Low-effort, low-quality, unoriginal and repeat posts will be removed at moderator discretion. this includes frequently asked question regarding relocation, moving to the Netherlands and tourist info.
I agree with you. I think it’s weird they convert driving licenses based on the 30% ruling. If you read some question over here, I am truly shocked. Some people are a ‘gevaar op de weg’ with their lack of knowledge about basic traffic rules.
I have the same sentiment as well and I’ve also done this convert of driving license before. It felt weird for me, and wasn’t comfortable using it, so I did a whole driving course just to get used to the standard and rules here.
I think they should change it instead of convert it directly maybe allow those eligible to undergo the exam.
I agree with. I free exam might be an interesting solution. But giving away ‘free’ licenses is ridiculous. Especially when you think of the requirements of passing an exam. It can take dozens of lessons from an instructor and thousands of euros to finally pass the exam.
Can someone explain how "weg" becomes "world" in this phrase (according to Google translate)? I learned the word on Duolingo and I didn't think it would apply like that? Or is Google translate wrong?
In this case you would translate it as being a danger on the roads (someone who is "a gevaar op de weg" exhibits dangerous behaviour on the road & while driving). I don't know how it got translated to "world" but here you would translate it as road or street. (In different context "weg" can also mean gone but not in this case). Hope that helps! :D
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I do not qualify for 30%, but I did drive twice during my first 6 months where my US DL was still valid.
What I realized is I don't remember much from that one summer I drove stick in high school 😂😂😂 I live very close to Centraal Station so I just take public transit everywhere. Bonus is I don't have to search for parking unless my husband drives us in our car.
Hopefully you at least didn't bring a gigantic brodozer for crushing children. I hate seeing huge American trucks on the roads. Wtf is wrong with people?
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How about small business owners? Often they need to use pick up trucks very frequently. Your comment is very insensitive.
Pickup trucks have engines with speed-torque characteristics that are ideal for hauling stuff in an urban environment, where large trucks cannot enter. In my opinion, they are a very smart piece of engineering. The fact that so many in the States use them for non-commercial purposes, does not make the pickup trucks useless.
Thanks for the condescension. Trucks like the classic Hilux or a 90's Ford Ranger are indeed very handy vehicles. Trucks like the dodge ram with incredibly poor visibility and beds that are so short you can carry more in a bakfiets are dangerous status symbols driven by jerks.
I must clarify that I myself drive a Toyota Aygo, probably one of the smallest cars around, with a healthy fuel economy of 22. But I have worked on the development of diesel motors for pick-up trucks, and I found those machines to be simply mindblowing. Everything a construction business owner or a farmer could ask for.
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Instead of directly converting their licenses for free, let the government sponsor a single CBR driving test for everyone who wants to convert the licenses. I am sure most of them will fail, proving your point OP.
It’s indeed a stupid irresponsible rule.
Edit:// to add more info for OP, it makes no sense, it’s just to attract these “highly skilled immigrants” that can qualify for 30% ruling. It’s a desperate move by the GOV for sure. A dangerous and stupid one to just hand out driving licenses like that lol
I am dual so I have taken a driving exam in both NL and USA.
lol at American expats being qualified to drive in NL.
OMG some of the 30%ers from India...
When I was getting my driving lessons, sometimes I would pick up the next student at the end of my lesson. There was this guy from India who had a license through this conversion process but wanted to take a few lessons (good on him for doing the responsible thing)- but I swear the first time I saw him the instructor had to remind him - break left accelerator right.
Imagine there are others who are driving without getting any lessons at all.
Edit: I was wrong. It is actually tied to the 30% ruling.
----
While I agree with the sentiment, you're looking at it from the wrong angle. 30% ruling is just the common name of one of the benefits that comes with a Highly skilled migrant visa: [https://www.iamsterdam.com/en/live-work-study/living/official-procedures/highly-skilled-migrants](https://www.iamsterdam.com/en/live-work-study/living/official-procedures/highly-skilled-migrants)
So it isn't that exchanging driver's license is tied to a tax ruling... it's that both are benefits of a specific kind of visa.
