Bookkeeping for content creators and influencers: products, platforms and VAT

Hobby, side income or business

As long as you post occasionally without agreements and without earning from it, it is a hobby. Once you are paid structurally, in money or in products, or can reasonably expect to be, there is a source of income for tax. Alongside a job or studies that is often income from other activities at first; with several brands, your own approach and sufficient scale it becomes business profit. How that transition works is covered in from side income to business.

The difference matters. As an entrepreneur working 1,225 hours a year you are entitled to the self-employed deduction of € 1,200 and in your first years possibly the starter's deduction of € 2,123, plus the SME profit exemption. For VAT you count as an entrepreneur sooner: anyone regularly supplying content for payment must in principle register with the tax authorities. If your revenue stays below € 20,000 a year you can sign up for the small business scheme and file no VAT returns at all.

Free products are income

If you receive a product in return for a post, video or story, that is payment in kind. You count its market value as revenue: what you would pay for it in a shop. If you must send the product back after filming, it is not income; do keep the agreement and the proof of return. Unsolicited packages can also count once your creator work is a source of income, so keep track of what comes in and what you do with it.

For VAT, product for promotion is a barter: you supply a promotional service, the brand supplies a product. If you are VAT registered, you owe VAT on it, just as with money. According to the tax authorities, you calculate that VAT on the amount the brand spent on the product; for your income, the retail value counts. How to arrange that with mutual invoices is set out in bartering services with another business. If you then use the product privately, it is not a business cost and you do not deduct the VAT on it.

Platform income from abroad

Payouts from video platforms, advertising programmes and affiliate networks usually come from a foreign company. Check in your payout statement which entity pays. If it is a company in another EU country, your service is taxed there: you reverse-charge the VAT, report the revenue in box 3b and include it in the EU sales listing. If a company outside the EU pays, you charge no Dutch VAT. In both cases your profit remains taxed in the Netherlands, see working for a foreign client.

Fill in the tax details a platform requests in full. American platforms often ask for a form in which you declare that you are taxable in the Netherlands; leave it and US withholding tax may be deducted. If you advertise on social media yourself to grow your channel, you receive invoices from foreign advertising platforms with reverse-charged VAT; how to process them is covered in VAT on invoices from Google, Meta and other foreign suppliers.

Equipment and other costs

Cameras, lenses, microphones, lighting, a laptop for editing and your editing software are business costs, just as for a freelance photographer or videographer. If a device costs more than € 450 excluding VAT, you capitalise and depreciate it; if you invest more than € 2,900 in a year, you may qualify for the investment deduction. You almost always use your phone privately as well, so you work with a business percentage there, see phone, laptop and internet for business.

Clothing and grooming are generally not deductible, even if you only use them for filming, see deductible work clothing. Travel for shoots, props, a management or agency fee and your website costs are business costs, provided you can show the link with your content. A trip that is mainly a holiday with a few videos on the side stays private.

Frequently asked questions