Jaarruimte 2026: how much you can put into a lijfrente

How it's worked out

Your Jaarruimte is how much you can put into a lijfrente (pillar 3: your own pension savings, with tax back now) this year and deduct from your income. The Belastingdienst (the Dutch tax office) bases the 2026 figure on your situation in 2025:

Your income is your taxable wage for 2025, from your annual salary statement (jaaropgave), as the Belastingdienst asks. That wage includes the holiday pay (vakantiegeld) you were paid in 2025. If you're self-employed, your profit counts too.

The €19,172 is the franchise: the part of your income the AOW (state pension) is assumed to replace, so it gives you no room. Income above €137,800 gives no room either. So the most anyone can deduct for 2026 is €35,589.

The pension deduction is the pension you already built through work in 2025. The more your employer's scheme builds for you, the less room is left for a lijfrente. If you have no pension through work, nothing is subtracted, and your Jaarruimte is the whole 30%.

Your pension deduction

What you subtract depends on whether your pension scheme has moved to the new pension law (Wet toekomst pensioenen). Every scheme has to move by 1 January 2028, and many moved on 1 January 2026.

Your UPO comes from your pension fund or insurer each year. You can also find it on their website, and mijnpensioenoverzicht.nl lists every pension through work you've built. If you changed jobs in 2025, add up the figures from each employer's scheme.

The deduction can drop in the year after your scheme moves to the new law, so your Jaarruimte can change even if your salary doesn't.

Finding your own figure

Mijn Belastingdienst doesn't show your Jaarruimte, and your tax return doesn't fill it in for you. The Belastingdienst has an online calculator for it, the "Hulpmiddel lijfrentepremie". You need two things:

• your 2025 income, from your jaaropgave or your 2025 tax return
• your factor A or premium for 2025, from your UPO

It gives your Jaarruimte for 2026. With the same two figures for each of the last ten years, it also gives your Reserveringsruimte.

In the Straks calculator, enter the first figure as your Jaarruimte and the second as your Reserveringsruimte, each per person. If you leave the Jaarruimte empty, we estimate it from your gross salary (before tax), with a typical premium for a pension through work. Your own figure can be higher or lower, so use the Belastingdienst's when you have it.

Catching up: Reserveringsruimte

Jaarruimte you didn't use in the last ten years becomes your Reserveringsruimte. In 2026 that's unused room from 2016 to 2025. You can use up to €42,753 of it in 2026, on top of this year's Jaarruimte. The cap is the same at every age.

Room you don't use lapses after ten years: what's left from 2016 is gone after 2026. That's why the Belastingdienst suggests using your Reserveringsruimte before this year's Jaarruimte. Whatever you don't use of this year's Jaarruimte then becomes Reserveringsruimte, which you can still use for ten years.

Working it out yourself is hard. Each past year has its own income and pension figures, and before 2023 a lower percentage applied. The Belastingdienst's calculator does it for you.

If you have the 30% ruling

The 30% ruling (a tax break for some people hired from abroad) lowers your Jaarruimte. Up to 30% of your salary is paid tax-free, and the tax-free part doesn't count as income for the Jaarruimte. Your pension through work is still built on your whole salary, so its deduction stays the same.

If the same partner had the ruling, only €51,100 of their €73,000 would count. (€51,100 − €19,172) × 30% = €9,578. That's less than their €9,648 premium, so their Jaarruimte for 2026 would be €0, not €6,500.

When the ruling ends, your income for the Jaarruimte rises, so your Jaarruimte rises the year after. The years you had the ruling also gave you less Reserveringsruimte.

In the Straks calculator, enter the last month of your ruling with your salary. The estimate of your Jaarruimte then leaves out the tax-free part, and goes up from the year after the ruling ends.

Topping up your pension through work

Some pension funds let you pay extra into your pension through work (pillar 2), on top of the scheme's own premium. The Belastingdienst warns that this can lower the room you have for a lijfrente. Under the new pension law, the deduction is the premium paid for your old-age and partner pension, so a top-up towards your old-age pension in 2026 lowers your 2027 Jaarruimte by the same amount: €1 for every €1 you add. In a scheme that hasn't moved yet, it raises your factor A instead.

So you can't use the same room twice. If you top up your pension through work and pay into a lijfrente, the two together stay within your Jaarruimte.

Paying in before 31 December

You can only deduct a premium in the year you paid it. For 2026, the money has to reach your lijfrente provider by 31 December 2026. A transfer made on the last day may arrive too late, so leave a few days.

You deduct it in your 2026 tax return, in spring 2027. If you'd rather have the tax back during the year, ask the Belastingdienst for a provisional assessment (voorlopige aanslag) with the premium in it. You get the refund each month.