FAQ

EOR & Payrolling Basics

What is an Employer of Record (EOR)?

An Employer of Record (EOR) is a company that legally employs staff on behalf of another business. The EOR handles the formal employment relationship — payroll, tax withholding, social security contributions, and compliance with local labour law — while the client company manages the employee’s day-to-day work.

For international companies, an EOR makes it possible to hire staff in the Netherlands without setting up a Dutch legal entity. This is especially useful when hiring one or a handful of employees, or when testing the Dutch market before committing to a full local subsidiary.

How does payrolling work in the Netherlands?

Payrolling in the Netherlands means that a payroll company becomes the formal, legal employer of your staff, while the day-to-day management and instructions still come from your organisation. The payroll company takes care of the employment contract, salary administration, payroll tax, social security contributions, and pension arrangements and ensures everything is done in line with Dutch labour law and the applicable collective agreement.

For companies without a Dutch payroll infrastructure, this removes the administrative and legal burden of employing staff directly, while the employee’s daily work remains under your direction.

What’s the difference between EOR and payrolling?

The terms are closely related and often used interchangeably, but there’s a nuance worth knowing:

Payrolling typically refers to situations where the client company originally recruited the employee, and the payroll company only takes over the formal employment and salary administration.
Employer of Record (EOR) is a broader term, often used when a foreign company has no Dutch entity at all, and the EOR provider handles not just payroll, but also the full employment relationship, including acting as the IND-recognised sponsor for work permits where relevant.

In practice, at Expat-Links we combine both: we act as your EOR and payroll provider, so you get one point of contact for the entire employment relationship.

Do I need a sponsor license to hire a knowledge migrant?

To sponsor a knowledge migrant (kennismigrant) under the Dutch IND scheme, a company normally needs to hold an official IND sponsor license. Applying for and maintaining this license involves financial requirements, reporting obligations, and ongoing compliance checks.

If your company doesn’t hold a sponsor license — or doesn’t want the administrative responsibility (or cost) that comes with one — you can use a recognised sponsor like Expat-Links instead. We already hold IND sponsor status, so we can employ the knowledge migrant on your behalf and take care of the associated obligations, without you needing to apply for your own license.

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IND & Immigration

What is the knowledge migrant (kennismigrant) scheme?

The knowledge migrant scheme (kennismigrantenregeling) is a Dutch immigration route that allows companies to hire skilled non-EU professionals more quickly and with less red tape than the standard work permit process, provided the employee meets a minimum salary threshold set annually by the IND.

The scheme is designed to help Dutch employers attract international talent, and it’s the route most commonly used by companies hiring non-EU specialists, engineers, and other skilled staff.

What’s the difference between the knowledge migrant route and the EU Blue Card?

Both routes allow non-EU professionals to work legally in the Netherlands, but they differ in a few important ways:

Salary threshold: The knowledge migrant route has a Dutch-specific minimum salary, which is generally lower than the EU Blue Card threshold.
Educational requirements: The EU Blue Card requires a recognised higher education qualification (or equivalent professional experience in some cases); the knowledge migrant route does not have a formal education requirement, only the salary criterion.
EU mobility: The EU Blue Card offers somewhat easier mobility between EU member states for later moves, which can matter for internationally mobile employees.

Which route fits best depends on the employee’s qualifications, salary, and your company’s plans.

What are the IND minimum salary requirements for knowledge migrants?

To sponsor a knowledge migrant, the IND requires the employee’s salary to meet a fixed gross monthly threshold. These thresholds are indexed every year and depend on the employee’s age and situation. For 2026, the categories are:

Kennismigrant, age 30 and older: €5,942 gross per month
Kennismigrant, under age 30: €4,357 gross per month
Zoekjaar (orientation year) graduates: €3,122 gross per month, available for up to three years after graduating from a recognised university, for graduates applying under the reduced “highly educated person” rate

These are fixed monthly base salary amounts and exclude the 8% holiday allowance, bonuses, and variable pay. Because the IND updates them every January, we always check the current thresholds before advising on a specific hire, rather than relying on the previous year’s figures.

What’s the difference between kennismigrant <30, kennismigrant ≥30, and zoekjaarstudent?