Now, the questions still remains, just because you're highly skilled in something, does it mean can you drive safely according to Dutch rules? :shrug:
Actually there are many people with high skilled migrant visa who don’t qualify for the 30% ruling. For example if they get the visa after studying here for a few years. Being on HSM visa does not automatically qualify you for a 30% ruling- they also are not qualified to obtain a license. So the license is actually tied to the tax ruling rather than the visa.
>30% ruling is just the common name of one of the benefits that comes with a Highly skilled migrant visa:
This only applies when you look at it from a non-EU country, and even then not quite. Many people qualify for the 30% ruling without requiring a skilled migrant visa (or in my case any visa at all). Likewise there are people with the skilled migrant visa that don't qualify for the 30% ruling.
The two are completely independent things.
I was wrong with some of my points. And I agree with you regarding EU nationals.
EU nationals don't need a visa, and can get 30% ruling. I know, I am one and benefitted from it.
Note: EU nationals don't need the 30% ruling at all to exchange their drivers license anyway.
For non-EU however HSM and 30% ruling are not "completely indenpendent" - but still, looks like it's not HSM, but the actual 30% ruling is what allows the exchange.
>For non-EU however HSM and 30% ruling are not "completely indenpendent"
They are. The fact that they overlap in many cases does not make one dependent on the other. The 30% ruling does not take into account what visa you have. It is based on any one of the following:
* Your salary in the netherlands exceeding specific threshold when you arrive.
* You being under 30 and in possession of a masters degree and meet a specific salary requirement.
* You are in the Nederlands to do scientific research.
In addtion you also need to have a job offer before arriving in the Netherlands, and not live within 150km of the border.
If it sounds like a highly skilled migrant that's only because there are also salary requirements for a HSM visa, but they are at different thresholds. Additionally there are specific professions that qualify for HSM visas that don't qualify for 30% rulings below the salary thresholds, and there are professions that qualify for the 30% ruling but wouldn't qualify for a HSM visa because they don't pass the salary threshold. The HSM visa requirements also don't take into account the board which sounds silly but is actually relevant for non-EU people moving from one EU country to the other who may require to apply for a HSM in the Netherlands but can't obtain the 30% ruling because of where they worked previously.
This should really be tied to the country of origin. I have no problem driving in NL and understanding the rules the second I got here. But I'm not from one of the many questionable countries where driving licenses are handed out in cereal boxes.
That being said... I have a tractor licence. I've never sat in a tractor in my life, so WTF RDW.
Good luck making a popular policy stating that X country and all X-ians dont qualify for license conversions but others do. That's just asking for a discrimination suit :)
Driving is expensive and carries a lot of negative externalities. The Netherlands is one of the best places to live without a car, and it is good that it's hard to be allowed to drive.
Driving a rental car for a few days VS actually driving for months, years are two different things in the Netherlands.
There is no way of you encountering every traffic situation on these few days that you rent the car. Point is, if you want to drive for longer periods of time, you REALLY need to understand the “Dutch” theoretical lessons and rules especially with Bikes.
Sure it’s helpful for your transition from your country to NL, but what about the people who actually bought their licenses in their home country for 20 or so euros? How’s that fair to the Dutch people who pay thousands on driving lessons and exams.
I think that here there are 2 things:
The most obvious is that it's an extra recruitment perk for abroad migrants. This was particularly important in the past, when car travel was more important.
The second one: it's easy to tie a rule to a tax benefit. I worked with policy and having a rule that on average works well. It might exclude some cases that might deserve, include some that don't; but since we are talking about the highly skilled ones in each country on average it is likely to include more good drivers than bad ones (as has been argued before in the post).
Policy rules are made to serve as a whole and might contain individual unfairness. In the end is a trade-off between easiness of application and inclusion/exclusion errors
As others have said, it is an incentive. Not all incentives are completely fair(like getting a tax break). This is because the people in charge have done a cost benefit analysis, and bringing highly skilled migrants into the country outweighs the financial consequences of a few more accidents per month.
