Best Savings Accounts in the Netherlands (2026)

Saving money is an important step in managing personal finances, particularly in the Netherlands, where deposit rates are once again rising. After cutting rates from the 2023 and 2024 peak, the European Central Bank reversed course in 2026: it raised its deposit facility rate to 2.25% on 17 June 2026 and to 2.50% on 16 September 2026. Dutch savers are seeing those increases passed through, and several providers repriced within days.

Whether you are an ambitious saver who prefers higher yields by locking money away for a defined period, or a more cautious one who values easy access at slightly lower returns, Dutch banks and EU-passported financial institutions offer a wide range of savings options.

In this article, we compare the best savings accounts available to Dutch residents, separating flexible (call) savings accounts from fixed-term deposits. We look at interest rates, management fees, minimum and maximum amounts, deposit guarantee coverage, and other key conditions. We also explain how box 3 actually taxes your savings, which changes the ranking less than most savers expect.

Finally, we explain how to open a Dutch savings account, including the documentation and eligibility requirements you should expect.

Best regular (flexible) saving accounts in The Netherlands

In the Netherlands, the “Regular Savings Account” is a basic savings account allowing you to deposit and withdraw money anytime. This type of account typically offers lower interest rates but provides easy access to your funds. The interest rate on these flexible saving accounts is variable and depends on market conditions.

One warning before you read the table: most of the eye-catching rates below are introductory offers. We have added a row showing what you earn once the promotion ends, because that is the rate you will live with for most of the time your money sits there.

Three things this table is really telling you.

• The headline is temporary almost everywhere. Yapi Kredi tops the table at 3.30%, then falls to 1.80%, the lowest standard rate in the group, after 90 days. Openbank goes from 3.10% to 2.25%, Bigbank from 3.00% to 2.00%;
• Three of the eight are not bank deposits. Lightyear and Wise hold your euros in money market funds, and Trading 212 splits cash between qualifying money market funds and banks. None of the fund-held money carries the €100,000 deposit guarantee;
• Payment frequency is not a detail. Bigbank pays interest once a year, on 31 December, so you get no compounding within the year. Wise pays every business day and bunq weekly.

Best fixed-term savings accounts in the Netherlands

As the name implies, a fixed-term deposit (or “depositorekening”) locks your money for a defined period in exchange for a typically higher interest rate. In the Netherlands, this format is widely used by savers looking to commit cash for a known horizon. Below is a comparison of competitive fixed-term offers available to Dutch residents, including through deposit aggregators such as Raisin.

Two notes on this table.

BluOr Bank replaces Orange Bank in our comparison. Orange Bank no longer exists as a deposit-taking institution: Orange announced its exit from retail banking in June 2023, the Spanish business passed to Banco Cetelem and stopped offering banking services in June 2024, and Orange Bank does not appear among Raisin’s partner banks today. Several Dutch comparison sites still carry pages implying the product is live. It is not.

Watch the withholding tax on the Baltic banks. BluOr Bank is a Latvian bank and Raisin states that no withholding tax applies. SME Bank, which matches BluOr at 3.45% for 12 months, is Lithuanian and deducts 15% Lithuanian withholding tax at source, reducible to 10% with paperwork. The same headline rate is worth materially less after that deduction, which is why we list BluOr rather than both.

How your savings are taxed in the Netherlands

Comparing gross rates is only half the job. In the Netherlands, savings are taxed in box 3, and box 3 does not tax the interest you actually receive. It applies a deemed return to your assets and taxes that instead. For 2026:

• Tax-free allowance (heffingsvrij vermogen): €59,357 per person, €118,714 for fiscal partners;
• Deemed return on bank savings: 1.28% (provisional figure, set definitively after the year ends);
• Deemed return on other assets, such as shares and investment property: 6.00%;
• Box 3 tax rate: 36%.

Put those together and the tax on savings above the allowance works out at 0.4608% of the balance per year, since 1.28% multiplied by 36% is what you actually pay. That is a charge on the money, not on the interest, which produces a result many savers get wrong:

The practical consequences:

• Below roughly €59,000 you pay nothing at all, so every basis point of the rates above reaches you in full. For most savers, chasing the best rate matters more than any tax planning;
• The tax is levied on the balance, not the return, so the higher the rate you earn, the smaller the bite in percentage terms. Moving from a 1.80% account to a 3.00% account does not increase your box 3 bill by a single euro;
• The reverse is the real risk. If you leave money in an account paying less than the deemed 1.28%, box 3 still charges you as though you had earned it.

