There is no fixed standard for a healthy split. Figures from Statistics Netherlands (CBS) do show what the average looks like: in 2024 eating and drinking places spent 32.4% of their sales on purchases, 29.7% on staff and 8.4% on premises, such as rent and upkeep of the building.
If you calculate your own figures the same way, you can see where your business differs. A difference is not automatically wrong. A café sells more drinks than a restaurant, and in a sole proprietorship the owner's own work is not part of the staff costs.
In short
- CBS average for eating and drinking places in 2024: purchases 32.4%, staff 29.7%, premises 8.4% and energy 2.6% of sales excluding VAT. It is an average, not a standard.
- Always calculate with sales excluding VAT and excluding tips, and with the cost of what you actually sold.
- If you work in the business yourself, count your hours separately. Otherwise your staff costs look lower than they really are.
In this article
- What share of sales goes on purchases, staff and rent in hospitality?
- Is the CBS average a standard for your business?
- How do you work out your own percentages?
- Why look at purchases and staff together?
- Is a wage cost percentage enough to judge your rota?
- What happens to the percentages when sales fall?
- What is left for you as the owner?
What share of sales goes on purchases, staff and rent in hospitality?
At eating and drinking places, about a third of sales went on purchases in 2024 and almost a third on staff. Premises were 8.4% and energy 2.6%. This is shown by the CBS figures for 2024, the most recent available (CBS, business sector, labour and financial data by branch).
The percentages are our own calculations from that CBS table. Together, eating and drinking places had € 28,541 million of net sales, which is sales excluding VAT. The cost of sales, which CBS counts as the cost of what was sold, was 32.4% of that. Staff costs, meaning wages, contributions, pension and other staff costs, were 29.7%.
Hotels have a different split. In 2024, 16.6% of their sales went on purchases, 30.0% on staff and 13.7% on premises. A hotel mainly sells overnight stays, and a room requires few purchases but a lot of building. If you run a B&B or small hotel with breakfast or a restaurant, you are often somewhere in between.
Is the CBS average a standard for your business?
No. It is an average across all eating and drinking places together, from snack bar to restaurant and from sole trader to chain. CBS does not give the costs separately for restaurants, cafés or cafeterias. Use the figure as a point of comparison, not as a limit.
Your menu determines a lot. The purchase percentage depends on what you sell and at what price, and the staff percentage on how much work goes into each dish or drink. A business with a different offer from the average therefore also has different percentages. So always look at purchases and staff together, not at one of the two.
Also note what CBS counts as premises: rent, lease, repairs, maintenance, cleaning and insurance of the building, water, fittings, environmental levies and property tax. If you only compare your bare rent with 8.4%, you are comparing too few costs.
How do you work out your own percentages?
Divide each type of cost by your sales excluding VAT over the same period, and multiply by 100. Preferably use a whole year or at least a quarter. One month says little, because purchases and sales do not always fall in the same month.
Leave tips out of sales. Tips your staff receive are not sales of your business, and you pay no VAT on them (Belastingdienst, tips and extra payments). If you do include card tips, your sales look higher and your cost percentages lower than they are.
Calculate with the cost of what you sold: the stock at the start, plus purchases, minus the stock at the end. Food and drink for staff, drinks given away and spoilage are not part of the sales. The Belastingdienst lists own use, entertainment and giveaways, and spoilage, shrinkage and breakage as separate reports a good till system must be able to produce (Belastingdienst, guide to a reliable till system). These reports show how much of your purchases does not come back as sales.
Count more than the gross wage in your staff costs. Under the hospitality collective agreement (Horeca-cao), staff receive 8% holiday allowance, and employer contributions and pension come on top (Horeca-cao, declared generally binding, Government Gazette 2025, 10545). Agency workers and hired help also belong in the comparison.
Worked example, not industry figures
A restaurant takes € 45,000 in a month, excluding VAT and tips. The cost of what was sold is € 14,400, which is 32%. Staff work 700 hours at € 22.50 of wage costs per hour, € 15,750 in total, which is 35%. Rent and the other costs of the building are € 4,050, which is 9%. Energy is € 1,350, which is 3%. At the CBS average of 29.7%, staff would cost € 13,365, which is € 2,385 less. That difference is the first place to look.
Why look at purchases and staff together?
Because these are the two largest costs, and because they affect each other. At eating and drinking places they made up 62.1% of sales in 2024, at hotels 46.6%. A choice on one side often affects the other: a dish you prepare yourself takes more hours, and a product you buy ready-made takes fewer hours but usually costs more to buy.
Purchases and staff together are called the prime cost. Researchers looked at how operating costs affect profitability in restaurant companies. According to them, high food and wage costs together are mainly a concern for full-service restaurants, which were less profitable than limited-service businesses as a result. Larger companies had lower food costs thanks to economies of scale (Mun & Jang, 2018).
That research was about restaurant companies, not a small Dutch business, and shows a link, not a cause. The lesson for an independent restaurant is still useful: a small business has no economies of scale in purchasing, so the room often has to come from the menu, the prices and the rota.
Is a wage cost percentage enough to judge your rota?