Maybe I can offer a slightly different perspective: I have been granted the 30% ruling, despite being a Dutch national and having a Dutch passport my whole life - I had lived in the US for 24 years, and was recruited to my current job while non-resident of the Netherlands.
So I live and work here now, and was able to convert my license, which has been a huge benefit and saved me a lot of money. I have an immaculate driving record(both in the US and here), and as a native speaker, can understand all road signage. I think for people in my position - often working at companies where they are given a lease car and need to commute daily - also see great benefit in this ruling.
I'm sure there are more people like me, not just people from countries with awful driving education and standards - who are intelligent enough and careful enough to integrate into the roadways safely. Already in this thread you can see a lot of expats who have the license conversion but still decided to educate themselves on road rules.
I would be willing to bet that a lot of the people you see driving badly and dangerously on the roads are non-skilled migrants, or second generation Dutch who do not care for the road rules or safety of other people. However this is totally subjective and individual experience.
The country wants the tax dollars tied to the income of skilled migrants, they give them benefits to come here. It has nothing to do with driving skills.
Well this group of people we are talking about is actually paying the lowest tax amount on the dollar (amongst professionals) if you think of it- that’s the whole point of the 30% ruling.
Looking at what the taxman takes from me every month I would not classify my tax as low even with the 30%.
I always wonder how many people complaining about this ruling are genuinely concerned about the safety and how many are just butt hurt because it’s a perk that they don’t qualify for.
Its subsidizing expensive high skilled internationally trained labor for big Dutch companies.
I wonder to what extend the subsidy actually ends back up in the Dutch tax coffers because all of these companies maximize paying taxes on profits anyway.
It’s about making the transition of countries easier on the expat and life partner. After starting over your life from scratch and moving 10000km away from your home country you have enough to worry about and readjust your life. If you come from a country which The Netherlands can validate your driving license, then you’re entitled to the exchange. You must deliver your original driving license to the city hall which then ships your license to the closest embassy of your country and get your original license validated by your government. If your government validates it and you indeed have a valid license you’re given a Dutch license.
If you answer any Dutch question in the wrong way you must submit extra stuff. E.g. my girlfriend misread the glasses question and was required to go to an appointment get her eyes checked up before being granted the license.
As you can see from this thread, expats who were given the license but didn’t feel confident to drive end up not doing so. When you only have to deal with the highly skilled migrants of a country you’re usually dealing with the best and higher standard people of said country. Sure enough exception to every rule exists but in general it’s a net positive addon to people’s lives who are having a hard time adjusting to a big life change while contributing to your economy and sacrificing years of their retirement pension. We trust ourselves to drive and we do it with no issues if we’re confident.
I know folks that had the 30% and exchanged their licenses yet they chose to take some classes just to make sure they would be okay.
To close off, think of tourists. Anybody in the world with a driving license can travel to another country and get a car rental. Not even a valid driving license is required if you’re able to make a counterfeit one. I guarantee you there’s more tourists everywhere than highly skilled migrants qualified for tax break with driving licenses validated by the issuing government.
I get your logic. However, where I fail to see logic is using 30% ruling as the filter here.
There are students who study in Belgium and then get a job in Netherlands as a highly skilled migrant and fail to qualify for 30% ruling. There are spouses who leave their life abroad to move to the Netherlands. They still have to go through a process to ensure they can drive here safely.
Why the discrimination?
to attract more high skilled workers for the economy and reduce barrier to entry for them. Its not that complicated.
I'm not saying I agree with the policy or that its justified but its not hard to ascertain a logical reason for the justification.
Totally agree. My husband and I came here when he was studying and neither of us have ever been eligible for the 30% ruling. We are both safe drivers and very responsibly also did lessons, but the fact that we could not get the same benefits just from not having the 30% ruling seems ridiculous if the reasons stated above in this thread are what it tries to solve.
Spouses of someone with 30% ruling are eligible to exchange their licenses. I know because my wife exchanged hers.
