An expat story from Software Engineer
Istanbul to Amsterdam
I am Emre. We, me and my wife, are expats living in Amsterdam. We have just moved to from Istanbul and I will try to explain our process with all aspects I can from the decision to first days and on. This might be a bit long, so get ready!
Yes, another software engineer has come to Amsterdam, so cliché, right? You may think about a perfect life but on the other hand, it is a bit far from home. Actually, these are getting normal day by day in the last 20 years. Working in another country is not really hard-to-do matter after these days. The hardest part is actually to make the decision and turn it into reality!
Why Relocate?
Your life depends on so many things. Just think about external factors, mostly necessity matter like house, car, work or country and people. Money, for example, might be one of the biggest pain, especially in Istanbul because of our economic situation. These can block us from freely walk around our life. We don’t have a house. That means no loan and debts. This can be good depending on your current situation. We can say we are in a lucky time for us. This helped us relocate easily to where we want to be. We are kind of people who love to travel and experience the world a lot, especially right now! before the 30s rather than paying the debts. Remember that is a lifestyle and nothing is true in this equation, so it is all up to you.
Keep in mind that a country is just a place you can live in. You cannot select the country you belong but you can for the living and this comes with freedom. You will not be the same age again. If you believe that you can be happier than now, why are you wasting our times? Remember, there is more than the places that we want, there are freedom, respect or contemporary lifestyle we want to be in! Today is this city and tomorrow might be different, get it? On the other hand, some things, for example, this burnt flames quickly. There were, and still, a lot of other things behind the curtains for more than 10 years…
Why Amsterdam?
Back to us, the first thing we need to do was deciding the city and It was an easy one for us. We were %100 percent sure it will be on the European continent and we had only one choice in our mind, Amsterdam. Our dream is living in a place that can be in the heart of life with a lot of parks, easy to commute, can cycle daily, be in a contemporary people life and above average educated people with well-communicated daily interactions. All the things depend on your lifestyle and these are our expectations.
Amsterdam is quite a city. Apartments are not high-rise, most of them have 3 or 4 floors and one tenant each. This helps the city become flat and not so crowded in a certain area. Amsterdam has more bike roads than car roads. Amsterdam has a lot of parks and canals that you can do your exercises and daily walks to clear your mind. All Dutch people can speak English very fluently at an advanced level. We can easily add a lot of examples to these.
These were the things that we could not find in Istanbul recently. Also, consider this, Netherland has less population than Istanbul according to 2018 data, comparing the population of the city with a country!
When try to figure out about the city’s cost of living values and compare it from far away is really hard. Numbeo helped us with the overall view of Amsterdam and Istanbul comparison. This is the big deal about the financial status of your next years. From rental prices to market expenses or commutes will be the big part of your salary. Economical details from your origin to destination country may vary in an extreme way. Review your decision based on these parameters. Some friends, if you have any, in the destination may help you with that. We were lucky about that. I and my wife had some friends who were already immigrants. Suggestions and recommendations were very helpful in the first move-in part. It is totally different than being a tourist.
Amsterdam without a bicycle is impossible! and we love cycling. Of course, this is totally different in Amsterdam as we know because loving cycling and commuting with a bike is really different things. You can see the difference and realize the fact when you first try to manage it. After Istanbul, there is no elevation except bridges, that’s the good part but backpedal break and lot’s of traffics is not the way we used to. I just want to say that after used to cycle for the commute, I should never want to take the bus or tram even if the weather is raining or snowy. Daily cardio can keep your body in a good shape and be fresher on the mornings in the office! (Tested and verified!)
Finding a Job
And finally, we have decided about the city and looking for a job that matches the most out of me!
Getting prepared, job applications and getting an offer period could be a quite bit long and complicated. Not related to this article(I am planning to write a series about this) but I can easily say that as a software engineer, market demands are very high in Amsterdam.
Actually, you can easily think of other cities in Netherland. By train, you can easily pass all the country in 2 hours. My primary city was Amsterdam but if something comes up, I can definitely consider every option. For example, Living in Utrecht and working in Amsterdam is very common in Netherland. 30 mins train distance is very affordable time for the commute to work.
Sign the contract and voalá!
