Feed-in costs and feed-in fee explained

What is the feed-in fee?

The feed-in fee is the amount your supplier pays you for electricity you feed back. Up to and including 2026 you get it only on what remains after net metering, as the worked example below shows. From 1 January 2027 you get a fee for all electricity you feed back.

Until 1 January 2030 that fee is at least 50% of the price you pay for electricity without energy tax and VAT. The Dutch government describes that as the bare supply tariff for electricity, the electricity tariff without taxes. What you get exactly is stated in your contract: your supplier sets the amount itself, but it must be reasonable.

What are feed-in costs?

Feed-in costs are costs a supplier charges for processing electricity fed back. These may only be costs the supplier incurs to process the electricity fed back, and the ACM supervises them.

The way of calculating differs: sometimes it is a fixed amount, sometimes an amount per kWh fed back. In the ACM model contract from 1 January 2026, suppliers must always calculate feed-in costs per kWh fed back.

In December 2025 the ACM published research into these costs. The feed-in costs that suppliers charge households with solar panels are not unreasonable, and under unchanged market conditions they will not rise further. According to the ACM, however, customers often do not know what they are paying for, and contracts are hard to compare.

What changes on your bill?

From 1 January 2027 your supplier must also convert your feed-in costs on the bill into euros per kWh fed back. This is set out in an amendment of the Energieregeling (regulation of 9 August 2026, published on 1 September 2026). When presenting the costs and conditions for feeding back, your supplier must also state how the costs are calculated.

That lets you work out for yourself what a kWh fed back earns you: feed-in fee per kWh minus feed-in costs per kWh.

Note: the rule does not prescribe how a supplier calculates the costs. Market participants are free to set their own cost structure, for example a fixed amount. Only on the bill will they also be shown per kWh from now on.

The ACM considers that insufficient: according to its assessment of the draft, the intended transparency and comparability of feed-in costs are not sufficiently achieved. It advised obliging suppliers to charge feed-in costs per kWh fed back. The minister did not adopt that: a statutorily prescribed uniform cost calculation would interfere with the free pricing of feed-in. The ACM advice is therefore advice, not a rule.

Can feeding back cost you money?

Yes, it can. The ACM warns that feed-in costs can sometimes be higher than the fee for the electricity fed back.

With fixed and variable contracts, most suppliers leave you around half a cent per kWh net. At a few small energy companies the amount is negative, according to Milieu Centraal.

Worked example (2026, with net metering)

The ACM gives this example (ACM ConsuWijzer):

You use 2,000 kWh and your panels generate 3,000 kWh. You use 1,000 kWh directly.

So you draw 1,000 kWh from the grid and feed back 2,000 kWh. After net metering, 1,000 kWh remains.

The fee is € 0.15 per kWh, so € 150. The feed-in costs are € 70. You receive € 80.

From 2027 there is no more net metering. Then you get a fee on all 2,000 kWh fed back, and you pay energy tax and VAT on all electricity you draw, in this example 1,000 kWh. The amounts are ACM calculation values, not tariffs. It is an indication, not a promise.

Fixed, variable or dynamic: the difference when feeding back

Dynamic contract: the market price counts

With a dynamic contract your feed-in fee depends on the current electricity price, which can differ per quarter-hour or per hour. Milieu Centraal notes that the electricity price is sometimes even negative, and that feeding back then effectively costs you money.

According to the ACM, a dynamic contract is only interesting for people who can bear the risk of strongly fluctuating tariffs. More on this in home battery and dynamic contract.

What can you do to feed back less?

Use electricity when the sun shines. The ACM advises using the electricity from solar panels as much as possible at the moment it is generated.

Compare fee and costs per kWh in your contract or in an offer. That is necessary, because contracts are hard to compare.

Store part of it. A home battery raises your own consumption. Whether it pays for itself is uncertain: Milieu Centraal writes that you most likely will not earn back a home battery at the moment. Read home battery with solar panels and calculating home battery capacity.

Switch the panels off? Milieu Centraal calls it a myth that it is smart to switch off your solar panels on sunny days to avoid feed-in costs. With a dynamic contract and negative prices it can be different: then it can sometimes be better to switch your solar panels off temporarily.

Want to use more of your solar power yourself? See the home batteries or ask for advice.