Netherlands, or round trip

Good afternoon dear Khabrovites!

Continuing the trend line towards emigration, I would like to touch on my personal experience, which may be useful to others. I will try to divide the post into two parts, the first of which will be devoted to practical information, and the second to my own feelings.

Part one. There

Actually, the process of registration in my case was quite simple (due to the absence of wives or children):

1. We communicate with the recruiter (henceforth, all communication in English)
2. Communicating with the employer
3. We pass online testing (with a webcam, some tests + wrote code in the editor)
4. Communicating with employer management
5. The employer applies for a visa in IND
6. I am waiting for notification that the documents from the IND have been transferred to the embassy in Moscow
7. I sign up at the embassy by phone (this is important, the general queue is not there, but I called at least a couple of hours). I come, I give my passport, I get an entry visa on the same day.
8. I am moving

In fact, I did not apostille anything from the documents, since my apostille and translation of the birth certificate were still not recognized, since a Dutch office is required for translation. I translated the diploma into English with my own hands (including the Ph.D. diploma). I also issued a certificate of no criminal record, but it turned out that no one needed it.

At the first stage, I got into 2 suitcases + a computer, so I flew in the usual economy with a surcharge for 2 extra. places. For my initial listing, I booked some cheap Airbnb studio that actually looked more like a garage (sad emoji).

For expenses that are coming for the first time:

1. Air ticket. (With additional luggage € 250) This is the simplest, although tickets are very expensive on holidays
2. Booking apartments. Minimum 3 weeks, price if you search in advance, 35 euros per day, total 750 euros
3. Two-month apartment rental price. Preferably in cash. It all depends on the specific place where you want to live. The price can start from 1100, in areas remote from big cities, up to 1700 in Amsterdam. On average, you need to count on 1350 Euros for an apartment with furniture and 200-250 Euros less without it. Total 2700 euros.
4. Food. Here, too, it all depends on preferences, but I personally lived at the rate of 300 euros per month
5. Transport. I recommend taking accommodation near work (if it is not in Amster) and buying a bike right away. You can find a simple new bike for 250 euros. I don’t really see the point in expensive, since the Netherlands is a flat country, 21st gear is clearly not needed. If you are going to work in Amster, then I still advise you to live outside the city and take a travel card. Why - I will explain in the second part. The ticket will cost about 150 euros per month.

In general, in the first month you should meet the 5000 euros with a margin. You should count on a month, because. salary is usually paid once a month.

Algorithm of actions for the first month after moving:

1. Go to T-Mobile and buy a prepaid SIM. Why prepaid? Because without a bank account you will not be given a contract. Why T-Mobile? Because on it you can definitely switch to a contract with the preservation of the number.
2. Ask for the contacts of the broker. The first thing you should do is start looking for housing. Without a permanent address, you won't get a BSN (tax number) and without it, you won't get a bank account. Almost nothing can be issued without a bank account, including the same housing (yes, we have entered a closed cycle here)
3. According to the cost of housing, you can focus on www.funda.nl. Calling through the site is pretty useless. Ads first spin for a couple of weeks at brokers, and only then they get to the site. It is likely that those apartments simply do not exist anymore. Moreover, they personally called me back only 3 times out of 10. In other cases, there was not even an answer. Therefore, it is important to find an active local broker. In general, housing can be found both in a week and in three. But in three weeks, if you don’t sit on the couch, you should find it (I don’t know about Amster, it can be more difficult there).
4. For housing you need to pay a deposit for 2 months (usually). Sometimes it takes a month, but it's rare. Payment is usually requested by bank transfer. This is precisely the main problem, because. you don't have an account. You can open a card at banks like Revolut or Bunq (they make it possible to open an account and provide BSN later), but they do not have ATMs, money can only be transferred via SWIFT. I agreed that I paid the deposit through the company where I worked, stupidly brought them in cash, they did the wiring. Other people were somehow registered at the address of the enterprise, they received BSN there and then were re-registered at the place of the apartment.
5. As soon as you arrive, you need to register with the IND to get your ID. It will be instead of a passport. Everything is simple here, sign up, arrive on the specified day and just get it. From the moment you receive your passport. you don't need a passport.
6. Within 4 months, you will also need to undergo an x-ray for TB. This is required, but the algorithm is simple. Sign up at the nearest state. center (I had it at the Utrecht city hall at the station), we come, we pay 40 euros, we leave. They will attach the results themselves, if they find something, they will contact you.
7. Upon arrival, you also need insurance. It is necessary. You have 4 months to issue it, but there is no point in delaying it, since when you apply, you will still be charged for the entire period from the moment of entry. I made it here www.zilverenkruis.nl The price is more or less the same, the minimum cost is regulated by the state.
8. From the second month, it is advisable for you to start issuing a 30% ruling. (More on that later). This process may take a couple of months, during which you will pay taxes in full. Then, with the receipt of the ruling, they will be returned to you, but there is not enough money at the time of the move, so this is in your interests.
9. As soon as you receive an apartment, immediately arrange the Internet. Internet connection is sometimes 3 weeks. Look at home internet from your mobile operator, sometimes there are good discounts on phone + internet + TV / series packages
10. The second thing is to arrange a communal apartment. This is electricity and gas (well, water, but these are pennies). In the Netherlands, you can connect any service provider to any house, so look at the tariffs. It works in this way - you calculate the payment, at the end of the period you are recalculated, returned if more or paid extra if you owe.