Visa — Work and Residence Permit
When you are holding a Turkish Passport, you need to get a visa to work and stay in the Netherlands. To obtain the visa, some companies help employees, this is called visa sponsorship. This process has two steps. First, preparing the required documents and sent it to the Dutch government and wait for the decision. This process can take up to 6–8 weeks. After you acknowledged the positive decision for the application, the second step is to make an appointment and go to your local Dutch Consulate to obtain the visa on your passport. This process is very fast, compare to the first one, like 1–2 weeks. You can get more information from Consulate’s site.
My process, all took 4 weeks; 1 week to document preparation, 1 week to decision waiting, 1 week to Istanbul Consulate appointment waiting, 1 week to obtain the visa. While this process, I am informed about an entrance to the destination country might not be good for my visa decision. Be cautious about that.
After they process your visa to your passport, you will have 3 months to take your residence card prior to process date. Your visa has multiple-entrances and 3 months validity. With your first entrance with residence visa, border police may ask you about some general questions like your purpose and where to stay. After you take the residence card, you don’t need to buy any departure tax stamp while leaving Turkey:)
About required documents; before applying for the visa and after entering the country, you must need; your passport’s all stamped paged in digital, birth certificate(you can take it on your local municipality with multi-lingual, needs to be originally signed) and marriage certificate(same as birth certificate) if you are married. Besides all this, your company may ask more documents about your educational background.
I will explain the dependent visa procedure later.
First Entrance
When you arrive at the Netherlands with residence visa, you need to get your BSN(burgerservicenummer / citizen service number), residence card(this card has no BSN on it, strange but a fact) and open bank account. Without BSN, you cannot get a bank account and without a bank account, you cannot rent an apartment/house, get a mobile subscription or personal travel card etc. These are connected. For a smooth move-in, be prepared about early appointments. For your residence card, you can go directly to IND(The Netherlands Immigration and Naturalisation Service) or to Expat Centers. You can make an appointment with the IND and one of the banks before your arrival.
My employer has an agreement with a third-party company, PWC. PWC made my process easy. They made an appointment with expat center and ABN Amro bank. I just took my documents. You can use a temporary address like company address or hotel address for the municipality or the bank.
Bank and Payment
After you get your BSN, the second thing is to open a bank account. Without a bank account, you cannot do most of the things like a local person. You need a debit card which will be mostly Maestro. In the Netherlands, the most used payment method is debit card payment. You can easily see some places cannot accept cash or credit card. They have an economic style like buy-as-you-have. If you have money then go for it, don’t stick in debts. When you open a bank account, you can get your debit card. Some banks give the card right after your application like ING and some of them will send it in a week like ABN AMRO. You will have many options, most popular and used banks are ING, ABN AMRO and Rabobank.
ATMs are everywhere in the Netherlands but you don’t need it really. As of 2019, ATMs will be non-labeled, means new ATMs will no bank sign on it. So you can deposit or withdraw money from any ATMs. Also, don’t forget that every bank has a yearly limitation of withdrawal. After this limit, you will need to pay a fee. Four keeping your money safe, banks are charging monthly fee depends on your products. Be sure to understand these details while opening an account.
For online payment, there is a very popular method called iDEAL. Every bank has integration with iDEAL so you can easily use iDEAL for your online purchases. At some point, you may need Visa or MasterCard like Amazon shopping because of using Maestro.
For your money transfer to another country, you should consider using TransferWise. They offer really good exchange rates and low fees currently. If you will travel a lot between cross-currency countries, you may consider using Monzo(UK), Revolut(UK) or N26(GER).
DigiD
DigiD proves your identity by logging in with your DigiD. It is a security layer for your online governmental process. It identifies that you are the one who is processing now. When you get your BSN number, you can apply for digid. When you apply for digid, they will send you an activation code to activate your account. Some services required digid to login like some insurance companies. You definitely need that one way or another. Also, some services required multi-factor authentication, you can use SMS or mobile digid application for that. When you activate DigiD, you can access some process like registering new address to municipality etc. Of course, if you are in a government organization and needs to prove identity, your passport/id card is enough.
