What must your hospitality till be able to do? Open tables, tips and the ban on condensing

Your till is part of your accounting records, and those records must always show what your turnover is (Article 52(1) of the General State Taxes Act). In hospitality this means more than the bill. The till records every order from the moment it is keyed in, even if a table never pays. The Belastingdienst names open tables and tips as reports that a reliable checkout system must be able to produce (Belastingdienst, guidance on a reliable checkout system).

You keep all those details for seven years. Keeping only daily totals is called condensing, and that is not allowed. In 2015 and in 2021, in cases about a restaurant and about a hospitality business with a bar, the Supreme Court ruled that anyone who does not keep the detailed data of orders and payments does not, in principle, meet the record-keeping obligation.

In this article

1. What does the tax authority require of a hospitality till?
2. What must the till record about an order and an open table?
3. What does the ban on condensing mean?
4. What happens if the till does not keep the details?
5. How do you handle tips in the till?
6. Which VAT rates must your till keep apart?
7. Which other actions does a hospitality till record separately?

What does the tax authority require of a hospitality till?

There is no compulsory type of till, but the data in the till belongs to your accounting records. That is why the tax requirements for your records also apply to your till. The more complex and larger your business, the higher the requirements (Belastingdienst, Het kassasysteem in uw bedrijf). A restaurant with handheld devices, a bar and changing staff therefore needs more than a lunchroom with one till.

In its supervision the Belastingdienst uses five points: the till registers all events, the data stays correct, complete and timely, it is available for seven years, the reports are reliable and everything remains verifiable (guidance on a reliable checkout system, section 2.1). The guidance is mainly for developers of till software. You can also use it yourself to check whether your till meets the requirements.

For VAT, your till is the basis. Hospitality businesses must use the cash basis, unless their records clearly show that they opt out (Belastingdienst, who must use the cash basis). Under the cash basis you pay VAT on the money you actually receive. Till and bank together are then your evidence.

What must the till record about an order and an open table?

Everything, from the moment the order is keyed in. The guidance asks for all events to be recorded from the start of the sales process, even if the transaction is never completed (guidance, section 3.1). An order that goes to the kitchen or the bar is therefore already a registration.

An open table is a table with orders that have not yet been paid. The guidance lists open tables as one of the exception reports that a reliable system can produce (guidance, section 3.4). That way you, and an auditor, can see which tables were still open at the end of the day and what happened to them.

You do not close a table by deleting the order. According to the guidance, transaction lines cannot be deleted. A correction is made with a reversing entry that refers to the original order, with the employee's number, the date and the time (guidance, section 3.1). If a dish is sent back or you give a drink away, that therefore remains visible.

The Supreme Court explained why the order itself counts in a 2015 case about a restaurant. With the detailed data of orders, the inspector can check whether turnover is complete by comparing purchases with sales per product (Supreme Court 26 June 2015, ECLI:NL:HR:2015:1740). If you buy 600 bottles of wine, for example, you should see roughly that many bottles or glasses back in the till.

What does the ban on condensing mean?

Condensing means that you keep only summaries, such as turnover per day, and lose the individual orders and receipts. For the till the guidance is clear: all data is kept in detail, and condensing is not allowed (guidance, section 3.3). No details may be lost during processing either (section 3.2).

In your bookkeeping you may post a daily total. The Belastingdienst says you may condense data, as long as the detailed data behind it is kept for seven years and can be viewed within a reasonable time (Belastingdienst, brochure on automated records and the tax retention obligation). The daily total is then in the bookkeeping, and the details stay in the till.

A memory that is too small is no excuse. In the 2015 restaurant case the till could not keep the details for long. The Supreme Court ruled that the system's limited storage capacity cannot be regarded as force majeure (Supreme Court 26 June 2015, ground 2.3.3). With a small till you therefore make a regular backup on another medium (Belastingdienst, Het kassasysteem in uw bedrijf).

Also keep the data outside the premises. The guidance calls it mandatory to keep the data in another place, in case of fire or theft. With a cloud till this is usually arranged, but the responsibility remains yours (guidance, section 3.3). So ask your supplier what happens to your data if you stop or switch.

