Is a virtual assistant tax deductible?

People usually ask me this right after they have seen a rate, which makes sense, because you want to know what an invoice actually does to your numbers. Two separate questions tend to get mixed into one. The first is the cost side: does the invoice reduce your profit? The second is the tax side: can you get the VAT back? They follow different routes, so I will walk through both. I am not a tax adviser, so your own figures belong with your accountant.

Is the cost deductible in your business?

An invoice for work carried out inside your business is an expense. You record it in your bookkeeping the way you record any other business purchase, and it lands in your result for that year. That part is straightforward.

How much of it comes off your profit depends on your legal form and on your own situation. A sole trader settles up differently from a limited company, and several schemes vary from one owner to the next. I deliberately quote no amounts, thresholds or percentages for the profit side, because that is exactly the part you go through with your accountant. What I can say is that a clear description on the invoice makes that conversation a lot shorter.

Keep business and private use apart while you are at it. If you use something partly in private, that counts in the assessment, and it plays out on the cost side as well as on the VAT side. Work that happens entirely inside the company, such as the tasks on the administration page, is the easiest to substantiate.

How does the VAT on the invoice work?

In the Netherlands the general VAT rate is 21 percent, and according to the Belastingdienst it applies to all goods and services that are neither exempt nor covered by one of the lower rates. In Sweden, Skatteverket puts the standard momssats at 25 percent on supplies of goods and services. Which rate ends up on your invoice is decided by the supplier, based on the service being supplied.

VAT on business costs can often be reclaimed as input VAT, though the Dutch tax authority attaches conditions to it. VAT on costs for exempt or non-taxed goods and services cannot be deducted. If you also use something privately, you cannot deduct the VAT on that part. And if you have both taxed and exempt turnover, you only deduct VAT on the spending that belongs to your taxed turnover. Swedish rules point the same way: you usually have the right to deduct the full ingående moms on purchases made for a momspliktig verksamhet.

So the two routes really are separate. Your costs can sit perfectly well in your books while only part of the tax comes back, simply because your turnover is mixed. The monthly packages on this site are listed excluding VAT, with ten hours a month at 840 euro. What gets added in tax depends on the rules that apply to the supply. For what those hours buy you, see what a virtual assistant costs.

What applies when your assistant sits in another EU country?

Then the route of the tax changes, not the route of the cost. When you buy services from another EU country, the VAT is often reverse charged to you as the customer. You receive an invoice without VAT or one that says btw verlegd, you work out the VAT due yourself and report it in your VAT return. According to the Belastingdienst you can deduct that same VAT as input VAT, as far as you use the service for taxed turnover.

Seen from Sweden it mirrors that. A Swedish company buying services from another EU country calculates and reports the Swedish moms itself in the momsdeklaration. The seller charges no moms once you hand over a valid momsregistreringsnummer, and if the purchase serves your momspliktiga verksamhet you normally have the right to deduct, as Skatteverket describes it.

In practice that comes down to two things. Hand over your VAT number or momsregistreringsnummer before the first invoice is drawn up, and tell your accountant there is reverse charged VAT in the books, because it has to appear on both sides of the return. If your assistant works from the Swedish side, hiring a virtual assistant in Sweden goes into what that cooperation looks like day to day.

What does the invoice need to show?

Skatteverket is blunt about this: always make sure you get a correct invoice from the seller, because without one you may not be allowed to deduct the moms. Your deduction hangs on the document sitting in your records, not on the payment you made.

So when an invoice arrives, run through these points:

• Both parties. Name and address of supplier and customer, plus the VAT number or momsregistreringsnummer.
• The description. What was done, in wording that matches the actual work.
• The period. The date or the month the work relates to.
• The amounts. The amount excluding tax, the rate applied and the VAT or moms shown separately.
• For a supply from another EU country. A note that the VAT is reverse charged, with your own number on the document.

If something is off, ask for a corrected invoice before you enter it. That takes five minutes now, against an amended return later. When you are unsure about your own position, put it to your accountant; for the practical side of working together you can always get in contact.

Last updated on 8 September 2026.