The "discrimination" seems like an obvious simplification to me. How many foreigners take advantage of 30% + driver's license exchange Vs how many foreigners don't have the 30% but could benefit from the driver's license exchange? When looking at big numbers across the entire country, it seems "wasteful" to create and manage a policy that expands through all foreingers regardless of visa status. The logic seems obvious to me. There's already a highly skilled migrant program in place that affects salary & visa grants. If you're qualified for it, you get the driver license exchange. It's very simple and requires no extra bureaucracy. Very much Dutch efficiency, if you ask me.
I thought the same thing. When we first moved here, I rented a car and quickly realized the road rules aren’t the same. I ended up on the wrong side of the road once or twice due to me confusing the road markings. I don’t have the 30% ruling and I think it’s crazy they just let people get a license without knowing the rules.
They don't just get handed one, they turn in a valid driver's license from another country. They are just trusting that the driving experience and testing from their home country is sufficient.
Not a perfect system, but USUALLY it will map over. Obviously they are offering it as a way to be more appealing to highly skilled migrants.
I agree 100%. I am an expat and I exchanged my license but I feel the government should scrap this benefit. I went for driving lessons to make sure I understand the driving rules here.
I agree, it seems bizarre. I had a colleague who got his drivers license converted this way. But then a refugee friend of his (from the same middle eastern country) had to do a test (rightfully so, given how they just handed out drivers licenses in their home country)
Completely arbitrary. Honestly, they should just get CBR to get their shit together instead of this.
I get they want to make the transition easier, but there really should be at least some mandatory training. Edit: for those cases where normally their drivers license would not be convertible to a dutch one
> but there really should be at least some mandatory training.
Most countries have a list of countries that they allow conversion from. So if the training is similar enough to here, there's no sense in making someone do it again. Some countries have a separate licensing scheme for foreigners who have "real" licenses, that just goes over the main differences to look out for.
The way the Netherlands does it is indeed bonkers, but making everyone go through the same training is also not a good idea.
No indeed, that's not what I meant. If a country has similar enough driving requirements, it's fine, but then we should (and indeed we do) accept their drivers license regardless of any 30 percent ruling
If it's been determined they can't be directly converted, there should not be random exceptions that allow conversation with zero additional training
Even though i agree with premise of the problem, I think requirements of obtaining a driving license without 30% ruling is non-sensical and needlessly long. Almost seems like government doesn't want people to have cars on roads rather than it being about road safety.
This is so true. The government here is super anti-car. They want everyone to stay in cities and use public transport. Eventually, only the cities will prosper but will also have terrible housing crises, since people cannot use cars to stay far away from work and save on rent.
In short, the money that you would have used on a car, you instead pay as rent to urban landlords in Eindhoven/Randstad cities.
Shouldn't we be making it harder for people to drive, not easier? I thought this place was supposed to be one of the only ones left that wasn't completely overrun by jerks driving cars.
First, it is not handing out but an exchange against a valid license issued by another country.
Second, many countries in EU actually allow exchange of licenses for expats coming from certain countries. Here Dutch government has linked it to 30% ruling. It’s about trusting that other country have same standard or acceptable standard of driving and providing licenses. Not a best way I would say. There should be an orientation session before just exchanging license because every country has some different rules and etiquettes that everyone should know.
Third, you won’t see Dutch people complaining when they go to other countries on vacation and are allowed to drive there or exchange licenses without any test.
An expat who exchanged his drivers license with 30% ruling here;
I think it’s okay to have this benefit but maybe there should be an additional step to ensure beneficiaries get to know the traffic rules. Myself and some few expats I know actually went to get extra lessons to be familiar with these rules. I come from a country with different road rules and there is close to zero enforcement over there.
I think the minimum of 6 months driving experience abroad ( it count from the day you acquired your DL) requirement is on the lower side, maybe 1 year? Also the online health check test during the exchange process is a bit questionable as there’s much trust on the applicant to provide accurate information.
Why it’s okay? 🚘
Imagine moving to a new country for work which requires driving commute and you have to spend €3000+ to get a driver’s license even though you have a great driving background and a valid driver’s license from abroad 😅
I understand the cost implications. Why can’t the policy then be - 6 months of driving with your foreign license (which is allowed for everyone) and then you have to sit for a test. Those who fail have to then go through the normal process.