Well, now that we have dealt with the above, we can calculate the finances.

The salary of a senior, which you can count on if your level is decent, is from 70 to 90 thousand euros per year, with 70 from Moscow more likely than 90. After a year of work, if I stayed, I could go to 90, since it is much easier to search and go to interviews from there.
Accordingly, your amount "in hand", before ruling, from a salary of 70k per year will be 3722 (Count here thetax.nl ) After - 4594. A salary of 90k will give 4400 without ruling. Below is a table of income and mandatory expenses, as I had approximately for one person in a small apartment (consider a smaller amount, since after 5 years taxes will be taken in full anyway):

The travel card is not indicated in the costs, since by law, travel from home to work is covered by the employer. However, in practice this only covers the railway pass from station to station. If you want to drive everywhere and on everything, then the price will already be about 300 euros per month.
It is also worth noting that trains are very expensive. A trip from Amsterdam to The Hague will cost 24 euros by train, and a tram in The Hague for the day will be 9 euros (if you want to go to the beach).

It is more or less clear with general expenses, now I will write some prices for products. I note right away that I am writing my experience based on Jumbo and I did not search for discounts or promotions.

Part two. Back

In this part, I would like to touch on my own impressions and feelings. Since each person has different ideals and goals, I do not pretend to be true, but maybe my vision will come in handy.

I would like to start with the IT climate. The IT industry in the Netherlands is growing, thanks in part to Brexit, as British companies are migrating to the nearest Europe. However, there are vanishingly few IT specialists in Holland, so the backbone of the IT class is emigrants. Moreover, if you have people from the CIS in your team, then you are fabulously lucky, because they definitely know how to do at least something. We had Turks in the team, and I assure you, it is completely normal for them to throw a pull request for code that has not been tested at all. As far as I understood from conversations in chats, this situation is observed in a bunch of places, including Booking, although the level there is higher for sure. So if you want to level up, and you are not a team leader, then 100% growth will not work there. Run fools.

Money. Despite the fact that you are a white bone and earn 2 times more with ruling than an ordinary Dutchman, it is unlikely that you will be able to improve your standard of living much. Roughly speaking, in Moscow, with my housing, after all the expenses, I had about the same amount as in the Netherlands. Food, with the exception of some items such as cheese, is significantly more expensive. Travel is very expensive. If you go somewhere every week on a weekend, then you can safely throw 150 euros a month on it. Well, or immediately take a full travel card. Without ruling, most likely you will receive less from Russia, and significantly less from Belarus/Ukraine.

Taxes. Not everyone knows the peculiarities of the tax system in the Netherlands. There are taxes on everything. You will pay for garbage, for sewerage, for a car (easily 100 euros per month), for real estate. And most importantly, the cherry on the cake, for the money in your account! If you deposit more than 50 euros in the bank, you will pay approximately 4% every year on the excess amount. This rule applies to full residents, so it will only affect you after 5 years. However, if you want citizenship, you must bear this in mind. That is why, no one keeps money, but invest it in stocks / buy big houses (secondary property is taxed higher).

Khabravchanin! If you think that you can live quietly on a pension in civilized Europe, then you are wrong here too. Not only is the pension a giant 1000 euros, but if you live with your wife, you will receive 1600 for two. If you save money additionally, you will still pay taxes on them, only at the time of receiving a pension. That is why everyone retires to Spain. But this is not all. The pension goes at 2% for each year in the Netherlands. So if you left at 30 and retired at 67, you only get 740 euros. How to live on 740 euros is a separate question.

Delivery deserves special warm words. In Holland, retail is extremely scarce. Most items are ordered online. Well, delivery delivers when it is convenient for her to where it is convenient for her. Even if you paid more for delivery after 18.00, you ran like a fool from work only to find a letter on your email that no one was at home at 18.30 and an order at the pickup point. It was especially pleasant for me to drag a cabinet for furniture from Jumbo, one and a half kilometers away from me. Another time they brought me a load to work at 8.50, although the delivery was supposed to be from 11 to 13. I would even say so. Of the 20 deliveries on time and to the place, only 5 were delivered. Moreover, PostNL works best. And yes, if you want to leave claims to DHL NL, then the call is paid, and they do not answer emails.