Two further points worth knowing. A counter-evidence rule (tegenbewijsregeling) lets you pay tax on your actual return where that is lower than the deemed return, following the Supreme Court rulings on box 3. And the system is due to be replaced: parliament has approved a new box 3 regime taxing actual returns from 2028, so the mechanics described here are transitional. If your situation is not straightforward, take professional advice rather than relying on this summary.

Flexible saving accounts in The Netherlands reviewed

Trading 212 flexible savings account

UK fintech company Trading 212 has been around a long time and has one of the best services around when it comes to investing. With features such as their Pies and AutoInvest, you can make investing as simple as you like.

Its euro interest on cash currently runs at 4.20% for new clients onboarded to Trading 212 EU GmbH, for four months, reverting to a standard variable 2.80%, with existing clients of Trading 212 Markets Ltd on 2.50%. Note that Trading 212 does not publish these rates on its website, only inside the app.

Interested in knowing more about this broker? Read our Trading 212 Review.

Trade Republic flexible savings account

Trade Republic is a German broker founded in 2015 that now holds a full ECB banking licence. Keen to onboard new customers, it offers 3.00% on cash balances up to €50,000 for new clients, with the standard rate for everyone else at 2.50%, in line with the ECB deposit facility rate. As Trade Republic is also a broker, you’ll have the added benefit of being able to invest in stocks, ETFs and many other financial instruments. Do you want more information on this broker? Read our Trade Republic Review.

Lightyear flexible savings account

Lightyear is a European investment app that operates via the entity Lightyear Europe AS, authorised and regulated by the Estonian Financial Supervision Authority (EFSA, licence number 4.1-1/31). Its euro savings currently pay 2.40% APY, and this is not a promotional rate: it tracks the ECB overnight rate. Your euros sit in AAA-rated money market funds run by BlackRock or J.P. Morgan rather than in a bank account, which is the key thing to understand about the product. Do you want more information on this broker? Read our Lightyear Review.

Wise flexible savings account

Wise, formerly known as TransferWise, is a foreign exchange financial technology company based in the UK. It primarily targets people looking to send and receive money internationally cost-effectively. With Wise, you can hold your money in cash, stocks or interest. Choosing the interest option puts your funds into the BlackRock ICS Euro Government Liquidity Fund, a money market fund holding government-backed short-term assets, and the return is passed to you net of fees. The euro rate was 2.25% on 23 September 2026.

Openbank flexible savings account

Openbank is a digital bank that offers various financial products and services, including savings accounts. It is a subsidiary of the Spanish bank Grupo Santander. In the Netherlands, Openbank offers a flexible saving account called the “Spaarrekening”, currently promoted with a welcome rate of 3.10% for six months for new customers.

Yapi Kredi flexible savings account

Yapi Kredi Nederland is a Dutch-licensed bank belonging to the Turkish Yapi Kredi group. It has no physical branch in the Netherlands but offers several products on the Dutch market, including the “Euro Plus Spaarrekening”. It is currently running a 30-year anniversary campaign paying 3.30% for 90 days to new customers, the highest flexible rate in our comparison.

Bigbank flexible savings account

Bigbank is an Estonian-based bank operating across the Baltics, Finland, Sweden, Spain and the Netherlands. Its flexible savings account is called “flexibel sparen” and currently pays 3.00% for six months to new customers, falling to a standard 2.00%.

bunq flexible savings account

bunq is a digital bank based in the Netherlands that provides payments, debit cards, loans and savings accounts. Its savings rate works differently from everyone else in this comparison, and it is worth understanding before you compare the headline number.

bunq pays 1.51% on savings below a personal threshold and 3.01% above it. That threshold is set at the highest amount you saved over the previous six months and is recalculated every 1 January and 1 July. New customers start with a threshold of zero, so a new joiner earns 3.01% on essentially the whole balance until the next recalculation. Contrary to what is often reported, the rate does not depend on your plan: the free tier earns the same as Elite.

Fixed-term savings accounts in The Netherlands reviewed

BluOr Bank fixed-term savings account

BluOr Bank is a Latvian bank offering fixed-term deposits to Dutch savers through the Raisin platform. At 3.45% for 12 months it currently sits at the top of the Dutch one-year deposit market, and unlike the Lithuanian banks offering a similar rate, Raisin states that no withholding tax is deducted.

