Minimum Salary Levels and Government Filing Fees to Increase

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Executive Summary

Effective January 1, 2018, minimum salary levels will increase by approximately 2 percent. Government filing fees will increase by 1.3 percent.

Minimum salary increases

Effective January 1, 2018, the new minimum salary levels will be as follows:

Employers should ensure they comply with the new salary requirements for initial and renewal applications filed on or after January 1, 2018

Additional requirements

• Benefits and allowances. Benefits and allowances may only be included if they are:
  • specified in the employment contract or assignment letter;
  • are guaranteed and fixed;
  • are not paid in kind;
  • are received on a monthly basis; and
  • holiday allowance is not considered part of the salary for immigration purposes. 
• Market salary rate. As an additional requirement, foreign nationals must also be paid at a similar rate as local employees in the same position.
• Currency. Employers are required to guarantee the salary in Euro regardless of payroll location and/or exchange rate fluctuations.
• EU Intracompany Transferees. The salary threshold applies to managers and specialists. A salary under the threshold is allowed if it meets the market salary rate, but will automatically trigger a market conformity check, where the labor authorities check whether the foreign worker’s salary is similar to that of a local employee in the same position.  This could take up to an additional five weeks
• Fulfilling criteria of orientation year permit. As this is referred to above, foreign nationals who fulfill the requirements of the orientation year permit include foreign nationals who graduated from a Dutch university in the last three years; were scientific researchers or obtained a PhD in the Netherlands; or those who graduated from a top 200 university (per the Times Higher Education Work University Rankings; QS World University Rankings; and/or Academic Ranking of World Universities).

 

Government filing fee increases

Effective January 1, 2018, government filing fees will increase as follows:

This shows a typical annual increase in fees.

This alert is for informational purposes only. If you have any questions, please contact the global immigration professional with whom you work at Fragomen or send an email to [email protected].