Dutch tax office ditches Microsoft cloud to use in-house servers
Other European open-source alternatives are coming in 2027.
Image by Getty Images via Unsplash/Illustration by Cybernews
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- The Dutch tax office will move email and calendars to in-house servers in 2027.
- About 5,000 employees already using Microsoft 365 will stay on it for now.
- A Dutch advisory report warned Microsoft 365 could weaken security and control over government data.
- The agency plans European open-source storage and collaboration tools in 2027 and 2028.
Key Takeaways by nexos.ai, reviewed by Cybernews staff.
The Netherlands Tax and Customs Administration has made a U-turn on its decision to migrate to the Microsoft 365 cloud and has chosen on-premises infrastructure instead.
The Dutch tax office’s decision to select Microsoft 365 in 2025 drew criticism, resulting in a temporary pause in the migration earlier this year.
Now, the agency has announced it is abandoning its Microsoft 365 cloud migration plans, Dutch State Secretary Eelco Eerenberg wrote in a letter to the House of Representatives.
The Dutch tax office will move its email and calendar systems to in-house servers in 2027. About 5,000 of 42,000 employees who already migrated to Microsoft 365 will continue using it for the time being.
Eerenberg emphasized that the halt of migration is only possible because the Tax and Customs Administration successfully increased its data center capacity, according to Dutch media outlet Tweakers.
The office also plans to implement European open-source solutions for personal storage and collaboration features later in 2027 and 2028.
Microsoft 356 is under scrutiny in Europe
The agency selected Microsoft 365 after failing to find European alternatives. However, it halted the migration following a damning report from the Advisory Board on ICT Assessment, an independent Dutch advisory.
The report, machine-translated by Cybernews, stated that Microsoft 365 is unsuitable for the tax administration, citing “inadequate information security arrangements” that affect “both the confidentiality and availability of the information.”
It also warned that adopting Microsoft 365 without a “viable exit strategy” poses the risk of vendor lock-in as well as “a reduction in flexibility and digital sovereignty.”
Such concerns are not unique to the Netherlands. Governments across Europe are pushing their digital sovereignty agenda to reduce their dependence on US tech.
The 2018 Cloud Act allows American law enforcement to request US companies to provide user data regardless of where it is stored. In Europe, 3 US giants – Amazon, Microsoft, and Google – control about 70% of the local cloud market.
Europeans are also concerned about a potential “kill switch,” a scenario in which the US government would order American companies to discontinue their services to European clients.
The Netherlands may be especially concerned, as the US is preparing new sanctions on the Hague-based International Criminal Court (ICC), which could cut the institution’s and its employees’ access to American technologies.
A recently sanctioned ICC judge, Kimberly Prost from Canada, told NPR that she had her credit cards canceled and email, cloud, and other technology services limited due to the sanctions.
The Netherlands, however, is one of the leaders of the European sovereignty bid. The Dutch government is building its own Linux-based workspace, Digital Autonomous Government Work Environment (DAWO).
DAWO, which includes software for office work and collaboration, online storage, backup, and system administration, has already been implemented on a small scale by Dutch government bodies.
