Sabbatical in the Netherlands as a software engineer

There is no statutory sabbatical right in the Netherlands, but many CAOs and company policies include unpaid leave, and tech employers are usually open to it for a valued engineer. Unpaid leave keeps your contract, your pension build-up, and your right to WW unemployment benefit if things go wrong later. Resigning voluntarily normally means no WW at all, not a waiting period; the old "three months" story is wrong. If your employer will not agree to leave, a vaststellingsovereenkomst (settlement agreement) can preserve WW rights in a way a plain resignation cannot. Ask HR before you assume.

If you are on the 30% ruling, the benefit attaches to salary from a qualifying employer, and the ruling has a fixed end date that keeps running while you are on leave. A pause in salary is not itself a problem; ending the employment is. The ruling has been reduced in steps (the guide notes it reaching 27% by 2027) and the salary threshold must still be met on an annual basis, so a long unpaid stretch in one calendar year can push you under it. Get the numbers from your payroll provider before you set the dates. The Belastingdienst will not be flexible afterwards.

This is the part that surprises engineers. The Netherlands taxes a deemed return on your assets above €59,357 per person (2026) at 36%, regardless of income: 1.28% deemed on savings and 6% on investments, which works out to about 0.5% and 2.2% of the balance a year. The snapshot date is 1 January. So a year of living off savings still produces a Box 3 bill, and a portfolio of €200,000 in index funds costs roughly €3,000 a year in tax even if it fell in value. The proposed switch to taxing actual returns is still not in force. Model it by adding the Box 3 estimate to your monthly expenses in the calculator.

Dutch employees pay income tax on RSUs at vesting, at rates up to 49.5%, and then Box 3 on holding them. There is no capital gains tax on the later sale. That makes the vesting date, not the sale date, the tax event, and it means a large vest during a year of low salary is taxed in a lower bracket. Engineers sometimes time the sabbatical around exactly that. Check the vesting calendar before you pick the start month.