7 Things You Should Do When Moving to The Netherlands

hi my name is my father and in December 2018 I moved from approach to go to the Netherlands today I'm going to share with you seven topics that I wish I would have known before I moved okay let's go the first topic that I would like to talk about is to get a vsn number the vsn number is a free identification number used by the Dutch government for tax and fiscal purposes but it's also required to get an employment contract it's also required to get a contract in a house to buy a car for health care and so on the vsn number is also required to benefit from the 30 tax ruling which I will be addressing in the video later on so how do you get the BSN number you need to schedule an appointment with the hemanta house and this is basically the municipality of the city where we'll be living in and this appointment has to be an appointment in person so if you know that you are moving to the Netherlands you can already call the hemanta house and book your appointment so once you arrive to the Netherlands it will be one of the first things that you will do to get the BSN number you do not need to pay anything so this is for free it usually takes up to 10 days after your appointment with the hemanta house to receive your number even though some municipalities give you the number at the desk which was my case and you need to provide an ID card or a passport to to get the BSN number and you need to provide an address if you still do not have an address try to ask your employer to support you and to provide with a valid address this could be for example the address of the office where you'll be working it so why is this the first topic that I want to address because you really need the vsn number to complete a lot of moving activities and to settle in the Netherlands and usually it takes a long time to get it I remember that in my case I was going I was starting my job in January 2019 I moved in December 2018 I made a mistake to only book my appointment in December this meant that I would only have my BSN number or my appointment in February which was in my case very late so about two months that I lost and I could already have the BSN number as soon as you know call book your appointment with the hermanta house and this should be one of the first things you should do as soon as you move to the Netherlands the second topic that I would like to discuss is get a place to sleep in the Netherlands especially in the bigger cities it is quite difficult to find an accommodation that fits your requirements in 2022 it was even an advice from the Dutch government for the international students to not pursue the studies in the Netherlands unless they already had a place to sleep so it is quite challenging to find a room or an apartment therefore as soon as you know that you are moving to the Netherlands start working for a place to stay there are several websites where you can find a place to stay I'll link them in the description but the most famous one is Funda I found my place actually in another website in the expat rental I will also put the description below and there are also of course a lot of offer in the Facebook group especially for individual rooms in shared houses that you can also look into my recommendations when you are working from my experience when I was looking for a house in Amsterdam I noticed that it would be much easier to get the house if I was the one visiting the house myself for me it was easier because I lived in Portugal I could travel to the Netherlands before I officially moved to the Netherlands just to look for an apartment so I stayed four days in Amsterdam and I visited several Apartments during those days and I was able to get one apartment I was lucky to get to an apartment but basically how it works here from my experience was that they would publish an apartment available or a room available for rent and they would book two days where they would allow people to come to visit the apartments and the rooms and I noticed that during these two days there were a lot of people from the moment I was visiting and I was maybe maximum 10 minutes there were probably six more people also visiting the apartment so the demand is quite high and I honestly felt it was like an interview so I really had to sell myself to prove that I was going to be a very good tenant and they were basically lucky to have me to rent their apartment so be at your best behavior really treated like an interview to be the lucky one to get the apartment because it's really quite difficult if you do not have the opportunity to look for apartments by yourself in the Netherlands you could either recruit a real estate agent to represent you during this house visits I I felt that this was also like you were the one doing the visit so that also helps a lot and if it is also impossible for you to hire a real estate agent you can also try to do the visit via video call so the house owner or the real estate agent can at least see you and talk with you via video call and then you can also see the house by yourself of course the first topic that I would like to address is a bank account one of the first things you do when you move to the Netherlands is of course to open a bank account most of the banks require this first appointment to be in person however some banks have already online forms that you can fill in to open the bank account and usually you should bring to your appointment in the bank a valid vacation card this can be your dnid card the passport the driving license you should bring your vsn number you should bring confirmation of your address for example the the contract the rental contract that you have and you should also bring your employment contract if you are a student you should bring proof of enrollment in your educational institution as well there are three main retail banks in the Netherlands there is the ABN Amro there is the Ing and the Rabobank but there are some online banks that have been coming very popular as as well among expats and from what I hear from my friends from my expat friends the bank online banking seems to be working quite well I do not have personal experience with this Bank the bank that I register and open my bank account at the time so this was in January 2019 I opened with the ABN Amro and one of the decisions to open with this bank was because I did not find the fees much higher than the other retail Banks and I found it much more expat friendly at least at the time they were the only ones that have the website in English their app was also in English and everything in the contract was in English so I found that very beneficial for who is expat because that is a very difficult language especially when we are talking about complex terms regarding the financial institutions the fourth topic that I would like to mention is health insurance in the Netherlands it is mandatory for every adult to have Health Insurance within four months after you registered to the hemanta house and get your BSN number you should also have a health insurance the health insurance has different packages it has a basic package and these basic package usually ranges between 100 to 120 euros and all the health insurances provided so this is the minimum that every person should have usually these package covers visits to the general practitioner cover some prescription and some general treatments and issuers cannot deny your application for the basic package so it does not matter your gender your age or your health situation the insurance provider cannot deny you from having a basic health package then if you want additional coverage for other services like dental care or physiotherapy then you can pay for an additional health package and in these additional health package then the insurance can already