If an employee from abroad comes to the Netherlands for work, he or she can, for a maximum period of 5 years and subject to conditions, receive 30% of the salary as compensation for extraterritorial costs. These include, but are not limited to:

• travel costs to and from the country of origin;
• the extra cost of living;
• double housing costs;
• the costs of applying for a residence permit;
• the costs of changing official documents (work permit excluded);
• the costs of a language course.
• applying the 30% facility can lead to a significant increase in the employee’s net salary and a reduction in the employer’s costs.

In order to qualify for the 30% facility, the following conditions must be met:

• the employee must have been recruited from abroad.
• the employer must be registered in the Netherlands as the withholding agent for the payroll taxes. A foreign employer can voluntarily register as the withholding agent for the Dutch payroll taxes in order to meet this condition. This condition is also met if a Dutch group company of the foreign employer has been designated as the withholding agent for the payroll taxes in the Netherlands instead of the foreign employer.
• the employee must have specific expertise that is not or hardly available on the Dutch labour market. An employee has specific expertise if the salary meets the salary standard.
• the employee has lived in the Netherlands for more than two thirds of the 24 months (16 months) at a distance of more than 150 kilometres from the Dutch border in the period of 24 months prior to being employed.