Reclaiming VAT on a home battery: how it works

A home battery carries the standard 21 percent VAT; the zero rate for solar panels does not apply here. Since 2024 you can nevertheless get that VAT back under conditions. The reasoning: if your battery buys power when it is cheap and feeds back for a payment, you are trading in power. That makes you an entrepreneur for VAT purposes, and entrepreneurs may deduct the VAT on their investment.

So this is not a subsidy but a tax route, with real obligations attached. The other arrangements around home batteries are covered in our overview of home battery subsidies. This page covers the one route that yields the largest amount for most private owners: the VAT refund itself.

The Dutch Tax Administration checks whether you genuinely trade: the battery has an energy management system (EMS) that steers on the power price, you have a dynamic energy contract and your energy supplier pays you for what you feed back. The purchase invoice and the energy contract must be in your name, and at the time of purchase and installation you must not be in the small business scheme (KOR). If you only use the battery privately, there is no refund.

Not sure whether your situation fits? Take our free VAT refund check first: a few questions, an instant first estimate. Not tax advice, but a useful first filter.

You get the full VAT back if you allocate the battery to your business assets, but you repay VAT each year on the share you use privately. The Tax Administration illustrates this with a battery of 12,100 euros including VAT that is used 45 percent privately.

On balance you keep well over a thousand euros of the refund in this example, spread over five years. Note that the net metering scheme ends on 1 January 2027, which can shift the balance between trading and private use. If you then use the battery more privately, you also repay more VAT.

Many homeowners with solar panels are in the KOR without realising it, because they once registered as solar panel owners or stay below the registration threshold. To reclaim VAT on the battery you must not be a KOR participant at the time of purchase and installation. Deregistering only takes effect on the first day of a calendar quarter and the Tax Administration needs 4 weeks to process it. So plan the deregistration well before the invoice date of your battery.

If you are too late, you may not deduct the VAT in full. An adjustment route remains: in the 4 years after the year of first use you can reclaim one fifth of the VAT each year, but only if that yearly amount is at least 500 euros. For an average home battery one fifth of the VAT quickly falls below that threshold, and then that route lapses too. Buying too early and deregistering too late genuinely costs money.

From the refund onwards you are liable for VAT. You file a return every quarter and pay 21 percent VAT on the payments you receive from your energy supplier. If you have solar panels, you also declare the VAT on that feed-in, even if you bought the panels at 0 percent VAT or your partner already reclaimed the VAT on them.

Want to return to the KOR later to be rid of the paperwork? You can, but if you rejoin within the 5-year adjustment period you may have to repay part of the reclaimed VAT. Above the threshold of 500 euros per year in deducted VAT, repayment applies, and VAT you previously deducted for solar panels counts towards it. Choose that moment deliberately.

If you already run a business with a VAT number, the battery joins that existing administration and the deduction depends on your overall VAT position. That is bespoke work for your accountant. If the energy contract is in your partner's name, that needs attention: invoice and contract must be in the same name. And a battery without solar panels can also qualify, because the core is trading power, not generating it. In all three cases: investigate first, sign later.

Technically your installation must support the route: a battery with an EMS that trades on hourly prices and an inverter that registers feed-in properly. Our home batteries meet that, and we make sure the invoice is in the right name. During the quote we walk through the VAT route with you and align the planning, so a KOR deregistration does not trail behind the invoice date. We do not give tax advice; for the return itself we refer you to the Tax Administration or your adviser.

Want to know where you stand first? Take the VAT refund check or put your situation to us. What the battery itself costs is covered under home battery costs; whether a battery suits you at all is weighed up in the comparison with or without a home battery.