General Advice/Information

Hi and welcome to the Forum.

First off, congratulations on your degree.  To try and answer your questions:

1.  Job.  Depends, my advice is to contact some of the placement agencies (uitzendbureaus) in Holland and get some advice from those people.  To be honest, as soon as they realise you don't speak Dutch, many will lose interest quickly.  Target the multi-nationals where your lack of language skills won't matter so much.

2.  Accommodation.  When my daughter did what you're contemplating 2 years ago, she used AirBnB for 2 weeks, in that time she found a job and a house.  The significant difference between you both is she speaks/writes Dutch fluently.

3.  BSN etc.  The BSN (registration) is part of life in Holland, everyone has to do it and the sooner you do it, the easier it is.  You need it to pay your taxes (so you can't get paid without it), open a bank account, register at the doctors, register a car etc.  Officially you should register within 7-days of arrival, but my experience is that I wouldn't worry too much about being a couple of days late.  Some landlords will not permit tenants to register from their address, so ask before you commit to anything.

4.  Costs.  Just asked my daughter, she reckons €3,000 will last you 2/3  months.  The Numbeo website offers information on specific costs; this link will take you there.

Hope this helps.

Cynic
Expat Team

Hi,

In regards to the above, what if you spend a couple of weeks without a permanent address? Will this mean I can't get a BSN? If it took me a few weeks, would I have to pay a penalty once I tried to apply, or would they tell me it isn't possible at all?

Also is it possible to register at a friend's address just for administrative purposes? For example I've found the following form which seems to suggest that is the case: https://gemeente.groningen.nl/sites/def … ning_0.pdf

Or am I misunderstanding what this form allows new immigrants to do?

Many thanks
Blake

Cynic wrote:

Hi and welcome to the Forum.

First off, congratulations on your degree.  To try and answer your questions:

1.  Job.  Depends, my advice is to contact some of the placement agencies (uitzendbureaus) in Holland and get some advice from those people.  To be honest, as soon as they realise you don't speak Dutch, many will lose interest quickly.  Target the multi-nationals where your lack of language skills won't matter so much.

2.  Accommodation.  When my daughter did what you're contemplating 2 years ago, she used AirBnB for 2 weeks, in that time she found a job and a house.  The significant difference between you both is she speaks/writes Dutch fluently.

3.  BSN etc.  The BSN (registration) is part of life in Holland, everyone has to do it and the sooner you do it, the easier it is.  You need it to pay your taxes (so you can't get paid without it), open a bank account, register at the doctors, register a car etc.  Officially you should register within 7-days of arrival, but my experience is that I wouldn't worry too much about being a couple of days late.  Some landlords will not permit tenants to register from their address, so ask before you commit to anything.

4.  Costs.  Just asked my daughter, she reckons €3,000 will last you 2/3  months.  The Numbeo website offers information on specific costs; this link will take you there.

Hope this helps.

Cynic
Expat Team

Hi - sorry just quoting you in the hopes that alerts you to my post in this thread, as you may be able to answer my above query re registration.

Sorry if you've got multiple notifications from this!

Hi and welcome back.

Don't worry about the posts, I get notified of all posts to the Forums I look after.

You can register from a temporary address; we've had people report that they registered from a hotel room.  What the rules say is that you "should" register within 5 days; we've not heard of anybody getting fined or worse for not doing this.

The thing you do need to watch out for is staying somewhere, where the landlord won't permit you to register; some do that to hide it from the tax-man.

I can't think of any reason why you should not be allowed to register from a friends address.

Hope this helps.

Cynic
Expat Team

Cynic wrote:

Hi and welcome back.

Don't worry about the posts, I get notified of all posts to the Forums I look after.

You can register from a temporary address; we've had people report that they registered from a hotel room.  What the rules say is that you "should" register within 5 days; we've not heard of anybody getting fined or worse for not doing this.

The thing you do need to watch out for is staying somewhere, where the landlord won't permit you to register; some do that to hide it from the tax-man.

I can't think of any reason why you should not be allowed to register from a friends address.

Hope this helps.

Cynic
Expat Team

Hi,

Thanks, I really appreciate the reply.

So I should be able to get my BSN by using a friend's address - will I have issues with things like bank accounts or getting a tax number or anything else until I have a permanent address, or once I have a BSN will I basically be ok?

Cheers
Blake

Hi,

Our experience was that once we had a BSN, opening a bank account was relatively simple, the bank didn't care where we lived.  You just need to consider that all correspondence from the bank and things like bank cards will be sent there, so as long as you trust your friend (or maybe her dog !!!), shouldn't be a problem.

Hope this helps.