What happens if the till does not keep the details?

Then the inspector can establish that you do not meet the record-keeping obligation. He does this with an information decision, a decision you can object to (Article 52a of the General State Taxes Act). Once that decision is final, an assessment stands unless you prove that and to what extent it is incorrect (Article 25(3) of the General State Taxes Act). This is called reversal of the burden of proof.

This is what happened to a hospitality business that was a lunchroom and restaurant by day and a bar and nightclub in the evening. The till deleted the details of orders and payments after fourteen days and kept only totals. No backups were made, even though the business had agreed to do so with the inspector after an earlier audit (Supreme Court 25 June 2021, ECLI:NL:HR:2021:987).

In the remaining files the inspector found, among other things, three missing Saturdays, numbering that kept restarting at 1 and 20,593 duplicate transactions. According to those files, €4,539,742 had been paid in 2012, while €4,078,726 had been reported as till turnover. The Supreme Court ruled that not keeping the details justifies, in principle, the finding that Article 52 of the General State Taxes Act was not complied with (Supreme Court 25 June 2021, grounds 2.1.7 and 3.1.3).

Research shows why a till that records everything matters so much to the tax authority. In Ethiopia, businesses had to use an electronic till from 2007 that records and transmits every sale. At businesses that introduced the till, VAT paid rose by at least 48% and profit tax by at least 12%. At the same time the businesses also reported more costs (Mascagni, Mengistu and Woldeyes, Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, 2021). This concerns a country with a different tax system, not Dutch hospitality.

How do you handle tips in the till?

As a tip, separate from turnover. You pay no VAT on tips that your staff receive (Belastingdienst, tips and extra payments). A card tip does, however, arrive in the business's bank account. So record it in the till as a tip and not as a sale, otherwise it looks as if you have more turnover. The guidance lists tips as a report that a reliable system can produce (guidance, section 3.4).

If you pass on all tips, you do not withhold payroll tax. The Belastingdienst described a restaurant where cash tips go into a tip jar and the till system records the card tips. Each week the employer hands the total to an employee who divides the tips by hours worked. According to the Belastingdienst, this is third-party pay, for which the employer has no withholding obligation. The employee reports the tips in his own income tax return (knowledge group position KG:204:2025:7, 1 May 2025).

Never use the tip jar for a cash shortfall. The same position states that the employer may not keep the tips for himself, for example to make up a cash shortfall (KG:204:2025:7). If you do, the tips may still count as pay from the employer. So keep cash differences and tips separate in the till and on the daily cash sheet.

Tips do not replace wages. You pay at least the wage from the pay table of the hospitality collective agreement. If you pay less, the Belastingdienst assumes the difference is made up with tips, and payroll tax and contributions are due on that part. You always pay the statutory net minimum wage by bank transfer (KHN, taxes or contributions on tips).

Service charges are not tips. KHN writes that a service charge is compulsory and therefore fundamentally different from a tip. Service charges are turnover of the business (KHN, may I require my guests to tip). So enter them in the till as a turnover line with VAT, not under tips.

A tip suggestion on the card terminal is allowed, but the guest must always be able to choose no tip. According to KHN, tips are always voluntary (KHN, compulsory tips). Research on more than 13 million taxi rides in New York shows that suggested tip amounts strongly influence the size of the tip. With higher suggestions, however, a larger share of customers chose to leave no credit card tip (Haggag and Paci, American Economic Journal: Applied Economics, 2014). That research was about taxis, not restaurants.

Which VAT rates must your till keep apart?

Usually 9% and 21%. Food and non-alcoholic drinks in hospitality fall under 9%, including takeaway (Belastingdienst, foodstuffs). Beer with more than 0.5% alcohol and other drinks with more than 1.2% alcohol fall under 21%. This also applies if you charge an all-in price for food and drink (Belastingdienst, drinks).

