{"id":2968,"date":"2026-09-07T19:42:13","date_gmt":"2026-09-07T17:42:13","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/hophelden.nl\/?p=2968"},"modified":"2026-09-16T08:11:07","modified_gmt":"2026-09-16T06:11:07","slug":"kleinbrouwerstarief-plannen-2027","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/hophelden.nl\/en\/kleinbrouwerstarief-plannen-2027\/","title":{"rendered":"The Hague wants to abolish the small brewer tariff: what that means for small brewers"},"content":{"rendered":"

State of affairs as of September 16, 2026. The 2027 Tax Plan was submitted on Budget Day, and the small-brewer rate is indeed included, but with a one-year delay: it will disappear as of 2028 and not 2027. The House of Representatives and the Senate still have to vote on it in November and December.<\/em><\/p>\n

The Netherlands has hundreds of small breweries. Almost all the brewers whose beer we sell fall into that category: a few people, a few kettles, and a year's production that a large corporation consumes in a single morning. For years, this group has enjoyed a small advantage in beer excise duty. The 2027 Tax Plan, submitted on Budget Day, states that this advantage will disappear. Not as of January 1, 2027, as the proposals released beforehand suggested, but a year later: as of 2028. It concerns a modest arrangement, but one that lands precisely where the margins are thinnest.<\/p>\n

What the small brewer rate is exactly<\/h2>\n

In the Netherlands, beer excise duty is not calculated per bottle, but per hectoliter and per alcohol percentage. If a brewery brews less than 200,000 hectoliters per year and is legally and economically independent, with its own brewing installation, a reduced rate applies. In the Customs Excise Duty Handbook, that rate is stated as 7.51 euros per volume percent per hectoliter. That is approximately 7.5 percent less than the standard rate.<\/p>\n

By way of comparison: European rules allow a discount of up to 50 percent for small breweries. Germany and Belgium utilize this margin fully. The Netherlands gives away 7.5 percent of it. According to trade association CRAFT, abolishing the measure would therefore amount to at most two million euros for the treasury.<\/p>\n

Why a small measure still hits hard<\/h2>\n

Two million euros is a calculation error for a national budget. For a brewery producing a few hundred hectoliters per year, it is the difference between being able to absorb a few cents per bottle or not. And this is not an isolated incident. The same documents state that the beer excise duty is due a year earlier: starting January 1, 2027, it will be indexed annually, so that the rate automatically tracks inflation. On that same date, the tax on tap water will increase by 10 cents per thousand liters, from 43.7 to 53.7 cents per cubic meter. Before that, brewers had already faced a doubled producer contribution for the deposit system and the truck toll. Water is no minor matter for a brewery: it is the main ingredient of every beer and is also used in cleaning and rinsing.<\/p>\n

\"Een
Excise duty is calculated per hectoliter and per volume percent, and is ultimately incorporated into the bottle price.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

The Netherlands is already high up anyway.<\/h2>\n

The figures released by CRAFT at the end of August show just how skewed the ratios are. On an 8 percent beer, a Dutch brewer pays 60.09 euros in excise duty per hectoliter. In Germany, that figure is 7.09 euros. For 5 percent lager, it amounts to 40.60 euros in the Netherlands, 24.05 euros in Belgium, and 9.44 euros in Germany. Even alcohol-free beer is taxed here, at 26.13 euros per hectoliter, whereas Germany levies nothing on it.<\/p>\n

That difference is not just theory. After the excise duty increase of 2024, beer sales in the border regions fell about 4 percentage points faster than in the rest of the country. After all, beer is easily transported across a border.<\/p>\n

What do you notice about it?<\/h2>\n

In the short term, probably little. A few cents per bottle disappears into the noise, especially with craft beer, where the price is primarily determined by small batches and expensive ingredients. The effect lies a layer deeper. At a brewery operating on the edge of profitability, such an expense helps determine whether an experimental beer will be brewed next year, or if they stick to the safe blond and tripel. It is precisely those experiments that are the reason you are here a pale ale with red bell pepper<\/a> or a grape ale with Westland grapes<\/a> can buy.<\/p>\n

It is emphatically not a done deal yet. The proposal has been officially on the table since Budget Day, but it still needs to go through the House of Representatives and the Senate, and votes on it will not take place until November and December. In the meantime, CRAFT and Nederlandse Brouwers are campaigning to get the increase off the table. We are keeping a close eye on the situation and will update this article as soon as more information is available.<\/p>\n

In the meantime, the most direct way to support small brewers is also the most fun: buy their beer. All breweries in our store<\/a> are small, independent Dutch brewers, and on the breweries page<\/a> you see exactly who is behind every label.<\/p>\n

Sources: the Central Government Tax Plan 2027, 15 September 2026<\/a>, CRAFT, September 5, 2026<\/a>, biernet.nl, August 26, 2026<\/a> and the Customs Excise Duty Handbook<\/a>.<\/em><\/p>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Het kabinet is van plan het verlaagde accijnstarief voor kleine brouwerijen per 2028 te schrappen. Het levert de schatkist weinig op, maar komt precies terecht bij de brouwers van wie wij ons bier kopen. We leggen uit hoe die regeling werkt en wat er nu op tafel ligt.<\/p>","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":2966,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"_hh_post_views":43,"_hh_post_hearts":2,"footnotes":"","rank_math_title":"Kleinbrouwerstarief verdwijnt per 2028 | Hophelden","rank_math_description":"Het Belastingplan 2027 schrapt het kleinbrouwerstarief, maar pas per 2028. Wat die accijnskorting is, wat afschaffen oplevert en wat er nog moet gebeuren.","rank_math_focus_keyword":"kleinbrouwerstarief","rank_math_canonical_url":"","rank_math_robots":[]},"categories":[81],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-2968","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-bier-in-het-nieuws"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/hophelden.nl\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2968","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/hophelden.nl\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/hophelden.nl\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/hophelden.nl\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/hophelden.nl\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2968"}],"version-history":[{"count":12,"href":"https:\/\/hophelden.nl\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2968\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":3236,"href":"https:\/\/hophelden.nl\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2968\/revisions\/3236"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/hophelden.nl\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/2966"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/hophelden.nl\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2968"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/hophelden.nl\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2968"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/hophelden.nl\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2968"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}