Why an opening balance sheet matters for DAFT
The IND’s requirement is simple to state and easy to get wrong in practice: invest at least €4,500 of your own capital in your business, confirmed directly on ind.nl. What trips people up is proving it, both when you first apply and again at every renewal, when the IND checks “if the invested capital remained in the business,” also confirmed directly on ind.nl.
An opening balance sheet is the document that shows, on day one, exactly what your business owns (its assets, including the €4,500) and what it owes (its liabilities, if any). It’s the baseline every later balance sheet gets compared against.
Why “just keep €4,500 in the bank” is not the same thing
Several sources that work with DAFT clients directly warn about this exact mistake: keeping a bank balance of €4,500 is not automatically the same as having €4,500 in invested capital, because the IND appears to look at your business’s net position: assets minus liabilities. If your business also owes money (a loan, unpaid tax, a supplier invoice), that debt can eat into the €4,500 even if the cash is still sitting in the account. Multiple sources describe this consistently, but ind.nl itself doesn’t spell out the exact calculation, so treat this as well-sourced rather than officially confirmed.
Our bookkeeping partner, Slim Geregeld Administratie, describes the same rule the same way from the other side of the desk: equity is what you invest minus what the business owes, a loan counts as debt and doesn’t qualify, and a genuine gift can count as equity. That’s an independent, practitioner-side confirmation of the framing above, not an official government source, but reassuring to see it line up.
How long the capital has to stay invested
The honest answer right now is: continuously, for as long as you hold the permit. That is what every source we checked agrees on, including at renewal time, but we have not found an exact, officially confirmed test, such as a specific date each year, for how that is measured. See Requirements for the full breakdown of what is and isn’t confirmed.
Why this is where a bookkeeper actually helps
This is exactly the kind of thing that’s hard to self-certify and easy to get wrong quietly. You can believe you’re compliant for two years and only find out otherwise at renewal. A BECON-registered bookkeeper can prepare your opening balance sheet correctly the first time, keep your books so the “€4,500 net” test stays true all year, and prepare the annual accounts the IND asks for at renewal.
Our partner, Slim Geregeld Administratie, does exactly this for DAFT applicants specifically: a signed opening balance sheet within 5 working days (or 48 hours with their priority option), prepared from your KVK extract and a bank statement showing the deposit, with no payment due until your figures are in. See their DAFT service page for current pricing (their pricing, not ours, so it’s worth double-checking it’s still current).
Next steps
Read ZZP vs. BV if you haven’t picked a business structure yet, or Extension and renewal to see exactly what gets checked later.