You may only split a cocktail or other mixed drink if you also sell the drinks separately and the price of the mix equals the sum of the separate prices. Otherwise 21% applies to the whole mixed drink, unless it contains 1.2% alcohol or less (Belastingdienst, mixed drinks in hospitality). Set this up correctly per item in the till.

If you also have rooms, there is an extra split. Accommodation has fallen under 21% since 1 January 2026, and a separate breakfast under 9%. You divide an all-in price according to the market value of each part. In the Belastingdienst's example this is 80% accommodation and 20% breakfast (Belastingdienst, VAT on accommodation).

The till's settings are also part of your records. If you change a price or a VAT percentage, you keep that change (Belastingdienst, Het kassasysteem in uw bedrijf). A report with turnover per VAT rate and per payment method then matches your VAT return (guidance, section 3.4).

Which other actions does a hospitality till record separately?

Everything that is not an ordinary sale. As exception reports the guidance lists, among others, own use, entertainment and giveaways, spoilage, waste and breakage, void receipts, discounts and corrections, open tables, training mode, no sale (the cash drawer opened without turnover) and tips (guidance, section 3.4). Cash differences and days without turnover are also on the list.

In hospitality this happens every day. A broken bottle, a drink for a regular guest, a meal that goes back to the kitchen or the owner's coffee. If you record it under the right button, the ratio between purchases and sales adds up. If you leave it out, during an audit it looks like missing turnover.

The till also records training mode, staff logging in and opening the drawer without a sale (Belastingdienst, Het kassasysteem in uw bedrijf). If you work with changing school pupils and on-call staff, give everyone their own login. Then every order, correction and drawer opening can be linked to one person.

Sources

• General State Taxes Act (Algemene wet inzake rijksbelastingen), Articles 25, 52 and 52a, version in force from 1 October 2026. wetten.overheid.nl
• Belastingdienst, Handreiking voor een betrouwbaar afrekensysteem (guidance on a reliable checkout system), ON 201-1Z*1FD, June 2023. odb.belastingdienst.nl
• Belastingdienst, Het kassasysteem in uw bedrijf (the till system in your business), brochure, September 2013, ON 200-1Z*5FD. belastingdienst.nl
• Belastingdienst, Who must use the cash basis?, accessed 29 October 2026. belastingdienst.nl
• Supreme Court of the Netherlands (Hoge Raad), 26 June 2015, no. 13/04127, ECLI:NL:HR:2015:1740 (restaurant, detailed order data). uitspraken.rechtspraak.nl
• Belastingdienst, Uw geautomatiseerde administratie en de fiscale bewaarplicht (automated records and the tax retention obligation), brochure AL 040-1Z*6FD, section 2.3. belastingdienst.nl
• Supreme Court of the Netherlands (Hoge Raad), 25 June 2021, no. 19/05851, ECLI:NL:HR:2021:987 (hospitality business, information decision, detailed till data). uitspraken.rechtspraak.nl
• Mascagni, G., Mengistu, A. T. and Woldeyes, F. B. (2021). Can ICTs increase tax compliance? Evidence on taxpayer responses to technological innovation in Ethiopia. Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, 189, 172 to 193. doi.org/10.1016/j.jebo.2021.06.007
• Belastingdienst, Tips and extra payments (Fooien en extra vergoedingen), accessed 29 October 2026. belastingdienst.nl
• Belastingdienst, payroll tax knowledge group, KG:204:2025:7 Withholding obligation for tips, 1 May 2025. kennisgroepen.belastingdienst.nl
• KHN, Do I have to pay taxes or contributions on tips for the waiting staff?, accessed 29 October 2026. khn.nl
• KHN, May I require my guests to tip?, accessed 29 October 2026. khn.nl
• Haggag, K. and Paci, G. (2014). Default tips. American Economic Journal: Applied Economics, 6(3), 1 to 19. doi.org/10.1257/app.6.3.1
• Belastingdienst, Foodstuffs, and Drinks (VAT rates), accessed 29 October 2026. belastingdienst.nl
• Belastingdienst, From 1 January 2026: VAT rate on accommodation up to 21%, news item, 30 October 2025. belastingdienst.nl