How to Sell on Bol.com in the Netherlands (2026)

Selling on Bol.com in the Netherlands is a business-only channel: you need a registered company with a valid VAT number before you can open a sales account, and private individuals cannot sell at all. Listing is free — bol charges nothing to offer your assortment and nothing per listing. You only pay when an item sells, and the charge has two parts: a fixed commission per article and a variable commission expressed as a percentage of the selling price including VAT. Here is how the account, the fees, the logistics options, and the tax obligations actually work in 2026.

Can Private Individuals Sell on Bol.com?

No. Bol requires a valid VAT number from your country of establishment to create a sales account, and that number has to belong to your business. There is no consumer-to-consumer mode, no "sell one item" flow, and no way to list as an individual the way you can on Marktplaats or Vinted.

If you are clearing out a wardrobe, a garage, or a household, bol is the wrong platform. Use Marktplaats for general second-hand goods and local pickup, or Vinted for shippable fashion. Bol is a retail channel for businesses selling mostly new, barcoded product.

Do You Need a KvK Number to Sell on Bol.com?

For a Dutch business, yes — a KvK registration and the BTW number that comes with it are the baseline. Bol's own requirement is stated in terms of the VAT number: it must be valid and issued in the country where the business is officially established.

Sellers established elsewhere in the EU go through a separate, invitation-only onboarding process, and the requirements are heavier. Bol asks for a valid registration in the trade register of the country of establishment, a valid VAT number from that country, a NACE code in the e-commerce field, details of the Ultimate Beneficial Owners, a valid passport or identity card, and an active payment account in a SEPA country. Two common sole-proprietorship forms are explicitly not supported: the German Einzelunternehmen and the Polish JDG. Bol describes the screening as something that "can take some time, sometimes even several weeks."

How Much Commission Does Bol.com Charge?

Bol charges two commission components on every sale, and both are calculated on the selling price including VAT:

• Fixed commission — a set amount per article, which depends on the article type and the selling price.
• Variable commission — a percentage of the selling price, which depends on the product category.

The worked example bol publishes on its own commission page is a pasta machine sold at €206.50 with a 6% variable rate and €0.85 fixed commission, giving €13.24 in total commission excluding VAT. For the Kitchen Merchandise category, bol states a variable commission between 5% and 12.5% and a fixed commission between €0 and €0.85.

One thing to be careful about: bol itself notes that the amounts and percentages shown in the published overview "are merely an estimate." The binding, per-category table is a download inside your sales account. Any figure you find on a blog — including the ranges below — is a planning aid, not the rate you will be invoiced.

Commission ranges commonly quoted ~ estimate

Across the whole catalogue, third-party seller tools commonly quote a variable commission between roughly 4% and 21%, and a fixed component around €0.40 for lower-priced items and €0.85 for items above €20. These are secondary-source figures, not bol's published rates, and category variation is wide enough that using them for a margin decision is a mistake. Pull the official table from your account before you price anything.

Costs You Pay Beyond Commission

• Nothing to list. Bol states plainly that offering your assortment via bol is free. There is no monthly account fee and no per-listing charge.
• VAT on the commission itself. For Dutch businesses, bol charges 21% VAT on commission, and it appears on your invoice.
• Shipping, if you use bol's own shipping service (see below).
• Fulfilment and storage, if you put stock in bol's warehouses.
• Advertising, if you run Sponsored Products. Optional, and priced separately.

Verzenden via bol vs Logistiek via bol

Bol offers two logistics routes, and the choice drives most of your per-order cost.

Verzenden via bol (VVB) — you hold the stock

You keep the inventory and ship each order yourself, but you buy the carrier service through bol at negotiated rates. It comes in a Standaard and a Compleet variant. All tariffs are quoted excluding VAT, and pricing is tiered: bol runs seven volume discount levels (voordeeltredes) banded by annual parcel volume, from 0–4,999 parcels a year up to 75,000+. A seller shipping a few hundred parcels a year sits in the bottom tier and pays the worst rate — worth modelling before you assume marketplace shipping beats your own carrier contract.

Logistiek via bol (LVB) — bol holds the stock

You send inventory into bol's warehouses and bol picks, packs, ships, and handles returns. Tariffs are set by article format across size categories from 3XS to 3XL, with a separate, lower rate card for items with a selling price under €16. The published surcharges matter more than the base rate for most sellers:

• +40% on storage during the November–December peak.
• +100% on storage for stock held longer than 180 days.
• €0.45 per article excluding VAT to retrieve or destroy stock.

The long-stay surcharge is the one that catches new sellers. Slow-moving stock that sits past six months does not just fail to sell — it doubles its own storage cost while failing.

Listing: What Bol Expects

Bol's catalogue is EAN-driven. Every article needs a valid EAN or GTIN, and if the product already exists in the catalogue you are adding an offer to an existing product page rather than creating your own. That has two consequences worth planning around:

• You compete on the same page as every other seller of that article, so price, delivery promise, and performance metrics decide who wins the buy box.
• For own-brand or unbranded product you have to create the content yourself, which means barcodes you have purchased and images and copy that meet bol's content requirements.

Delivery promise is not cosmetic. Bol surfaces it prominently to buyers, and a tight, reliably-met promise is worth more in conversion than a small price cut.

Getting Paid

Bol collects from the buyer and pays out to your registered SEPA account on its own settlement cycle, netting commission and any logistics charges against the sale. You invoice through the platform's sales-invoice flow. Because payouts are netted, your effective cash-conversion cycle is set by bol's schedule, not by the buyer's payment — plan working capital around it if you are buying stock in.

Tax and Reporting Obligations

Two layers apply, and they are separate.

First, your own VAT: you are a Dutch (or EU) business selling into the Dutch market, with the normal registration, charging, and filing obligations. Cross-border EU distance sales sit under the OSS rules once you pass the EU-wide threshold.

Second, DAC7: bol, like every EU platform, reports seller data — identity, tax number, and transaction totals — to the tax authorities. Nothing you sell through the account is invisible. For the broader picture of when marketplace selling becomes taxable income in the Netherlands, see our guide on tax on online selling in the Netherlands.

Is Bol.com Worth It Compared to the Alternatives?

Bol's case is reach: it is the dominant general retail marketplace in the Netherlands and Belgium, and a listing there puts you in front of buyers who never leave the platform. The cost is margin and control — commission on every sale, a catalogue you share with competing offers, and a business registration hurdle before you can start.

It is the right channel if you sell new, barcoded, restockable product with enough margin to absorb double-digit commission. It is the wrong one for second-hand goods, one-off items, or private sellers. If you want the full comparison against Amazon.nl, Marktplaats, Vinted and the rest, see Bol.com alternatives in the Netherlands, or the wider best online marketplaces in the Netherlands guide.

Sources

• bol Partnerplatform — Commissie (commission structure, worked example, VAT treatment, "offering your assortment via bol is free")
• bol Partnerplatform — Aanmeldproces EU-partner (registration requirements, unsupported legal forms, screening time)
• bol Partnerplatform — Voorwaarden en tarieven Verzenden via bol (tariffs excl. VAT, seven volume tiers)
• bol Partnerplatform — Voorwaarden en tarieven Logistiek via bol (size categories, peak and 180-day storage surcharges, €0.45 retrieval/destruction fee)

Figures verified against bol's own partner platform in August 2026. Rates change; the binding table is the one inside your sales account.