These are the three main salary-based categories the IND uses to assess knowledge migrant applications:

Kennismigrant ≥30: The standard category for skilled professionals aged 30 and over at the time the application is submitted. This carries the highest salary threshold of the three.
Kennismigrant <30: The same route, but for employees under 30 at the time of application. The threshold is lower, reflecting typical early-career salaries, but the permit carries the same rights and status as the ≥30 category.
Zoekjaarstudent (orientation year): A reduced-threshold category for recent graduates of a Dutch university, or of a top-ranked international university, applying within three years of graduation. It’s designed to help talented graduates transition into skilled employment in the Netherlands without needing to immediately meet the standard kennismigrant salary level.

Which category applies depends on the employee’s age and graduation date at the time the application is submitted, not at the time they start work — so timing can matter for edge cases close to a birthday or graduation deadline.

What is IND record-keeping and why does it matter?

Companies that sponsor knowledge migrants are legally required to keep specific records on file for each sponsored employee — including copies of identity documents, proof of qualifications, and employment details — and to keep this documentation up to date for as long as the sponsorship lasts, and for a period afterward.

The IND can request access to these records at any time, and gaps or errors can put a sponsor’s recognised status at risk. As your recognised sponsor, Expat-Links maintains this record-keeping on your behalf, so you don’t carry that compliance burden directly.

What is digital stamping and how does it affect my employees?

Digital stamping refers to the IND’s move toward digital verification of residence documents and permits, replacing older physical stamps or stickers in passports. In practice, this changes how residence status is checked and confirmed, both by authorities and by employers.

As your sponsor, we track these procedural changes so that your employees’ documentation stays valid and compliant, without you needing to follow every update from the IND yourself.

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The 30% Ruling

What is the 30% ruling?

The 30% ruling is a Dutch tax facility for employees recruited from abroad who bring specific expertise that is scarce in the Dutch labour market. It allows the employer to pay up to 30% of the employee’s salary as a tax-free allowance, intended to cover the extra costs of working outside their home country (the “extraterritorial costs”).

This makes the net salary meaningfully higher for the employee without increasing gross cost to the employer, which is one reason it’s such a significant factor in attracting international talent to the Netherlands.

Who qualifies for the 30% ruling?

To qualify, an employee generally needs to:

Be recruited from outside the Netherlands (or have lived far enough from the Dutch border prior to employment)
Have specific expertise that is scarce in the Dutch labour market, which the Belastingdienst assesses partly through a minimum salary threshold
Have not lived within a certain distance of the Dutch border for a set period before starting Dutch employment

There are also specific rules for employees under 30 with a Master’s degree, who benefit from a lower salary threshold. Since the exact thresholds are updated periodically, we always check current figures before advising on a specific case.

Has the 30% ruling changed recently?

Yes — the 30% ruling has been the subject of several legislative changes in recent years, including adjustments to its duration and the percentage applied. Because these rules are updated periodically, we recommend checking with us directly for the current terms applicable to your situation, rather than relying on older sources.

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Trust & Compliance

What is the SNA-keurmerk and why does it matter?

The SNA-keurmerk (based on the NEN 4400-1 standard) is the recognised quality mark for payroll and staffing companies in the Netherlands. Companies holding this certification are independently audited twice a year on their payroll tax compliance, correct payment of wages, and proper identification of employees.

For your company, working with an SNA-certified provider like Expat-Links means protection against chain liability: if a payroll provider fails to pay the correct payroll tax, the client company can normally be held liable by the Dutch tax authorities. SNA certification — combined with proper use of a G-account — is the industry-standard way to avoid that risk.

Expat-Links is SNA-certified and independently audited yearly.

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Practical & Commercial

How much does using an EOR cost compared to setting up my own entity?

Setting up a Dutch legal entity involves notary costs, ongoing accounting and payroll administration, corporate tax filing, and the time investment of managing local compliance — costs that make sense once you have a sizeable Dutch team, but often outweigh the benefit for smaller hires.

Working with an EOR like Expat-Links typically involves a commission per employee, with no entity setup costs and no ongoing corporate administration. For companies hiring one to a handful of employees in the Netherlands, this is usually significantly more cost-effective, and lets you start employing staff within days or weeks rather than the months it can take to establish and register a new entity.

How long does it take to onboard an employee through Expat-Links?

Timelines depend on the specifics of the hire, but working with an established EOR is generally much faster than the entity-setup route. Once we have the necessary employee and role information, we can typically get a standard EOR employment relationship up and running within days. Knowledge migrant sponsorship cases depend on the IND’s processing times, though using a recognised sponsor like Expat-Links is generally faster than applying for your own sponsor license first.