WBSO Conditions

Projects

The WBSO extends support to two types of project:

1. Development project: this category covers the development of technically new physical products, physical production processes or software (or parts thereof).
2. Technical-scientific research: this category covers explanatory research of a technical nature.

The 2 types of projects are explained in more detail in chapter 3 of the Manual WBSO 2024.

Company (legal entity) with employees

• Your company (e.g. a private limited company or public limited company) is liable for Corporation tax.
• You may submit an application a total of 4 times per year until 30 September. Incomplete and/or rejected applications also count towards this total.
• If you are not adding to an application (including one that is free-form), you may withdraw it yourself. Log into the application portal, open the application and select 'Taken' for 'Aanvraag intrekken' in the top right corner of your screen. If you do not, the application (including if it was free-form) will count towards the maximum of 4 applications per year.
• If you applied for WBSO in 2022, and submit an application for 2024, you must also include the citizen service numbers of your R&D employees in 2022 to enable calculation of the R&D hourly wage.
• Each application you submit automatically runs up to and including 31 December. In your first application for the calendar year, you must provide a realistic estimate of the time needed (and of any costs and expenditures) up to and including 31 December.
• Application periods may also overlap. For example, if you have applied for January as the starting month, you may additionally submit a new application for February or March as the starting month, for instance. This will enable you to respond flexibly to developments within your company.
• Your application may cover multiple projects.
• Submit your application no later than on the day before the application period begins. If your application period starts on 1 May, you should submit your application by 30 April at the latest. There is a single exception to this. If your application period starts on 1 January, you should submit your application by 20 December at the latest.
• Settlement has been simplified with effect from 2022. You can now determine how much of the allocated WBSO tax credit you wish to deduct in which tax period. You can read more information about this in Chapter 10 of the Manual (see below). 

Self-employed person

• You are a person who runs a business alone or together with others as a natural person. 
• You are liable for income tax.
• You may submit a single or multiple applications each calendar year until 30 September.
• Your application may cover multiple projects.
• You may submit an unlimited number of applications per year; there is no maximum.
• The application period starts on the day you submit the application and lasts until the end of the calendar year.
• You must apply for and achieve at least 500 R&D hours between the date you submit the first application and the end of the calendar year.
• You cannot apply for WBSO towards costs and expenditures associated with your R&D project.

Self-employed person(s) with employees

If you are a self-employed person with employees, you may apply for WBSO :

• for your own R&D activities (as an R&D tax payer) and/or;
• for the R&D activities of your employees. If you apply for the R&D activities of your employees you can apply for WBSO towards costs and expenditures associated with those R&D projects.

The same conditions apply to your application for your employees as to an application of a company with employees.