DeGiro dividends and withholding tax, explained
The dividend announced and the dividend that reaches your account are rarely the same number — and the gap is usually tax, taken before the money ever arrives.
General information, not tax advice
Dividend taxation depends on where you live, where the company paying the dividend is based, the tax treaty between the two countries, the kind of account and the kind of instrument, and it changes over time. This guide explains the mechanics in general terms and how they show up in a DeGiro export. It doesn't give rates, and it isn't advice about your own situation: for that, check your tax authority's guidance or ask a qualified tax adviser.
Gross and net
When a company declares a dividend, it announces a gross amount per share. In many countries the company, or a bank acting for it, is required to withhold tax from that amount before paying it out, and to pass that tax on to the government. What reaches your account is the net dividend: gross minus the tax withheld at source.
A hypothetical example with round numbers: you hold 100 shares and the company declares a dividend of €0.50 per share, so €50 gross. If 15% were withheld at source, €7.50 would go to the tax authority and €42.50 would reach your account. The 15% is made up for the arithmetic; the real rate depends on the countries and treaty involved.
Withholding isn't necessarily the end of the matter. Depending on your country, a dividend may also have to be declared on your own tax return, with the tax already withheld abroad offset against what you owe — or not, if the rules don't allow it. That part happens outside DeGiro and outside any export.
How it shows up in Account.csv
A dividend usually leaves two lines in the account statement, booked on the same day: the gross dividend as a positive amount, and the withholding as a negative amount described as dividend tax (“Dividendbelasting” on a Dutch account). In the example above, that would be +€50.00 and −€7.50. The Balance column after both lines shows the net €42.50 added.
A dividend paid in a foreign currency is booked in that currency, into that currency's balance, and the tax line is in the same currency. If the account converts foreign cash automatically, a pair of conversion lines may follow, moving the net amount into your main currency — at a cost, if conversion is charged.
Funds are worth a separate word. An accumulating fund reinvests its dividends internally and pays you nothing, so it leaves no dividend lines at all; the income is inside the fund's price. Any tax withheld from the dividends the fund itself receives is also inside the fund and never appears in your statement.
How the tracker counts it
The tracker treats any statement line whose description contains “dividend” as dividend income. Both the gross line and the dividend tax line match, so both are counted, and the dividend total on the Income & Fees tab is what you actually received after withholding — the net figure, not the announced one. Interest and bond coupons are counted alongside it, under their own category.
Each income line is converted to your display currency at the rate on the day it was paid, not at today's rate, so a dollar dividend from three years ago is worth what it was worth then. The Income events table lists every line separately, with its own description, so the gross dividends and the tax taken from them can be read off one by one. Adding up the negative dividend lines gives the total withheld at source over the period of your export.
Dividends count towards the return figures because they're money the investments earned, not money you put in: they aren't netted out the way deposits are, and withholding tax reduces them the same way it reduced the cash that arrived.
Reclaiming withheld tax: the general idea
Many tax treaties set a lower withholding rate for residents of the other country than the rate the paying country applies by default. When the default rate was withheld but a lower treaty rate applied, the difference can sometimes be reclaimed from the tax authority of the country that withheld it.
How that works varies a great deal. Some countries apply the treaty rate up front if the broker or custodian has the right paperwork on file, so there's nothing to reclaim. Others withhold the full rate and expect you to file a claim with them directly, typically with proof of residence and of the dividend paid, within a time limit. Some claims cost more in effort, or in fees charged for filing them, than the amount recovered on a small holding.
DeGiro's account statement is the evidence you'd start from — it records the gross amount, the tax withheld and the date of each payment. Whether a reclaim is possible or worthwhile for you depends on rules this guide can't settle: check with the tax authority concerned, or a tax adviser.
Checking your own figures
To see what was withheld on a particular holding, open the Income events table on the Income & Fees tab and look for pairs of lines on the same date for the same product: the positive one is the gross dividend, the negative one the tax. Dividing the second by the first gives the rate that was actually applied, which is worth comparing with what you expected — a rate higher than the treaty rate you believe applies is the usual sign that a reclaim might be possible, or that the paperwork for a reduced rate isn't in place.
Figures in that table are in your display currency, converted at each line's own date; the Transactions tab shows the same lines exactly as DeGiro recorded them, in their original currency, which is what any claim would be based on.
Why the net figure is the right one for returns
For judging what your portfolio has done, the dividends that count are the ones you actually received. A dividend yield quoted on a gross basis overstates what a foreign holding really pays an investor who suffers withholding, and two funds or shares with the same headline yield can deliver different amounts once tax is taken at source. Reading income net, as the statement records it, is what keeps the comparison honest — and if a reclaim later succeeds, the refund is extra cash you received when it arrived, not something the original payment already included.