxes & fees rising 8.5% this year; Biggest jump in 17 years

Municipalities expect to receive 13.3 billion euros from levies this year. That is an increase of 8.5 percent compared to last year and the largest increase since 2007, Statistics Netherlands (CBS) reported.

This year, Dutch municipalities expect to receive 5.5 billion euros in property tax revenues alone, 7.5 percent more than a year earlier. That increase is almost the same as a year earlier and is mainly due to higher WOZ values - the home values municipalities use to determine property taxes. On 1 January 2023, the average WOZ value of a home was 368,000 euros. That is 16.1 percent more than a year earlier.

Property tax revenues will rise most in Rotterdam (13.4 percent) of the four large cities. In Amsterdam (over 5 percent), The Hague (over 5 percent), and Utrecht (almost 7 percent), the increase in property tax revenues is lower than the average in the Netherlands.

The waste levy will increase by 6.3 percent in 2024, and the revenue from the sewerage levy will increase by 6.6 percent. According to CBS, that is mainly due to increased maintenance and management costs of sewage and waste processing. The budgeted revenue from parking charges is expected to increase by almost 11 percent to over 1.3 billion euros in 2024. That can largely be attributed to the big cities, where parking is becoming considerably more expensive.

For 2024, the municipalities expect 328 million euros in revenue from applications for driver’s licenses, travel documents, and marriage documents, among other things. That is an increase of no less than 52.1 percent compared to a year earlier. This is mainly because they expect a significant rise in the number of applications for passports and identity cards. In 2014, the validity period of these documents was adjusted from 5 to 10 years, so few new documents were requested between 2019 and 2023.

Revenue from tourist tax is expected to amount to 538 million euros. That is 110 million euros more than in 2023. The increase is mainly due to Amsterdam, where rates for hotel stays, cruise passengers, and tour boats are increasing.