Once you land in NL: Things to arrange
Landing in an unfamiliar country is a mixed experience. You are enthusiastic to taste the culture, to do some sight-seeing and to get exposed to a new way of working on one hand. On the other hand, you have a big list of TODOs, making you nervous on how you will make those decisions without any prior knowledge.
That is why I share my experiences here so that you can make certain decisions very easily. Obviously, you must have guessed the “Unfamiliar Country”, I am going to talk about is The Netherlands. As I intend to make your life easier, I will not keep admiring this beautiful and expat friendly country and jump into making a TODO list for first 3 months in the Netherlands.
There are few requirements you have to fulfil as a part of your immigration process.
Residence Permit
The first thing you will need in the Netherlands is your residence permit. There are two options to collect the residence permit: the Expat centre or the IND desk (Kantoor in Dutch). Generally your sponsor or you yourself must have mentioned the place from where you can collect your residence permit. If you are not sure, don’t worry, you can check the visa form or you can book an appointment directly.
I personally prefer the Expat centre as it also issues a citizen service number, also called BSN Nummer (burgerservicenummer). The Expat centre may provide a small gift that includes a lot of information and useful stuff like a SIM card. It is better to book an appointment before visiting the Expat centre.
The IND Desk on the other hand is also very expat friendly and provides you a residence permit if you book the appointment with them. But you will have to go to City Hall for registration on a separate occasion.
You have to collect your RP within 3 months.
But there are a lot of other things that you need to arrange within 3 months as well. If you delay this, it will cause cascading delays.
Documents to carry: Passport and Visa approval letter.
City Hall (Gemeente) Registration
Once you get the residence permit, you need a BSN nummer. This number that identifies an individual uniquely. A BSN is required to perform almost all tasks starting from opening a bank account to getting your pension.
You have to register yourself to the City Hall within 5 days
If you fail to do so, you may get a penalty as well. It sounds bit scary; I did my registration after 20 days, I did not get the penalty. So Dutch people are really nice and understand the situation :D But please don’t try your luck if you can do it within 5 days.
This also applies if you move from one city to another so be careful.
You may also need to provide BSN to your bank in India if you want to convert your bank account to an NRI account.
Documents to carry: Passport, RP, Birth certificate (Apostille), Marriage Certificate
Tuberculosis (TB) Test
Third official requirement is to go through TB test if that applies to you. If you are from other countries than India, please check whether you have to do it on GGD website. GGD is the largest health service in the Netherlands focusing on public health. When you are required to take the test as a part of Immigration, the test is free.
When you visit GGD, please take your ID (RP and/or Passport) and referral form. They will check the documents and will ask you to go inside a lab. They will do a scan. The results are generally not shared to the individual if everything is fine. So if you don’t hear from them in few weeks, you cleared the test.
You have to take the TB test within 3 months from the date of arrival
Nowadays, GGD is very busy and it is hard to get the appointment swiftly. I would suggest to book an appointment well in advance.
I have heard about a couple of expats who were asked to re-take the test after certain interval. That is quite normal so please co-operate with GGD instead of arguing.
Documents to carry: Passport, RP, Referral Form
Health Insurance
The medical facility in the Netherlands is very convenient though it is little slow if you compare it to India :P. However, you have to arrange the health insurance first.
I will write a separate blog about what to look for when buying the health insurance. For the time being, you can compare health insurance providers with an online tool like zorgwijzer. For simplicity, you can choose the insurance provider your organisation has a tie up with. You can change it later in January every year.
Once you select the provider, the provider will ask to sign the contract and will ask few documents such as your RP, salary slips, contract etc. The date from which the insurance starts is very confusing. Believe me, I spoke to many insurance providers as well as different government organisations, and I did not get a concrete answer.
But the most important matter is that you are insured from the date of arrival
So you can get reimbursement of medical expenses if you have done them before the insurance is arranged.
Many times, I also got the question whom one should contact when insurance is not arranged. I would say that one should contact the nearest General Practitioner (GP) or Huisarts (in Dutch) in case of emergency. If you are still confused, go to GP ward in the nearest hospital. A request for a medical facility in an urgent situation is never denied even if you don’t have insurance at that moment.
Documents to carry: RP, BSN, Employment Contract, Salary Slips
Huisart (GP) Registration
Once your insurance is arranged, the next step is to register yourself with a general practitioner (Huisarts in Dutch). You will need to carry an identity proof and your insurance card or number.
The GP near your place may already have too many families registered. In that case you can register with another GP.