Finding House/Apartment
In Istanbul, lots of houses are waiting to be rented/bought because the supply is high and demand is low. Unfortunately in Amsterdam(mostly in the Netherlands), demands are high and supply is low. That means, this is a wolf street and you need to be quick on any new option. Just know that you can not see a house before you can make an appointment and prepared for open-house events like more than 20 people are seeing the house at the same time. These appointments are always on working hours, so you need to take the time off from work and go. Almost every employer has realized that finding a house in Amsterdam is really hard so they are so generous about that subject.
funda.nl, pararius, kamernet, expatrentals, ikwilhurren and Airbnb are good sites when trying to search for rental houses. The key point is you need to be hurry for the new ones every day. Set an alarm for new added houses every morning and try to make an appointment for them, the phone is better than mail due to response time. You can also make reservations for some apartments before moving into the country, this can save your time and make a chance to see how this process is going. Most houses ask 2 rental amount of money for the deposit. If you are lucky, you can find a one with 1 or less. On first days, these can be hard to effort. There is no right or best answer to finding a house, of course, it depends on your needs.
When you like a house/apartment, you need to make an offer for it. If there are too many demands, you can take the rental price up for gain advantage if it is really worth it. The landlord needs too see every bid and make a decision about it. Some landlords ask some pieces of information about you, this is normal to choose tenant but be careful about your personal data. Don’t give any private information at the first stages like your bank information or passport information. You need to tell yourself, write one small offer template mail for a ready-to-send. You need that for a fast move. After you see a house you like, just send the template with replaced house address and price information can be good for you. One of the benefits of canals, there are lots of boat houses you can also consider for rent.
After you move to a new house, don’t forget to register your new address to a local municipality. You need to register your new address no earlier than one month before and five working days after moving. Also, you need to register your new address to origin country’s consulate. This is a declaration-based process. For Turkey, you don’t need to bring any paper except Passport. Go to Rotterdam or Amsterdam consulate between 09:00–12:00 and register your address.
Insurance
Health insurance is mandatory in the Netherlands. Before your first 4 months has passed, you should take insurance from one of the companies. There are lots of insurance companies to do that. Just do not forget that even when you take it on your 3rd month, you need to pay from the beginning, after you get in the country day. When you wait long, you need to pay more for the first time, calculate your balance!
Liability insurance is also a really common thing to consider getting. You can check the details. Payment is like 2–3 Euro per month. Home insurance can save you from some problems. After renting or buying a house, you should get it.
General Practitioners (GPs) & Doctors
To get healthcare support, you first need to register yourself to one of your local doctor(huisarts) or general practitioner(GP). Without your local doctor’s consent, you cannot go to a specialist directly. To find a doctor to register yourself, go to ZorgkaartNederland and find closest doctors to you. You should also consider about doctors might be full of capacity about patients. So firstly go or call the doctor for information and then take your registration. Without registration, you may take yourself in a bad situation if you become ill.
Mobile & Internet
T-Mobile, Vodafone and KPN are most popular and good serving providers. Also, you can consider pre-paid ones like LycaMobile. There is also one advantage like if you want to get a mobile connection and already using Ziggo as an ISP(Internet service provider), Vodafone is giving you 5€ discount per month and can double up your limits. It might be a good choice to check your address about which ISP can set up a connection for your address.
Electricity & Gas and Water
In the Netherlands, gas and electricity are combined as a single service called ‘energy’. For water and energy(gas in cubic meters. electricity in kWh), you need to make a contract for pre-assumed consumptions with some of the suppliers/providers(The energy market in The Netherlands became privatized in 2004). You will pay a monthly fixed amount for all of them. End of the contract, the company will check for your balance with assumed limits and pay/deposit the difference to/from you. You can make the calculation and estimation from this site. Once you search for these, call the provider and learn the details for the service and then make a contract with them. If your first year is below the assumption, next year can be the same but if you are above the limit, the company will move you to one upper package.
Commute
The first choice should be a bicycle for reducing living costs and better health. If you want to live in the Netherlands, you should get used to it. The fact that every Dutch knew cycling after birth and they can be so strict while cycling. Cycling can be more dangerous than driving in the country, but most people use cycling while commuting. It’s cheap, almost, and good for your health.
How to survive Dutch people on bikes!
