Two people each transfer €20 to a Dutch foundation. One buys admission to an event. The other gives €20 freely, chooses the amount and receives nothing in return. The same bank account gains the same amount. Yet those receipts can belong to different sides of the foundation's tax accounts.
It is easy to lose that distinction when every payment supports the same cause. Buying a ticket can be an act of generosity. For the foundation, it is still payment for admission. Calling the event a fundraiser does not turn the sale into a gift.
That difference matters because a Dutch stichting, or foundation, can be subject to corporate income tax on business activities. Its legal form and social purpose do not put every receipt into one tax-free pot. This article concerns the foundation's Dutch corporate income tax position, rather than the donor's right to claim a deduction.
Look at the exchange before the intention
Consider two ways a foundation might fund its work. In the first, it holds a free gathering and invites visitors to give whatever they wish. Nobody has to pay to enter or participate, and a contribution buys nothing extra. A visitor who freely gives €20 is making a donation.
In the second, admission costs €20. Visitors need a ticket to enter. They may happily pay because they believe in the foundation's mission, but their payment secures something specific. On those facts, it is a sale, not a donation without anything in return.
For a Dutch foundation, genuine voluntary gifts without a return benefit are outside the business activities subject to corporate income tax. Selling admission needs a separate assessment. A single ticket sale does not establish that tax is due. The activity has to be examined: how the event is organised, whether it serves paying customers, and whether it regularly produces a surplus. Competition with taxable commercial organisers can also matter.
Volunteers do not remove those questions. Their work can be part of an organised business activity even when they receive no pay. Nor does a promise to use all proceeds for the foundation's mission make the sales disappear.
I would want the fundraising plan to make the exchange clear before anyone prepares the publicity. If entry is sold, call it a ticket. If a contribution is voluntary and buys nothing, keep it visibly separate. A warm description of what the money will achieve cannot replace a clear explanation of what the payer receives.
The bank total hides the useful distinction
Imagine a fictional foundation receiving €8,000 from ticket sales and another €5,000 in separate, unrestricted gifts. The ticketed activity has €3,000 in attributable deductible costs. Assume that this activity qualifies as a business and that there are no further tax adjustments in this simplified example.
The business result is €5,000: €8,000 less €3,000. It is not the €10,000 left when you combine all receipts and subtract the event costs. The other €5,000 came from genuine gifts and sits outside that business result.
These figures are not a claim that the foundation must pay tax on €5,000. Under the ordinary Dutch profit-based exemption, a qualifying foundation with annual fiscal profit no higher than €15,000 is exempt from corporate income tax. If annual profit exceeds that limit, there is a further test against €75,000 for the current year and the four preceding years combined; loss years count as zero for that test. Our small example shows how to identify the business result before deciding whether an exemption applies.
If the foundation has other business activities, their results also matter. And if it receives an invitation to file a corporate income tax return, it must file even when it expects an exemption to leave nothing to pay.
The same separation matters for spending. Expenses attributable to the ticketed business belong with that activity. Costs of a separate non-business project cannot simply be charged against ticket profits because both projects share a bank account. Setting aside a surplus for future mission work does not, by itself, create a deductible expense either.
Our guide to reading a profit and loss statement explains how income and costs produce a result. For a foundation, that result also needs a boundary around the activities being assessed. A healthy bank balance cannot supply that boundary.
A ticket can support a cause just as sincerely as a gift. Keep that human intention in the story you tell supporters, and keep the underlying exchange clear in the accounts. Both respect the contribution. Only the second tells you what kind of money the foundation received.