The Netherlands

HR software for the Netherlands

Capstan is all-in-one HR software for the Netherlands and for teams hiring into the Benelux. It is a complete core HRIS, free for up to twenty active people, with all fourteen modules on every plan, it works in business English from the first hire, and it keeps your data in the EU while your payroll stays with your provider.

Prices are adjusted by country and live on the pricing page alone. Outside India you are billed in US dollars; the figure is one link away and appears nowhere else on the site.

Is Capstan HR software for the Netherlands? Yes.

Capstan works for an Amsterdam, Rotterdam or Eindhoven company from the first hire. It is an HRMS and HRIS in one: a single directory for your people and contractors, records and documents, employee self-service, onboarding, leave, attendance and reporting, with a Dutch public-holiday set an administrator can import for the year in one click and then edit.

Free for teams of up to twenty active people, with no time limit, so a first Dutch hire and the next nineteen cost nothing.
An all-in-one HR platform rather than a core with paid add-ons: the full product from day one, on the free plan included.
The statutory side stays with your Dutch payroll provider. Capstan holds no wage-tax or social-premium tables, runs no loonadministratie and files nothing with any authority.
Capstan is a system of record for people you employ and engage yourself. It is not an employer of record and never becomes the legal employer of your Dutch staff.

The structure of a Dutch hire, the contract types, the loonheffingen and the 30 percent ruling, is set out in the guide to hiring employees in the Netherlands.

EU data residency, the Benelux default

In the Netherlands and across the Benelux, buyers expect employee data to sit in the EU, and Capstan gives a literal answer rather than a questionnaire: one self-contained region, data resident in Frankfurt and compute in Amsterdam, both inside the EU.

One region, one boundary: your workspace and its data sit inside the EU deployment, a self-contained stack with no global control plane and no cross-region keys, so there is no runtime path out of it.
The residency line is written on the security page rather than left to a procurement questionnaire, which is the form most vendors answer this question in.
We do not hand you a GDPR compliance badge. We tell you where the data is and what we hold, with a sub-processor register and a data processing agreement you can read before you sign, and leave the compliance judgement to you and your advisers.

The EU-hosting detail, and why where a region sits matters more than a badge, is on the EU data residency page and in this piece.

Payroll stays with your administratiekantoor or provider

Your Dutch payroll, the loonadministratie, runs through your administratiekantoor or payroll provider, and Capstan is built for exactly that handoff rather than against it. It is the system of record and inputs; the computation and the filing stay with your provider.

Capstan compiles joiners, leavers, pay structure, leave, attendance and adjustments into a documented export for your provider, then files the computed results back onto the employee record.
It holds no Dutch wage-tax or social-premium tables, runs no loonadministratie, and files no loonheffingen with the Belastingdienst or any authority. The statutory content is your provider's and your advisers', not ours.
Because the record feeds the pay run rather than competing with it, a new hire or a salary change is one dated entry your provider works from, not a figure retyped into a second system.

Why payroll belongs with a partner and not inside the HR software is set out in this piece.

The 30 percent ruling, recorded not administered

The Dutch expat tax ruling, commonly called the 30 percent ruling, is an arrangement Capstan records on the employee file, not one it administers. The application, the rate and the rules are your advisers' and the authority's, and they change over time; Capstan keeps the facts your payroll provider and your advisers work from.

Capstan records that an employee is on the ruling, with the dates and documents on one file, so your provider and advisers have a single clean source.
It does not apply for the ruling, set or hold its rate, or administer the tax benefit. Those sit with your tax adviser and the Tax Administration, where the rule is defined and where it changes.
The same effective-dated record carries a change of status cleanly, so when an arrangement starts or ends it is one dated edit rather than a note kept in a second system.

How employee data sits under the GDPR, in plain terms, is in the GDPR and employee data guide.

What do you get on every plan?

Every plan, the free one included, carries the whole platform. There is no core-only tier and no module held back for a paid plan, so an all-in-one HR platform here means the full product for a Dutch team, not a stripped sample of it.

The complete core HRIS: one directory for every employee and contractor, with records, documents, self-service and reporting.
All fourteen modules, from onboarding and leave to attendance, workflows and alumni access, with nothing sold module by module.
The same feature set on the free plan and on a paid plan. A paid plan lifts one thing, the twenty-active-employee cap, and changes nothing about the software.
A Dutch public-holiday set an administrator can import for the year in one click and then edit, on a calendar that carries its own working week.
The product in English: the interface is English only, so a Dutch team and anyone managing it from abroad read the same screens. There is no Dutch-language version today, which is worth knowing before you commit.

What the platform covers is on the product page, and how it is built rather than priced against the tools you are probably weighing is on the comparison pages.

Where is the price, and how is it billed?

The price lives on the pricing page, and only there, because it is adjusted by country and belongs in one honest place. It is billed monthly, in arrears, per chargeable seat above the first twenty free, with no annual contract, no prepaid term and no lock-in.

One per-seat figure above the first twenty active people, billed monthly for the seats you actually use.
Outside India the currency is US dollars; the one you are billed in follows your billing country.
No minimum term, no renewal to sign, and downgrading to Free keeps all fourteen modules intact.

Capstan in other markets

Capstan is a global product, region-served from the EU, and it is written for the same shape of team wherever they hire. If your people sit outside the Netherlands as well, the other market pages follow the same structure. Browse every market from the HR software by country hub.