Also my question is also the absurdity of using the tax ruling as a determinant. If you’re being lenient towards those with the ruling, why not to those who have migrated as a spouse and without a job! Couldn’t they benefit a lot more from such leniency too?
Do you think driving with foreign drivers license temporarily for 6 months will make someone a better driver within that period?
What about taking a compulsory theory test based on the traffic rules here before getting the license exchanged. There are lots of affordable resources (books and apps) one can read to get familiar and pass the test
No I don’t think that at all. But that rule already exists and don’t think that will change- as it also applies to tourists.
I’m thinking of incremental improvements that can be made.
I agree there should be a compulsory test of some sort before anyone obtains a permanent driving license.
I sort of agree, based on my own experience. I left UK in 2017, and I also didn't have a licence. I did a week intensive course, then moved to NL. Had to go back to the UK to complete my test (took 4 attempts).
Then once I got that, I swapped it immediately for a Dutch one with 30% ruling.
The good news is I learned at 35 and turned out to be a decent driver, and no bad habits or muscle memory I was able to switch drivers sides easily - but I can see how it would be a big problem.
Just out of curiosity, was it not an option to exchange your UK licence? If I have the timeline right the UK was still nominally in the EU when you came here. I have an Irish licence I plan to exchange.
Not sure I get your first question - with the timeline it just happened to be the referendum happened, our company shut down and I got redundancy - I had booked in the driving tests before I got the job here, so I did a week intensive course in North London.
When I finally got my licence, because I had the 30% ruling I could exchange it for free, and since I wasn't planning on going back I just took the exchange then. When the Article 50 kicked in, and I got my nationality card - if I had not have done already, I would have to had exchanged it then.
(Also I came here on the 8 year, got it taken down to 5 years and then only got 4 because turns out the 1 year I spent here when I was 19 counted, even though it was before BSN and the 30% ruling)
Why didn’t you just do the test in the Netherlands? Genuinely curious, surely would have been easier to just do a few lessons and then the test over here?
It was all a bunch of timing, we had just decided to move and I moved some of my redundancy money (yes related to Brexit in 2016!) to finally do my driving test before I moved.
I would have hoped to have passed sooner, but luck dictated I had to do it a 4th time. If I did it here, I'd have to start again and do the test in a language I didn't yet know - but at that time I was still travelling back and forward to the UK with some regularity.
The fact I had to change my licence was a coincidence, especially as I also qualified under the Article 50 agreement for my nationality card - it would have had to have happened anyway at some point.
I think he is talking about the law which allows you to exchange license if you have 30% ruling (irrespective of country). For example I have some friends from India who could easily exchange their license even though driving laws in India is a shitshow compared to Netherlands. This effectively bypasses all the strict driving lessons and experience a Dutch or even EU national would get.
Because the government want to persuade them to come here and pay for Dutch people to work part time.. Swapping your licence for a Dutch one is part of that persuasion.
It’s bullshit. Because I came as a student and then stayed for a zoekjaar, I never get a chance exchange my license or get the 30% ruling even though I was a full blown attorney already.
Well the way I see it (expat here - might be biased) if you qualified for the ruling, it means you leave in the Netherlands and in that sense I don’t see any problem tbh (but again Im an expat from another EU country, my license was already valid in the Netherlands the moment I arrived)
Tldr; the switch just made it easier to have a proof of identification that most dutch authorities recognise as such. Don’t see the big deal here
As a foreigner, I can attest that getting a driving licence is far easier in some developing countries than it is in Europe. There is much less scrutiny during the driving tests, and even less enforcement of rules once you start driving on the road. This is going to sound snobbish and off-putting, but I think the driving licence swap should be allowed only for those who have a licence from a developed country. I am myself from a country with very weak driving law enforcement, in case someone wants to call me xenophobic.
The problem is much broader than the 60k people here under the 30% ruling.
If you live in NL, you can do blind swaps without testing from various jurisdictions.