Bigbank fixed-term savings account

The Estonian bank Bigbank offers the Dutch market fixed-term deposits at competitive rates, under the name “depositocontracten”. It publishes rates in term bands rather than per month, and pays 3.40% on anything from one to ten years, which makes the 12-month option the shortest way to reach its best rate.

Klarna fixed-term savings account

Klarna AB, the Sweden-based bank, offers both freely withdrawable savings and fixed-term deposits to Dutch savers through the Raisin platform. Its rates sit below the market leaders, but the Swedish deposit guarantee is worth noting: it is set in kronor at SEK 1,150,000, raised from SEK 1,050,000 on 1 January 2026, which works out at roughly €101,900 at the ECB reference rate of 25 September 2026. Because the cap is fixed in kronor, its euro value moves with the exchange rate.

Openbank fixed-term savings account

This fully digital bank offers fixed-term savings from 3 to 12 months. Openbank applies a single flat rate of 1.90% across every term it publishes, which is the lowest in our comparison. Note that the old “Welkom Spaardeposito” at a promotional fixed rate has been discontinued and can no longer be opened: Openbank’s current welcome offer is the 3.10% flexible savings account described above, not a deposit.

How to open a savings account in the Netherlands

Opening a savings account in the Netherlands is straightforward and can generally be done in a few steps:

1. Choose your bank or provider

In the Netherlands, you can choose between well-known traditional banks (such as ABN Amro, Rabobank and ING), Dutch digital banks (such as bunq), and EU-passported foreign banks operating mainly online. The latter category often offers more competitive interest rates than traditional Dutch banks, since they pass on more of the underlying ECB rate. Take time to compare options based on rate, deposit guarantee jurisdiction, withdrawal flexibility and fee structure.

2. Gather your identification documents

Before opening your account, make sure the following documents are ready. This will significantly speed up the application process:

• Proof of ID: passport or national identity card;
• Proof of address: a recent utility bill or tenancy agreement;
• Citizen Service Number (BSN, “burgerservicenummer”): required for Dutch citizens and registered residents;
• Dutch residence permit (verblijfsvergunning) or registration with the Immigration and Naturalisation Service (IND): required for foreigners residing in the Netherlands;
• A Dutch IBAN: several of the providers above, including Bigbank, will only accept funding from a Dutch bank account.

3. Open your account

Most modern banks and EU-passported providers allow you to open an account fully online, often within minutes via a mobile app and a video identity verification step. Some traditional Dutch banks may still require an in-person appointment, particularly for joint accounts or accounts above certain balance thresholds. Deposits offered through an aggregator such as Raisin work differently: you open one Raisin account and then place deposits with its partner banks from there, without a separate onboarding at each bank.

4. Bank confirmation

After submitting your application, account confirmation and IBAN issuance usually take between a few minutes and ten business days, depending on the provider and the complexity of the KYC checks. Once you receive your account details, you can fund your savings account and begin earning interest.

Final thoughts

In 2022, the European Central Bank began raising interest rates to combat inflation, which led Dutch banks and digital savings platforms to materially increase the rates offered on savings accounts. The ECB then cut rates from mid-2024 to mid-2025, and has since reversed direction: the deposit facility rate rose to 2.25% in June 2026 and to 2.50% in September 2026. Deposit rates across the eurozone have been climbing with it, which changes the usual advice: rather than rushing to lock in a fixed term before further cuts, there is now a case for keeping some flexibility while rates are still moving up, and for preferring shorter terms over long ones.

To maximise the return on your idle cash, compare providers carefully and consider digital banking platforms and broker-savings hybrids alongside traditional banks. Providers such as Trade Republic, Trading 212 and Lightyear generally offer higher headline rates than traditional Dutch banks. The trade-offs include the absence of physical branches, money market fund structures in some cases rather than direct deposits, and deposit guarantee schemes provided by the home country of the regulated entity rather than by the Dutch Central Bank (DNB).

Three habits will serve you better than any single pick in this article. First, diarise the end of every promotional period, since most of the best flexible rates here expire within three to six months and fall a long way. Second, for larger balances, spread deposits across multiple providers and deposit guarantee jurisdictions to stay within the €100,000-per-depositor protection limits. Third, check whether your money is actually a bank deposit: three of the eight flexible options we compare hold your euros in money market funds, which carry no deposit guarantee at all.

Finally, keep in mind that savings rates change frequently in response to ECB policy decisions. The figures in this article were checked on 25 September 2026, so it is always worth verifying the current rate directly with the provider before opening an account.