Only a GP can refer to a specialised doctor excluding exceptions such as dentists
30% Ruling
This matter raises the most questions. It is obvious because the first month you will get a lower salary than you might have expected. The Dutch tax authority is the belastingdienst. It takes one to three months to arrange your 30% ruling status.
Your employer can apply for your 30% ruling, you yourself can not
You can estimate the tax before and after the 30% ruling using an online calculator like tax.nl. The extra tax deducted before receiving the 30% ruling will automatically be adjusted by your employer. If the financial year ends before receiving the 30% ruling, you can file a refund.
The 30% ruling is required not only to save some salary from tax but also to arrange few other things like Exchanging your driving license, getting a mortgage etc.
In order to use public transport, you can buy tickets from vending machine but you can also buy an OV chipkaart (Openbaar Vervoer). It offers:
- Easy and quick check in/out in public transport
- Online and automatic reload (optional)
- If you lose the card, you can get your balance back (if somebody did not use it before you blocked the card :P )
- It is personalised so someone can return the card if you lost it
You can buy an anonymous or a personalised card. I would suggest to buy a personalised card if you buy it for your own use. If you want to share it among family members, an anonymous card would be better.
This does not require any explanation I guess. Take an appointment with the bank, visit them with proper documents and it is done.
Documents to carry: BSN Number, Passport, RP
One of the most difficult tasks is to find a house in the Netherlands; especially when real estate market is hot in the Netherlands. I may have to write another article to discuss some tips. But for time being, you can start with funda.nl and Pararius. You can also ask a broker to help you out if it takes too long.
Please note that it is common to be asked for one month or two months rent as a deposit. It is illegal to charge a fee from the tenant by brokers who work on behalf of the landlord. But some brokers find out a way to do so. If that amount is not too big, I would generally take the house.
You will get a free SIM card if you have visited the expat centre. You can also get free SIMs from mobile stores. Lyca, Lebara and Vectron are the cheapest option with nice package to call aboard, especially to India. But they operate on left over bandwidth so you may have dropped calls or experience network connectivity issues. Besides the company that you work for, will also provide you this such as Blue Harvest.
For the first few months, it is okay to go with such an option. They are prepaid so you may not need bank account as well. Later on, you can opt good options like KPN, Telfort, Vodafone etc.
DigiD is a digital identification service. It allows you to access many government as well as financial services easily.
You can register for DigiD once you have BSN and a Dutch phone number. When you register for DigiD service, they will send activation codes on your address. You can activate your DigiD using those codes. Once activated you can login in different services with DigiD option.
If you are on a Highly Skilled Migrant visa, you can also exchange your existing driving licence with Dutch driving license. You can visit the City Hall (Gemeente in Dutch) to exchange the license. The decision to your application is made by RDW which is the organisation responsible for vehicle registrations and other activities related to the traffic.
You can only exchange your license if you have 30% ruling
It involves two forms to submit:
- RDW Form — I don’t remember exact name of the form but it is meant to check if you are physically capable of driving. It cost me around EUR 39.
- Driving License Exchange form — In this form, you have to mention your existing license details. Based on this form and your license, RDW will decide what classes of vehicle you can drive in the Netherlands. This also costs around EUR 39.
Once you fill both the forms you have to submit them in the City Hall with passport size photographs, 30% ruling approval letter and existing driving licence. It takes around a month to get the license.
Your old license will be handed to the embassy of your country. For the Indian Embassy, it is possible to get the license back via VFS. I am not sure about other countries.
Another easy task, get a bicycle and start wondering the streets. I bought a bicycle from Decathlon. It is working well, decent design and reasonable price. You can also opt for a rental bike like Swapfiets
You should get used to the rules else you can get a penalty easily e.g. if you are on bike in the dark, you must have light on front and back. Safe Cycling ;)
Another important thing to do is to register with MijnOverheid. It is a digital government. You can view your mails from government agencies as well as you can view your data in different government agencies.
You can register to receive communication digitally from a list of government agencies. You can also forward those mails automatically to your regular mailbox. Quite convenient, isn’t it ? I live in a house where our mailbox is shared between 3 apartments. Sometimes my letter goes to the bottom of the pile and I missed some important communication. MijnOverheid saved me from such hassle.
I know there may be many more things to arrange. Based on your origin, your visa type and your family situation, there can be extra arrangements. I tried to put the most important ones in the list. If I recall anything, I will try to share it in some way. If you know some important point that I missed, please let me know in the comments.
Have a fantastic start in the Netherlands.
Originally published at medium.com on February 27, 2019.
