Frequently asked questions

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The BSN number is your own Citizen Service Number (BSN) is your own personal number for contact with the government in order to do your taxes or to be enrolled with the Dutch health care system. The BSN number is also for you to be able to work in the Netherlands and to be able to open a bank account. You will receive a BSN when you register with the Municipal Personal Records Database (BRP). This can be done by having an appointment with the local municipality or with the Expat Center.

There are a couple of conditions you need to meet in order to be able to exchange your driving license:

  • You need to live in the Netherlands and be registered with the municipality
  • You are from the EU, the EEA, Switzerland or from a country with a special agreement (Andorra, Canada Alberta and Quebec, Gibraltar, Great Britain, Guernsey, Israel, Japan, Jersey, Man, Monaco, Northern Ireland, Singapore, Taiwan, South Korea and Former Netherlands Antilles) OR you have the 30% tax ruling granted.
  • You need to have a driving license that is currently valid.
  • If the driving license has been issued in a country outside of the EU, you must have lived in that country 185 days in the year of issuing. This can be shown with a copy of your passport, an employer statement and/or pay slips.

If you do not meet all of the above conditions, you will not be able to exchange your driving license and you would have to do the standard theoretical and practical test for driving in the Netherlands.

If you meet all the conditions that were set in the previous question, you can go to your local municipality with the following documents:

  • A color passport photo that meets the requirements of a passport photo.
    Your foreign driving license.
  • A translation of the driving license when it’s not in English, German, French or Dutch.
  • Your residence card.
  • The grant of your 30% tax ruling if that is applicable.
  • A declaration of suitability and fitness, issued by the CBR, for which you need a health certificate.

You must deregister from the Municipal Personal Records Database (BRP) if you are staying abroad for more than 8 months in a period of one year.

You need to deregister with the local municipality of your place of living. You should do this from 5 working days before your departure. You need to deregister in writing or in person, depending on the place you’re living in. It would be good to ask for proof of deregistration when you deregister. You may need this proof to register outside of the Netherlands.

By law, the employee has a notice period of 1 calendar month. That means when an employee resigns on the 13th of the month, the next month is their notice period and they can leave the company on the last day of that next month. 

There is a possibility to go for a notice period for the employee that is longer than 1 month.  The consequence of that is that the notice period for the employer is double that amount of months. So, if you decide that the employee has a notice period of 2 months, the notice period for the employer becomes 4 months. The notice period for the employee cannot be longer than 6 months. 

For the employer the notice period is depending on the duration of the employment: 

Between 0 years and 5 years employment – 1 month 

Between 5 years and 10 years employment – 2 months 

Between 10 years and 15 years employment – 3 months 

More than 15 years – 4 months 

An employer is allowed to give 3 contracts for a definite period of time as long as you don’t give an employee more than 3 consecutive definite contracts or if the sum of the definite contracts are exceeding 36 months (3 years) in total. If you give an employee a definite contract, it means the contract has an end-date. Although the contract has an end date, the employer is still obligated to inform the employee 1 month before the ending of the contract about an extension or not. If the employer decides not to extend a definite contract, the employee receives a severance payment based on the amount of time they have been working with company. 

List with the minimum information which we will need in order to incorporate a Dutch BV by a foreign company:

  • name of the BV;
  • (formal) statutory seat and business seat of the BV;
  • amount of share capital, division of shares and nominal value of each share;
    details of incorporators;
  • details of first managing directors of the BV;
  • authorization of the managing directors of the BV: solely authorized?
  • Jointly authorized? authorized after written approval of the shareholder in certain circumstances?
  • copy passport of managing directors of the BV;
  • financial year; calendar year of other?

Information of incorporator, being a foreign legal entity:

  • excerpt of the trade register or equal institute on behalf of incorporator, indicating who are authorized to represent the legal entity;
  • copies passport of the managing directors of the foreign entity;
  • structure diagram of the foreign entity, evidencing the shareholders and their % of shares in the respective legal entity;
  • copy of the articles of association / bylaws of the foreign company; preferably in English.

