ING: Battery-Electric Share of Dutch New Car Sales to Jump From 40% to Around 55% in 2027

ING Research expects 2027 to be the year battery-electric cars take the majority of Dutch new car sales for the first time, rising from around 40% this year to about 55% or slightly more. Sector economist Rico Luman does not point to cheaper batteries or a new model as the cause, but to a single tax measure taking effect on 1 January 2027.

What ING actually forecasts

For 2026 ING expects roughly 380,000 new passenger car sales, about 2% below 2025, with the electric share flat at around 40% after last year's tax-driven peak. The jump comes in 2027, and it comes almost entirely from the corporate fleet channel. Large employers are converting their lease policies to battery-electric; private buyers are not following yet, held back by purchase price, the lack of home charging and uncertainty about future road tax on EVs.

Why 2027 is the tipping point: 52% of the benefit base ≈ 12% of list price

From 1 January 2027 the Dutch pseudo-final levy on private use of a company car applies. If an employer provides a non-zero-emission car that is also driven privately, the employer pays 52% tax on that car's taxable-benefit base. Zero-emission cars are exempt.

Two numbers circulate in the coverage — 52% and 12% — and they cause confusion. They describe the same measure. The benefit base for a conventional car is 22% of list price; 52% of that is 0.52 × 0.22 ≈ 11.4% of list price, per year. That is the "12% of catalogue value" ING refers to. On a car with a EUR 45,000 list price the levy runs to over EUR 5,000 a year, on top of the lease rate, for as long as the car stays in the fleet.

For a fleet manager the arithmetic is straightforward. Luman calls the levy too high to ignore. A non-electric company car stops being a tax trade-off and becomes a structural cost line, while the electric alternative sits outside the levy entirely.

The employee-side rate rises too — but far more gently

Drivers see a change as well, though a smaller one. The reduced benefit-in-kind rate for battery-electric cars is being phased out in steps: 18% in 2026 and 20% in 2027 on the first EUR 30,000 of list price, with 22% above that. From 2028 a flat 22% applies to the full list price regardless of powertrain. The original plan was harsher; an adopted amendment extended the discount through 2027.

The net effect is a pair of scissors: electric becomes slightly less attractive for the employee, while non-electric becomes far more expensive for the employer. The employer signs the lease contract.

New car volume may actually fall

A higher electric share does not automatically mean more cars sold. ING explicitly warns that new sales may dip temporarily in 2027, because some employees will move to private lease or to the used market rather than accept an electric company car. Anyone trading a company car for a private arrangement disappears from corporate new-sales figures and reappears in the used market.

That is precisely the dynamic Dutch dealers depend on: used car trade and servicing carry the sector, not new sales.

The Dutch fleet renews slowly — and that is the real story

The Netherlands has around 9.4 million passenger cars, of which only about 4% is replaced by new inflow each year. Belgium runs at 6%, Germany at 7%. Nearly 30% of Dutch cars are older than 15 years and roughly half are older than 10.

Putting those two figures side by side is the point of this story. Even at a 55% electric share in 2027, that is 55% of 4% of the fleet. Electrification of Dutch roads is not decided in the showroom but in the used market — and the used market runs years behind new sales.

What our own used-car data shows

Cars entering fleets in 2027 come off a 48- to 60-month lease contract, which puts them on the used market around 2030 and 2031. That, not next year, is when supply for private buyers genuinely changes.

EVTrader's used inventory held 10,601 battery-electric cars across 286 models and 70 brands as of 24 July 2026. Of those, 19.4% are 2 to 4 years old — the ex-lease cohort from the previous corporate wave, arriving now. The objection that a used EV offers too little range does not survive contact with that inventory: 71.8% of listings carry a WLTP range of 400 km or more, with a median of 449 km.

Residual value is measurable too. Our residual index, calibrated on 4,616 matched electric used cars from that inventory, lands at roughly 74% of list price after 3 years, 63% after 4 and 57% after 5 — an indication derived from asking prices in the real market, not from a manufacturer residual table. For a driver assigned an electric lease car in 2027, that is the variable nobody quotes in the offer: what the car is worth in four years sets the lease rate today.

What could break this forecast

This is a forecast, not an outcome, and three things could break it. Road tax treatment of electric cars in the Netherlands is not settled and is a real brake on private demand. Home charging remains the bottleneck for anyone without a driveway — no charge point, no EV. And Dutch tax rules change late and fast: the current benefit-in-kind path itself arrived through a parliamentary amendment. We update this article when the figures or the rules move.

What it means if you are choosing now

If you drive a company car and your lease ends in 2026 or 2027, the question is not whether you go electric but when your employer flips the switch — the levy hits the employer, not you. If you are buying privately, 2027 is probably not the year of abundant supply, but 2030 is; anyone buying a used EV today is buying into a market where the residual curve has already visibly flattened.

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