Reports on October 6, 2026, said the Netherlands’ tax, customs and benefits agencies were redirecting their planned Microsoft 365 cloud migration. Email and calendars are planned for agency-controlled servers starting in 2027. That means hosting on infrastructure managed by the agencies themselves, while Microsoft services such as Outlook are expected to remain in use.
What changes—and what stays
The reported shift covers the Belastingdienst, Douane and Dienst Toeslagen. European open-source alternatives for storage and collaboration are also under consideration on a 2027–2028 timeline. The plan does not describe an immediate end to Microsoft use: about 5,000 Belastingdienst employees who had already moved to Microsoft 365 were expected to stay on it for now.
A Tweede Kamer record lists a government letter dated October 5, 2026, titled “Toekomstbestendigheid Belastingdienst” and submitted by State Secretary for Finance Eelco Eerenberg.
Capacity, concerns and the next milestones
The reported rationale includes digital sovereignty, cost control, strategic independence and data-protection requirements. Concerns attributed to the Adviescollege ICT-Toetsing include email confidentiality, encryption, metadata aggregation, backup mechanisms and the possibility that sensitive data could be stored on U.S. servers.
Expanded data-center capacity reportedly helped make agency-controlled hosting feasible. A fuller roadmap was expected in the first quarter of 2027.
The Belastingdienst’s reported ICT-capacity allocation is 55% for modernization, 40% for statutory and external requirements, and 5% for strategic renewal. Reported targets are no more than 20% for modernization and at least 20% for strategic renewal. The reported schedule puts the start of VAT refunds in April 2027 and shifts the domestic VAT transition from July 1 to the third quarter of 2027.
