Guide
The highly skilled migrant route: one salary test, and everything attached to it
By Covered Abroad Research Desk · Last verified July 2026
The rule in writing
“Anyone insured by operation of law under the Wlz — in practice residents of the Netherlands, and non-residents taxed on employment performed there — must take out a Dutch zorgverzekering. Residence or Dutch-taxed work is the trigger, not nationality and not the residence permit. A non-working spouse who becomes resident is caught with no Dutch income at all.”
Official source: Zorgverzekeringswet Article 2(1), read with Wlz Article 2.1.1 — Last verified:
The rule in writing
“The well-known "four months" is a retroactivity window, not a grace period. The obligation bites the day it arises; a policy taken out within four months back-dates to that day, so no gap exists and the intervening premiums are still owed.”
Official source: Zorgverzekeringswet Article 5(5) — Last verified:
The rule in writing
“Dutch insurers must accept every insurance-liable applicant for the basic policy, at the same premium, regardless of age or health. Any claim that a private plan offers easier acceptance than the Dutch basic package is false.”
Official source: Zorgverzekeringswet Article 3 (acceptatieplicht) — Last verified:
How the route works
The kennismigrant permit is the Netherlands' main employment route, and its design is unusually clean: there is no labour-market test, no points assessment and no shortage-occupation list. The substantive test is the salary, and the procedural requirement is that your employer is an IND-recognised sponsor — the employer applies for the MVV entry visa and the residence permit together, and pays the €423 fee by direct debit.
The permit is issued for the length of your contract to a maximum of five years, is extendable, and permanent residence becomes possible after five years. IND's decision period is 90 days, and shorter in some situations.
Note what is not on the list: health insurance is not stated as an application condition on the IND page as we read it. The insurance duty arrives after — see the final section — which is a different design from most countries on this site, where the policy is part of the visa file itself.
Source: IND, highly skilled migrant, read 20 August 2026.
The 2026 salary criteria — and why the date on them matters
The figures valid from 1 July 2026 to 31 December 2026:
| Category | Gross per month |
|---|---|
| Highly skilled migrant, aged 30 and over | €5,942.00 |
| Highly skilled migrant, under 30 | €4,357.00 |
| Reduced criterion (recent graduates, within 3 years) | €3,122.00 |
| EU Blue Card, standard | €5,942.00 |
| EU Blue Card, reduced criterion | €4,754.00 |
The date range is not decoration. IND resets these figures every 1 January and every 1 July, so a number quoted from a page more than six months old is simply wrong, not merely stale. If you are negotiating an offer that starts next year, the criterion it will be tested against does not exist yet.
The figures are gross monthly amounts excluding the 8% holiday allowance, and the age boundary is applied at the moment the application is decided — the under-30 band is not grandfathered when you turn 30 mid-permit.
Source: IND, highly skilled migrant — income requirements valid 1 July to 31 December 2026, read 20 August 2026.
60-second check
Not sure the policy you have meets your destination's written rule? Run it through the policy check now, before you build the rest of the file around it.
Check my policyLosing your job does not end your residence — immediately
The rule most kennismigranten never read until they need it: lose your job and you have up to three months to find a new one with a recognised sponsor, extending to six months where you held the permit for two years or more and the job loss occurred on or after 22 May 2026.
During that window your residence continues, but the clock is unforgiving in one specific way: the new employer must also be a recognised sponsor, and the new role must still clear the salary criterion in force when the change is processed. A generous offer at the old criterion can fail the new one after a January or July reset.
The Blue Card runs its own version of this — the card remains valid up to three months after the contract ends — and requires a contract of at least six months, plus a qualifying degree assessed by Nuffic or five years of relevant experience, three for IT professionals.
Source: IND, highly skilled migrant, read 20 August 2026.
Source: IND, European Blue Card, read 20 August 2026.
The insurance duty that attaches on day one of work
From the first day your Dutch employment is taxed here, you are insured by operation of law under the Wlz, and you must hold a Dutch basic policy — bought from a Dutch insurer, with the compulsory €385 excess. An international plan does not discharge the duty, and your employer's relocation package cannot contract around it.
Two facts make this painless if you act early. Dutch insurers are under acceptatieplicht — they must accept every applicant for the basic policy at the same premium, regardless of age or health, so there is nothing to shop for on acceptance. And a policy bought within four months back-dates to the day the duty arose, with premiums owed for the back months; that window is retroactivity, not grace, and CAK enforcement behind it runs to a €529.74 fine in 2026.
Where private cover fits a kennismigrant honestly: the pre-arrival and IND-decision period, any A1-posted stretch under a home-country certificate, and top-up beside the basic policy for what the package excludes. Not instead of it.
Source: Rijksoverheid, zorgverzekering, read 20 August 2026.
Source: CAK, received a letter — uninsured, read 20 August 2026.