You can buy or rent a bicycle. Buying is more affordable in the long-term. For rent, you can go for swapfiets. The most important thing is the locker! Amsterdam is famous for stolen bikes. Each year between 50.000 and 80.000 bikes are stolen according to Amsterdam Police. So don’t go cheap for a locker. Some say ‘pay as the same or more for locker than a bike’. If you don’t want to see only front wheel of your bike, be careful about locker and how to lock your bike too. Also if your bike looks amazing and charming, it can be attractive for thieves. That is another reason for me to not willing to take my beautiful Trek to Amsterdam:/
Another option is to use public transport. For that, you really need an OV-chipkaart if you don’t any. This can be an anonymous card, 7.5 Euro currently and load at least 20 Euro for the first time because when your balance is below 20 Euro, you can not take a train. Compare to buying tickets, OV-chipkaart can save up your time and money. When you get the bank account, you can take a personal OV-chipkaart, too. Personal one can be used for any subscription for trains or city zones. Some commute distances can be more affordable if you can take some subscriptions. You can check those subscriptions from ns and gvb. My personal suggestion is this.
%30 Tax Advantage
If you are applying to this advantage, you can apply for it after your trial period end in the company. The minimum taxable amount changes every year, so be careful about your calculations This rule is working like “up to 30 percentage”. If your salary is less then the required amount, companies can apply for a less percentage advantage. You can check detailed pieces of information from here and your calculations from here. After applied, it can take up to or more than 2 months. When you gained, the employer will reimburse you from the beginning of your employee date and you don’t need to do anything because the government also inform your company. Keep this document for your safety.
Also, don’t forget that; any changes like the name of your company or your company’s wage tax number should be reported to the Dutch tax authorities immediately. A reduction in employment income (for example due to a change from full time to part time employment) may cause the 30% ruling to be no longer valid.
Dependent Visa
If you have dependents; partner, wife, husband or child, you can apply visa for them too. If you apply for them while your application, their visa process runs faster. If you are planning to start after you move in, it can take up to 8–12 weeks depends on holidays. If your dependent is coming with you as your dependent, (s)he looses %30 percentage ruling advantage because (s)he has already come to the country with a residence permit, that break one of the conditions for this. Also, don’t forget about insurance advantage. If you have the right to work but couldn’t find yet, you can apply for insurance allowance within certain circumstances.
Speaking Dutch
Dutch people speak English so well. If you don’t want to learn Dutch, you have not suffered from this. you can interact with people in English and this is so normal for them too. Don’t be afraid of language, that is the easy part. If you want to learn Dutch, there some lots of free groups that can do practice about speaking, check out meetup groups. You can also read this Reddit post about how Dutch people can speak English so well. If you want to fear about Dutch, watch this 😎
Driving License
If you have a driving license, it will be valid in the first 6 months. After 6 months, you should get a driving license from the Netherlands. When you get your %30 ruling advantage, go for the application of driving license. Without tax advantage you need to begin from the beginning, so wait and apply. First, go to the municipality and fill out the application form with paying the fee and give your driving license to them. After their process, they send you a post about your status and then go to the municipality again to obtain your new driving license. If you don’t have a driving license before, the process is a bit long and you need to prove your health condition and driving abilities with more fee. You can check out driving certification center.
Relocating Goods
This is a tricky part. You need to find an unfurnished house to use your stuff and need to move them here. Unfurnished houses in Amsterdam are not a lot. Most of them also some fridge, washer or dryer as default even if it unfurnished. You need to plan this part carefully.
There are a lot of professional relocation companies for doing this. Some employers support this as a part of the relocation process. If you are one of those, no need to think about that. If you need to arrange this on your own, search for companies like Santa Fe Relocation. You may also think about storage if there is some more stuff you need to keep for a while. All these little details can be very helpful for a long-term plan. Furniture brands like Ikea are not really cheap. Maybe some balance calculation for moving stuff or buying in here can clear your mind.
Summary
I had luck with staying at one friend(they have two 🐈) while trying to find rent. On the other hands, explore the city as local which was the most exciting part for me even it was winter, rainy and freezing! cold because of my arrival time, the beginning of November. I had luckily lived the new year’s eve, it was just like this! Everyone can speak English, so don’t worry you will survive. Dutch people are so direct, no talking around the bush, company teammates can be too. Don’t decrease your moral in any case. Try to taste local foods and go for pubs, coffee shops or bazaars like Albert Cuyp Market. Grab or rent a bike and see the city as local even if it is raining, you are not a sugar!
Welkom in Nederland!
