The small-business VAT scheme is often described as simply less admin, which skips the trade-off built into it: charging no VAT also means reclaiming none on business costs. Freelancers under the turnover threshold weigh that differently depending on their own expenses and on whether their clients are VAT-registered businesses.
KOR (kleineondernemersregeling) is a VAT exemption for anyone with annual turnover under €20,000 excluding VAT — since 2025 you also need to have stayed under that threshold the previous calendar year to opt in now. Opting in means you charge no VAT and file no VAT returns, which is genuinely simpler admin, but it also means you can't reclaim VAT on your own business costs, which hurts if you're buying equipment or software with real VAT attached. A 2025 addition, the EU-KOR, extends the exemption to sales in other EU countries too, capped at €100,000 in combined EU turnover. Opting out used to lock you out for three years; since 2025 that's down to the rest of the current calendar year plus the next one. It tends to make sense for small, low-cost-base income streams, and matters less if your clients are VAT-registered businesses anyway, since they'd have reclaimed your VAT regardless — in that case KOR mostly just costs you your own input-VAT deduction for no benefit to them.