assess your gender your age or your health condition and conclude if they want you or not and this of course means that you can have a basic health package with one insurance company and an additional health package with another insurance company sometimes employers give benefits towards the health insurance so they will cover a percentage of your health insurance so try to see if your employer has this benefit the fifth topic is the 30 ruling the 30 ruling is a five-year Dutch tax exemption in order to benefit from this tax exemption you need to meet some criteria which our main a few first you have to have Leaf 150 kilometers further from the border of the Netherlands in the last 24 months at least 16 months you should have lived 150 kilometers away from the Dutch border so this means that for people who lived in Belgium in Luxembourg and in some parts of Germany France and the UK they will not be able to benefit from this tax exemption because they lived within 150 kilometers from the Dutch border then you have to have a specific expertise that does not exist or is very hard to find in the Netherlands and how do they assess this is via the salary that you receive four employees who receive more than 39 467 Euros per year you can benefit from this tax exemption of course if you meet the other criteria but if you receive less than this amount per year then you already cannot benefit from this tax exam then you have to work for a company that is registered in the Netherlands and face payroll in the Netherlands as well and finally do not forget to agree with your employer that they will support you to get this benefit from my processes to get this tax exemption I always needed the support from my employer to communicate with the government and to get the tax exemption there is less strict area for people who have a master's degree and are younger than 30 years for example the minimum salary is no longer 39 467 per year but then it decreases for 30 000 per year and for people who are pursuing a PhD or are pursuing a doctor research there are some benefits regarding where did they live leaving 150 kilometer away from the Dutch border criteria is no longer applicable for some of these cases I'll leave the official government website in the description below so you can research by yourself which criteria would apply the sixth topic is get a bike the Netherlands is very famous for its bikes there are more bikes than people in the Netherlands and why so because Netherlands is basically a fat country it is very easy to cycle for all ages and for all physical conditions but it also it is very safe to cycle here so what I noticed that is very different from the other countries it's that infrastructure is very well set up for people to cycle safely usually you always have a suckering path whenever you go in the Netherlands and the cars here especially the cars they respect very well the people who are cycling and I also notice usually the Cycles have priority in the terms they have priority in roundabouts so that also increase the safety and the confidence that people have cycling around and of course the benefits of cycling is that you do not pay gasoline you do not pay very high costs on maintenance you do not pay parking you do not need to go around the Box several times to file a part to find a parking place so the case in favor of bicycles is very strong therefore my recommendation is for you to get it back there are several ways for you to get a bike you can buy a new bike I bought my bike in Decatur it was a new bike and it costs around 400 euros there so you can always search with bike which bikes are available in the cut or you can visit the store and find for yourself which bike is more suitable for you where I really like it was a new bike so I knew it would be a more reliable bike and also because I can do maintenance of the bike I usually do once a year and it's quite cheap compared with other bicycle stores in the Netherlands so I'm very happy with my bicycle from the cattle I bought it in December 2018 as soon as moved to the I moved to the Netherlands and I'm still using the same bike I do maintenance once a year on the bike then you can buy a second hand bike usually people say this but there's no way to prove usually the second band secondhand bikes are can be Stolen Bikes it is very common for bikes to get stolen here in the Netherlands even in front of your house and even during day time so be careful with the bike that you are purchasing as a second hand could be a stolen bike I'm not sure how could they prove that is a stolen bike but yes you can be cycling one day on the road and then someone says hey that is my bike and then you have some type of a problem um anyway I will link this in the description below a website that is very famous to buy bicycles but also other items which is the marketplace I will give that to you and then there is a third option where you do not purchase a bike but you rent a bike there is this company that is called swap fits and for a monthly fee which can range around 40 euros until 80 Euros depending on the type of bike you choose you can rent a bike I use this service for some months where I need that I had my bike in Amsterdam but I was traveling quite a lot to another city to you track so I decided to use the service to get the bike in new track and what I really like is that if you have any issue with the bike it is very convenient you just bring your bike to the shop and they will fix it for you with no additional costs at least that will that happen with me at the time in 2020 and yes you do not have to invest all the additional money in a new bike and you don't need to worry about having issues with the bike because they will always support you this is good because anytime any month you want to cancel you can cancel your contract with no further expenses and yes I find this service very convenient if it's also a way to save some initial investment for yourself I'll also put the link in the description below for subfit the seven and final topic is to get an OV ship card an office ship card is basically the card that you need to use to travel in all the public transports in the Netherlands with this card you do not need to buy a ticket for egg every single trip that you do with this card you need to put Credit in Euros in the card you need to choose some services that the car has for example a monthly service or just a traveling service and the card costs only 7 euros and a half and it's valid for five years with this card you put as I said Credit in Euros in the cart then you enter in the public transport you need to pass the card in a card reader as soon as you enter in the public transport so basically you do the check-in and once you want to leave the public transport you need to pass again the card in the card reader to do the checkout in this way the system will know exactly the amount they need to charge you if you do not do the checkout the system can charge you much more than what you actually use the public transport for and if you do not do the check-in there could be some consequences if someone comes to check if you do it the check in the card or not if you did not do then you are subject to a fine so always make sure that with this card you do the check-in and the checkout and it's a very convenient card as I said you don't need to purchase every time you want to travel a new ticket you just pass this card and that was it for today thank you so much for watching and see you in the next video have a great day

Channel: Mafalda Boers

Views: 15,019

Keywords: Netherlands, Moving to the Netherlands, The Netherlands, Expat in NL, Moving abroad, Expat in The Netherlands, Living in The Netherlands, Dutch

Id: VKh2Akodhic

Length: 17min 30sec (1050 seconds)

Published: Wed Feb 22 2023