Food. Only one word can be said here. Not edible. Even fresh fish in Folendam they manage to dry up to chips. Bread, unlike in Germany, even from bakeries, is not tasty. Sausage can only be taken Spanish or Italian (well, or craft). Beer is only Belgian. The only exception is cheese (well, vegetables, but, thank God, they are not cooked).

Weather. Despite the fact that the weather was abnormally warm all last year, and there was no snow at all, the weather, in my opinion, is worse than in Moscow. Darker, windier, colder in summer. In St. Petersburg, perhaps similar.

People. If you think that the Dutch are hardworking, then I will disappoint you. This is wrong. Most Dutch people won't go out of their way to make more money. The broker actually does not work on Fridays (well, except from 10 am to 14 pm). It is quite normal for women to work 4 days (permitted by law). Dutch managers quite successfully procrastinate in the office. In addition, we must not forget that in Holland a lot of people work for themselves. So it's easy to scam people for money. In my case, when I checked out, I was charged 500 euros without receipts for the removal of boxes from the basement (Which I did not throw out just because there were no cardboard dumps within a kilometer radius). Do you want to go to court?

Relationship. The Dutch speak English well, so there are no problems in everyday life. There is a problem with the Dutch language, it is very hard to hear, and the Dutch, seeing a stupor, immediately switch to English. With personal relationships, everything is quite complicated. Dutch women are tall, light and beautiful by nature, however, in 90% of cases they do not take care of themselves. Excess weight of 20 kg is not a problem, put on the first thing that your hand felt too. They usually didn't try to read books either. So there are no technical problems to talk about, but there is absolutely nothing to talk about. There are probably other girls, but in Moscow there are much more chances to find a smart girl.

There are, however, pluses. These include mortgages at 2%. So potentially you can rent an apartment for 20 years and pay about the same as rent. Another thing is that the buying market is an auction, and it is difficult to say the exact price here. You can lose the lot by underpaying 2000 euros. Another plus is the excellent location. You can fly all over Europe in 2 hours, and some places like Paris or England can be reached by train in 3 hours (Talis and Eurostar). It is also worth noting the very good roads and bike paths.

Thoughts

Below I would like to debunk some misconceptions about life "in Europe".

1. "I will earn more." Moving to Holland, an IT specialist will definitely not improve the standard of living. Without a wife and children, it will come out about the same, it will be significantly poorer with them
2. "The quality of life will increase." If you do not live in Amsterdam, then it will not grow much. The streets are clean, the paths are neat, the transport is good. However, you pay a lot of money for this in the form of taxes and fares.
3. "I know where my taxes go." Here it is generally interesting. You pay Social Security Tax (in my case it is 9500 euros per year), and you pay 1500 euros per year of insurance separately. Yes, the transport is good, but the price matches. The roads are good, but they pay separately for 1000-1500 euros per year. It is not clear what my Payroll Tax 17000 euros per year goes to. Apparently, on the same officials. Since no more than 4000 go into retirement per year.
4. "Services are running." No, you are more likely to receive a service or feedback from us. There they simply will not answer your mail or send you a pay phone (and they will not answer there). The installer can take the money for the call and do nothing. And yes, you can wipe yourself with claims, go to court. It may work, but lawyers are also expensive.
5. "Education is better." The PhD salary at the university is 2700 euros. They will not pay more - a collective agreement. Will someone from knowledgeable engineers or IT go to work for 2700 euros? This is where "design" comes into play.

Conclusions

It seems to me that everyone can draw conclusions for himself.

For my part, I can say that if you are a married introvert without children and real estate, and your significant other works in IT, then I recommend moving. Mortgages are cheap, the overall quality of life is higher. Prepare your own food.

If you're single, I don't recommend it. It is unlikely that you will find a common language with the Dutch, and hanging out with expats is such a thing, it’s easier at home, there is more choice.

If you are single, then maybe. However, it should be borne in mind that the Dutch themselves are normal about +20 kg for their girls and dumb clothes. So it will not work to win them over with your make-up and chiseled figure.

If you are a family with children, then also do not recommend. Life is very expensive, in kindergartens you will hang out with Filipino children, and what will happen to education in another 20 years is another question.

As for me, I returned a year later to the position of an architect, and I do not regret it. And so far I can fly to Europe on vacation. Bye. Haha.

Source: habr.com