Your Indian pension, EPF or NPS when you live in the Netherlands

The treaty is clear on this. Under Article 18 of the India-Netherlands treaty, a private pension or annuity, whether an employer pension, a personal pension, or an EPS or NPS annuity, is taxable only in the country where you are resident. For a Dutch resident that means the Netherlands, and India should not tax it. Unlike some other Dutch treaties, this one has no source-country right for larger pensions, so the residence-only rule applies across the board for private pensions.

So if an Indian payer is deducting tax on your pension, you can usually stop that by claiming the treaty with a tax residency certificate and Form 10F, and reclaim any tax already withheld by filing an Indian return. The exception is a government-service pension: under Article 19, a pension for past government service is taxable in India, as the source country, not the Netherlands, unless you are both a resident and a national of the Netherlands. So the split is private pensions to the Netherlands, government-service pensions to India.

On the Dutch side, a foreign pension is Box 1 income, taxed at the normal progressive rates for a resident, the same as a Dutch pension. So the pension is taxed once, in the Netherlands, at ordinary rates, with no Indian tax on top once the treaty is claimed.

A lump sum, such as an EPF balance, is less clear-cut. In India an EPF withdrawal is exempt after five years of continuous service, so there is often no Indian tax to worry about on it. But that Indian exemption does not bind the Netherlands, which may still treat the lump sum as taxable Box 1 pension income for a Dutch resident. Whether a one-off withdrawal is a pension for treaty purposes is arguable, so a lump-sum withdrawal is worth reviewing with your Dutch adviser before you take it, rather than assumed tax-free. A practising CA sets up the treaty claim so India does not tax the pension, reclaims any wrongful Indian deduction, and flags the lump-sum position for careful handling.