No. A percentage does not tell you whether you have the right people working at the right hours. As early as 1983, an article in an academic hospitality journal warned that relying on a single wage cost measure can lead to wrong conclusions about staff productivity. The author therefore recommends several measures for drawing up the rota (Pavesic, 1983).
A simple second measure is sales per hour worked. In the worked example that is € 45,000 divided by 700 hours, just over € 64 an hour. If you look at this per day or per shift, you see which shifts have too many or too few people. The wage percentage for the whole month does not show this.
Wage costs also rise on their own. The statutory minimum wage for those aged 21 and over went from € 14.71 an hour on 1 January 2026 to € 14.99 on 1 July 2026 (Government of the Netherlands, minimum wage amounts 2026). The youth minimum wage for an 18-year-old goes from 50% to 62.5% of the adult minimum wage on 1 January 2027, according to Bulletin of Acts and Decrees 2026, 279 (AWVN, youth minimum wage scales from 1 January 2027). The Horeca-cao from 2027 is still being negotiated (CNV, hospitality collective agreement negotiations start).
Business owners feel this. In a survey by Koninklijke Horeca Nederland (KHN), the hospitality trade association, from January 2026, 70% named employer costs as a short-term concern and 66% the rising cost of food and drink purchases (KHN, Horecava 2026 press conference).
What happens to the percentages when sales fall?
Then the percentages of the fixed costs go up, even if the costs themselves stay the same. Rent and a fixed rota do not fall with sales. Purchases do move with sales, so that percentage stays roughly the same.
CBS shows this clearly for 2020. Net sales of eating and drinking places fell from € 20,754 million in 2019 to € 14,222 million in 2020. Premises went from 9.1% to 11.0% of sales and staff from 28.8% to 32.0%. Purchases stayed around 33% (CBS, business sector, labour and financial data by branch).
Apart from 2020 and 2021, the ratios are strikingly stable. Between 2015 and 2024, purchases were between 32.4% and 33.4% and staff between 27.9% and 29.8% of sales. If your own percentage rises a few points without anything special happening, that is a signal to review your prices, your menu or your rota.
What is left for you as the owner?
On average, eating and drinking places kept 13.6% of their sales as operating result in 2024, which is income minus all operating costs. For a sole proprietorship or partnership, that is not profit on top of a salary. The owner's income, the tax and the loan repayments all come out of that amount.
The owner of a sole proprietorship receives no wage, but pays income tax on the profit (KVK, can you earn enough with your business). The owner's work is therefore not in the staff costs. If you work 250 hours a month in the business from the worked example yourself, and value those hours at the same € 22.50, that adds € 5,625. Staff costs are then 47.5% of sales instead of 35%.
That sum shows whether the business could also manage without your own unpaid hours. That matters if you fall ill, want to hire a manager or ever want to sell the business.
Many businesses do not reach the average. In a survey of KHN members, 36% said they were not profitable. KHN writes that business owners are mainly worried about the rise in staff and purchase costs (KHN, letter to the cabinet 'het glas is leeg', 27 July 2026).
Sources
- CBS, Bedrijfsleven, arbeids- en financiële gegevens, per branche, SBI 2008 (Business sector, labour and financial data by branch, table 81156ned), branches 56 Eating and drinking places and 551 Hotels, 2015 to 2024, updated 24 April 2026, accessed 29 October 2026. cbs.nl
- Belastingdienst, Fooien en extra vergoedingen (Tips and extra payments), accessed 29 October 2026. belastingdienst.nl
- Belastingdienst, Handreiking voor een betrouwbaar afrekensysteem (Guide to a reliable till system), ON 201-1Z*1FD, June 2023. belastingdienst.nl
- Declaration of general applicability of the Horeca-cao, Government Gazette (Staatscourant) 2025, 10545, article 4.17, generally binding until 31 December 2026. officielebekendmakingen.nl
- Mun, S. G. & Jang, S. (2018). Restaurant operating expenses and their effects on profitability enhancement. International Journal of Hospitality Management, 71, 68-76. doi.org
- Pavesic, D. V. (1983). The myth of labor-cost percentages. Cornell Hotel and Restaurant Administration Quarterly, 24(3), 27-30. doi.org
- Government of the Netherlands, Minimum wage amounts 2026, accessed 29 October 2026. rijksoverheid.nl
- AWVN, Staffels minimumjeugdloon per 1 januari 2027 (Youth minimum wage scales from 1 January 2027), 28 September 2026, on Bulletin of Acts and Decrees 2026, 279. awvn.nl
- CNV, Cao-onderhandelingen horeca van start (Hospitality collective agreement negotiations start), 23 October 2026. cnv.nl
- Koninklijke Horeca Nederland, Persconferentie Horecava (Horecava press conference), 12 January 2026. khn.nl
- Koninklijke Horeca Nederland, Kabinetsoproep het glas is leeg (Call to the cabinet: the glass is empty), letter of 27 July 2026. khn.nl
- KVK, Kun je genoeg geld verdienen met je bedrijf? (Can you earn enough with your business?), updated 17 June 2026, accessed 29 October 2026. kvk.nl