Depending on your company needs, industry and strategic growth plans, the Savvy team can assist you and advise insofar as to the ideal location in the Netherlands for setting up your business. Additionally, we have access to real time market data to support you in your decision making process during this move.

This consists of two components: the IND fee and the Savvy fee. The IND fee is susceptible to change and will be updated annually.

This depends on your age. If you’re under 30 years old, the income requirement is set at €3484,- per month, excluding 8% holiday allowance. If you’re over 30 years old, the income requirement is set at €4752,- excluding 8% holiday allowance.
These income requirements are susceptible to change, these amounts are applicable in 2021.

You may do so 3 months prior to the end of your current residence card and at the latest one day prior to the expiration date of your current residence card.

Yes, it is sufficient to identify yourself. Do take note that it isn’t sufficient to use as a travel document, you need a passport as well.

Approximately 12 – 16 weeks. Do take note that once you need to hand in additional documents, it may take another 12 weeks to process this as well.

This depends on your age and your education level. If you’re 30 years and over, you should earn at least €38.961,- annually.
If you’re under years old AND you have a masters’ degree, the income requirement is lowered to €29.616,-. If you don’t have a masters’ degree, you still need to meet the 30+ income requirement.
These income requirements are susceptible to change. 

This may have to do with your income level. You will receive a tax advantage over the income that is above the level of €38.961,- annually. If you earn €45.000,- for example, you will receive a benefit over €6039,- which isn’t the full 30%. 

This could have to do with the fact that the application was handed in too late. Within 4 months after your first day of work in the Netherlands you need to apply for the 30% tax ruling application to rightfully receive the full 5 years.

A few examples are:

  • Utility bills;
  • A proof of deregistration from the country of origin;
  • Bank statements.

You don’t have to send all of them, you mostly get to choose which documents you want to send as proof. 

Employees in the Netherlands are entitled to a holiday allowance of at least 8% of their gross annual salary of the past year. The legal term for this is holiday allowance, but terms as vacation pay or vacation allowance are also used. The holiday allowance is calculated on the wages the employees have earned in the past year. Other payments on top of the gross salary like a bonus, are not included in the calculation. If an employee is sick, the build-up of the holiday allowance continues. The employer pays out the holiday allowance at least once a year. It’s common in the Netherlands to have the holiday allowance paid out in May or June. The employer can also choose to have holiday allowance paid out on a monthly base.

Yes if there is no CLA applicable which specifically states it needs to be paid out yearly you can agree for this to be paid out on a monthly basis in the employment agreement or an addendum.

The deadline is always the last day of the next month for the declaration itself to be received but also for the payment. For example January needs to be received latest February 28th.

No you cannot reimburse any expenses tax free. In the Netherlands we have the work-related expense scheme (‘werkkostenregeling’). This enables you to spend part of your total taxable wage (the ‘discretionary scope’) on allowances, benefits in kind and provisions for your employees without tax liability. There are also specific exemptions and zero valuations which don’t make use of the discretionary scope.

One-off payments need to be taxed with the special tax rate (‘bijzonder tarief’) which you will find on your pay slip. Wage tax deducted in payroll is a pre-tax to the income tax you need to pay. For 2021 for all income up to €68.507 the tax rate is 37,10% and for all income above it is 49,50%. In the normal tax tables tax cuts are taken into account which was not the case for the special tax rate. In order for you not having to pay more money to the tax office after filing your taxes they have added these percentages to settle that. This means that in the end one-off payments are not taxed differently than your normal salary.

It is not possible to do this yourself. Please send us or your manager an e-mail and we will make sure it will be adjusted.

Please send us an email at payroll@savvy-group.eu and let us know, so we can send you a new activation email or reset your password.

About 3 months in total. 2-3 weeks to get profiles, 4-5 weeks of interviewing and closing, 1 month notice period.

Ranging widely per function, we can provide a compensation & benefits benchmark to help you answer this question.

Ranging between 20-30% on average

For more questions on standard benchmarking, please contact our Recruitment & HR Team David@Savvy-group.eu

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