Do you want to hire a highly educated student, or a just a graduated person? The Dutch government encourages this. That is why they have introduced a so-called ‘Orientation year for highly educated persons’ or ‘Search year’. This policy may be applicable to the highly skilled person that you would like to hire on the basis of their education.
Another advantage may be that during the search year of the employee you as employer are not obliged to have the recognized IND sponsorship.
A person is eligible for the orientation year if he or she in the past 3 years:
To meet the application requirement for the orientation year there is a need for a diploma and valid ID. At the Dutch Immigration Service (IND) they can then fill in the application “orientation year highly educated persons” themselves. The application costs can be found here.
If they do not have a diploma yet, a statement that they have met the conditions of this will suffice.
When they register for the orientation year from abroad, they must start the Entry and Residence Procedure (TEV procedure) at a Dutch embassy or consulate in their country. There they will receive a residence permit (MVV), which in Dutch, stands for Machtiging tot Voorlopig Verblijf.
But the conclusion in this is that they need to apply themselves.
If the person with the orientation year status wants to stay in the Netherlands with their family and they already have a residence permit, nothing needs to be done. If the family members do not have a residence permit, they must submit the documents to the IND that meet the conditions or must have sufficient financial resources to support themselves for the duration of one year to qualify for family reunification. The mandatory financial requirement that applies to this can be found on the IND website.
After the search year they can submit a new application to stay in the Netherlands. Because every case is different, it is important to know what the possibilities are. TOSS would be happy to help you with this.
It is important to know that if you would like to continue with this employee you need to become an IND sponsor or you could use TOSS In Holland for this. We would take over the employee on our payroll, which we are allowed to do since we have the IND sponsorship. If we arrange this before the orientation years ends, you can avoid needing to pay the required IND salary for someone under or above 30 years of age. This saves you a lot of money.
As The One Stop Shop, TOSS offers a wide range of services for expats and/or their employers in the field of living and working in the Netherlands with the aim of making every related process as smooth and effective as possible.
We have over 20 years of experience and we have carefully built up an extensive global network of specialists to serve you. All our team members are specialized and educated with all needed payroll certificates and our services meet the (inter)national standards.
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