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Dutch government plans to scrap two tax benefits for alcohol producers

15 September 2026

The 2027 Tax Plan reveals that the Dutch government intends to eliminate two tax benefits now enjoyed by beer brewers and other alcohol producers.

One of the proposals of the government is automatically indexing the excise duties on alcoholic beverages in line with inflation. Fuel excise duties are already indexed annually, excise duties on alcoholic beverages not.

The annual increase in excise duties on alcoholic beverages will be determined by the so-called 'adjustment factor'. This factor accounts for price inflation but is adjusted for changes in indirect tax rates, such as hikes in excise duties and VAT. Based on the adjustment factor for 2027, excise duty rates will be 2.6% higher in 2027. If fully passed on to the consumer, this excise duty means a price increase of 0.3 cents per glass of 5% lager beer, 0.3 cents per glass of wine and 0.8 cents (including VAT) for a glass of whisky (all including VAT).

Furthermore, the government proposes to skip the beer excise duty advantage for small beer brewers producing less than 200,000 hectoliters of beer annually. Since 1992, they have received a 7.5% discount. This measure was originally intended to compensate small breweries for the shift from levying excise duty based on wort to levying based on finished beer. At that time that shift was considered to have a more significant impact on small brewers.

Late last year, the effectiveness and efficiency of this tax exemption were evaluated. This revealed that the original problem faced by small breweries no longer exists under the current excise system, thereby rendering the purpose of the small brewers'scheme unclear. Therefore the proposal to abolish this rate reduction does not come as a surprise. The government intends to implement this measure not next year, but in 2028.

factsheetbundel-belastingplan-2027_1.pdffactsheetbundel-belastingplan-2027_1.pdf (15,9 MB)

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