Building extra pension through your employer: voluntary contributions to the scheme

What does building extra pension through your employer mean?

Most employees in the Netherlands build up a pension through work. Employer and employee together pay a regular contribution to a pension fund or insurer. Many schemes also let you pay in more yourself. This is called voluntary extra saving (vrijwillig bijsparen) or a top-up module. The extra money goes into the same scheme and is invested in the same way as the rest of your pension.

It is different from saving on your own with an annuity (lijfrente) at a bank or insurer. You arrange an annuity outside your employer and deduct it in your tax return. Extra saving in the scheme runs through payroll and requires no tax return.

People choose it for different reasons. They started building up late, worked part-time or as a freelancer for years, want to stop working earlier, or see on mijnpensioenoverzicht.nl that their expected pension is lower than they thought.

How does extra pension saving through your employer work?

1. Check whether your scheme allows it. This is in the pension rules or in your pension provider's online portal. HR will know too. Not every scheme offers it.
2. Ask how much you may add. The provider works out how much room is left next to the regular contribution.
3. Choose an amount. Usually this can be a fixed monthly amount, a one-off payment, or both. Think of part of your holiday allowance or a thirteenth month.
4. The employer deducts the amount from your gross salary and pays it to the provider. The deduction shows on your payslip.
5. You adjust it when your situation changes. With most schemes you can stop, lower or raise the amount at fixed moments in the year.

If you leave your job, the extra saving stops. What you have built up remains yours and stays with the provider, or moves to your new employer's scheme.

How much extra pension may I pay in?

The limit is in the Dutch Wage Tax Act (Wet op de loonbelasting). The contribution for retirement pension and partner's pension may be at most 30 percent of the pension base per year. That 30 percent covers everything together: the employer's share, your own regular contribution and what you save voluntarily. In schemes that already existed before the new legislation, the percentages for extra saving usually depend on age and are therefore lower.

The pension base is your pensionable salary minus the offset (franchise). The offset is the part of your salary on which you build up no pension, because you will also receive the state pension (AOW) later.

Source: Wet op de loonbelasting 1964, articles 18a and 18ga, text in force in November 2026. The last two rows are calculated from these. For part-time work the maximum salary counts pro rata.

In this example, your room to save extra is therefore 30 percent of your pension base, minus the contribution already going into the scheme. If the regular contribution is 20 percent, 10 percent remains. Three things to keep in mind:

• Your scheme may use a higher offset than the amount in the law. The pension base is then lower, and so is the room in euros.
• The pension rules may set their own maximum below the statutory limit.
• You may catch up on room from earlier years. The law allows contributions not used in an earlier year to be paid in later. Whether and how this works depends on your scheme and your provider.

If your scheme has not yet moved to the new pension rules, different limits may apply until the transition. The provider knows which amount you may add in your case. Read more about the transition in the Future Pensions Act for employers.

Calculating extra pension: two examples

Two employees of the same company, both working full-time. The scheme uses the offset from the law and the regular contribution is 20 percent of the pension base.

Source of amounts: Wet op de loonbelasting 1964, article 18a. The salaries and the contribution percentage are examples.

In this example the percentage is the same for both employees: here the 30 percent limit does not depend on age. The difference is time. The employee aged 35 has 33 years until age 68 to pay in and let the money grow, the employee aged 50 has 18 years. Someone who saves an extra €100 a month for 33 years pays in €39,600. Over 18 years that is €21,600.

What those contributions eventually yield in pension depends on investment results and on interest rates at the time you retire. The pension provider shows this in three scenarios: a favourable one, the expected one and an unfavourable one. Ask for that calculation before you choose an amount.

What does building extra pension cost net?

Less than the amount you pay in. The contribution comes out of your gross salary, so you pay no wage tax on that part now. If you pay in €100 a month and that part of your salary falls in the 37.56 percent rate, your net pay drops by about €62. At the 49.50 percent rate it is about €50.

It is a tax deferral. You pay income tax on the pension benefit later. After your state pension age the rate on the first part of your income is lower, because you no longer pay the state pension contribution. For many people the tax later is therefore lower than the benefit now.

You also pay the provider's costs for administration and investment. These differ per scheme and are listed in the pension rules or the provider's cost overview.

Through your employer or on your own with an annuity?

You may do both, but you can use the same tax room only once. What you save extra through the scheme counts as pension accrual and reduces your annual allowance for an annuity. How to work out that allowance is explained in Calculating your annual allowance.

Is paying in extra pension a sensible choice?

That depends on your situation. Start with the question of whether you have a shortfall. On mijnpensioenoverzicht.nl you can see what state pension and workplace pension to expect. Set your expected spending against that: housing costs, your partner, your plans. Nibud, the Dutch budgeting institute, has a good tool for this.

Saving extra makes sense if you:

• expect a pension that is lower than you need;
• built up little or nothing for years, for example as a freelancer or part-timer;
• want to stop working earlier;
• are now in a higher tax rate than you expect after retirement.

It makes less sense if you have no buffer for unexpected expenses, have expensive debts, or may need the money within a few years, for a home for example. Pension money cannot be withdrawn early.

How to set up extra saving as an employer

For an employer, extra saving is an employment benefit that costs little. The employee pays the contribution; you make it possible. This is how to go about it:

1. Ask your provider or adviser whether it is in your contract. With many insured schemes and premium pension institutions the top-up module is already available and only needs switching on. With an industry-wide pension fund, the fund decides whether it is possible.
2. Record it in the scheme. Who may take part, how much may be added at most and at which moments someone can start, change and stop.
3. Arrange the deduction with payroll. The contribution comes out of gross salary. Agree how one-off payments from holiday allowance or a bonus are processed.
4. Monitor the maximum. The provider works out the room per employee. If you later raise the regular contribution, the room to save extra shrinks.
5. Decide whether to add something yourself. You do not have to. Some employers add an amount for every euro the employee pays in. That counts towards the 30 percent limit.
6. Tell your employees, and repeat it. At onboarding, in the annual review and in spring when the holiday allowance is due. An option nobody knows about is not used.

No scheme yet, or a scheme without this option? Setting up a pension scheme explains how to approach that. What Pensioenhart does is described under employers.

Frequently asked questions

This article provides general information and is not personal tax or pension advice. What is possible in your scheme is set out in the pension rules. Amounts change every year.

Figures checked on 11 November 2026. Sources: Wet op de loonbelasting 1964, articles 18a and 18ga (wetten.overheid.nl); Belastingdienst, Centraal Aanspreekpunt Pensioenen, V&A 23-014; Belastingdienst, Belastingberekening 2026 (box 1 rates).

Read next: Calculating your annual allowance · Setting up a pension scheme