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Hi Gary, welcome on Expat-blog!

Concerning the dutch driver's license, this article may help you : /en/guide/europe/n … cense.html/en/guide/europe/n … eente.html

I wish you good luck and i hope you get replies very soon.
Christine

Thank you Christine...I will read the article.

I do hope I can find others would could provide me with more information.

Thank you,
Gary

Hi Gary,

I lived in US for a couple of years and now I am here in Netherlands.

Housing: Getting a house in Netherlands is no problem. Infact, I found a house in just 2 days. Renting a house is possible only through brokers.
There are good websites like . All you have to do is pick the house of your choice and call the broker. His/her number is available in the website. I would suggest you to note down a couple of houses and look at all of them. Once you decide on the house you may have to pay the broker 1 month rent as commission. I guess there is no way out that there is no brokers commission.But you can definitely bargain their fees. The house owner asks one month deposit and first months rent as initial payment.Also regarding the cost of the apartment Pararius will give you a very good idea.

License: If you are coming to Netherlands as a knowledge immigrant then you can exchange your US drivers license for dutch. Thats how I did. It just took 2 weeks. Otherwise, I guess you will have to take the driving test.

Especially if you are living in big cities like Rotterdam, Amsterdam, Den Hague then I would suggest car is not needed. Mainly because the road tax is high. Although the car insurance is low when compared to US. As Netherlands has excellent transportation.

Hope I have answered some of your questions..

Thank you Aarthi for the information. However, if you do not mind could you go a little more in-depth about what is a "knowledge worker"? And, if you are a business person...? what kind of information will be requested from me for entry? For instance, tax information, income proof, and the like? And, is the immigration process for residency a long drawn out process?

Please give me an example of the cost to the so-called "road tax" for say a car???

Thank you,
Gary

Regarding the "knowledge worker", the company that will hire you should put you under the category of "Highly Skilled Immigrant" and then you will get 30% tax-free on your salary. Once you have it, you can apply to exchange your driving license with a Dutch one.

I hope I could give you the info needed.

Hi Gary,

The Work permit is not a draw as it is in US. You have something called as MVV. You should submit to the dutch embassy the following things to get the MVV or the residence permit:

1) Employment contract
2) Notarized birth certificate
3) If married, a legalized marriage certificate
4) Passport photos
5) Passport

They provide a Residence permit having the above as the criteria. Infact, I submitted the to the dutch embassy near Rockefeller centre, NY last June.
The entire process took 3-4 weeks.And once the MVV was approved came to Netherlands and collected my residence permit from the town hall.Just to let you know I am not a business person. So, the above process is for normal employments.

And regarding the knowledge immigrant Maher.Haddad is absolutely right.

Road tax: Countries like Netherlands do not encourage people owing cars.
Also they have excellent transportation systems. So, inorder to make the public use the public transportation the road taxes are high. Road tax per car/per month is 50 Euros. However, smart cars have less road tax or no road tax.And the car insurance with basic coverage is just 33 euros.

I would suggest owning a scooter is a good option. We have a lot of Peugeot scooters in cheap ranges say from 1200-4000 euros.The road tax for the scooters per year is approx 50 euros for some and some have no tax. Scooter insurance(inclusive of theft) is 9 euros per month.


Hope this helps!

Thank you all very much for the good information. I am looking forward to the time when I will be able to make my arrangement to the Netherlands. The scooter idea is a good one! Now...may if someone could direct me to a possible website that could help me understand coming to the Netherlands as a self-employed business owner...how would someone who is self-employed be regarded...? Would I be considered a knowledge immigrant?

Thanks...
Gary