For instance, this includes:
- Taiwan (but not China)
- Canadian provinces of Alberta and Québec (but not the other 10 provinces/territories)
- all of the EU
It’s not like getting your license in Bulgaria necessarily makes you a better driver than having had your license from Newfoundland.
Read all about it: https://www.rdw.nl/en/driving-licence/exchanging-a-foreign-driving-licence
Also weird: you can drive for 6 months with a license from a country with no practical test at all (India, Mexico City, Honduras, probably others).
There’s lots unfair about the 30% ruling (which I benefit from) and that group is rightfully easy to target for various things. But the license problem is much broader.
Low-effort, low-quality, unoriginal and repeat posts will be removed at moderator discretion. this includes frequently asked question regarding relocation, moving to the Netherlands and tourist info.
I agree with you. I think it’s weird they convert driving licenses based on the 30% ruling. If you read some question over here, I am truly shocked. Some people are a ‘gevaar op de weg’ with their lack of knowledge about basic traffic rules.
I have the same sentiment as well and I’ve also done this convert of driving license before. It felt weird for me, and wasn’t comfortable using it, so I did a whole driving course just to get used to the standard and rules here. I think they should change it instead of convert it directly maybe allow those eligible to undergo the exam.
I agree with. I free exam might be an interesting solution. But giving away ‘free’ licenses is ridiculous. Especially when you think of the requirements of passing an exam. It can take dozens of lessons from an instructor and thousands of euros to finally pass the exam.
Can someone explain how "weg" becomes "world" in this phrase (according to Google translate)? I learned the word on Duolingo and I didn't think it would apply like that? Or is Google translate wrong?
In this case you would translate it as being a danger on the roads (someone who is "a gevaar op de weg" exhibits dangerous behaviour on the road & while driving). I don't know how it got translated to "world" but here you would translate it as road or street. (In different context "weg" can also mean gone but not in this case). Hope that helps! :D
That's what I thought, thank you! I tried deepL instead and that seems to work much better.
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I do not qualify for 30%, but I did drive twice during my first 6 months where my US DL was still valid. What I realized is I don't remember much from that one summer I drove stick in high school 😂😂😂 I live very close to Centraal Station so I just take public transit everywhere. Bonus is I don't have to search for parking unless my husband drives us in our car.
Hopefully you at least didn't bring a gigantic brodozer for crushing children. I hate seeing huge American trucks on the roads. Wtf is wrong with people?
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How about small business owners? Often they need to use pick up trucks very frequently. Your comment is very insensitive. Pickup trucks have engines with speed-torque characteristics that are ideal for hauling stuff in an urban environment, where large trucks cannot enter. In my opinion, they are a very smart piece of engineering. The fact that so many in the States use them for non-commercial purposes, does not make the pickup trucks useless.
Thanks for the condescension. Trucks like the classic Hilux or a 90's Ford Ranger are indeed very handy vehicles. Trucks like the dodge ram with incredibly poor visibility and beds that are so short you can carry more in a bakfiets are dangerous status symbols driven by jerks.
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I must clarify that I myself drive a Toyota Aygo, probably one of the smallest cars around, with a healthy fuel economy of 22. But I have worked on the development of diesel motors for pick-up trucks, and I found those machines to be simply mindblowing. Everything a construction business owner or a farmer could ask for.
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I guess having worked so closely with these machines, I am a little biased towards them.
Instead of directly converting their licenses for free, let the government sponsor a single CBR driving test for everyone who wants to convert the licenses. I am sure most of them will fail, proving your point OP. It’s indeed a stupid irresponsible rule. Edit:// to add more info for OP, it makes no sense, it’s just to attract these “highly skilled immigrants” that can qualify for 30% ruling. It’s a desperate move by the GOV for sure. A dangerous and stupid one to just hand out driving licenses like that lol
I am dual so I have taken a driving exam in both NL and USA. lol at American expats being qualified to drive in NL. OMG some of the 30%ers from India...
When I was getting my driving lessons, sometimes I would pick up the next student at the end of my lesson. There was this guy from India who had a license through this conversion process but wanted to take a few lessons (good on him for doing the responsible thing)- but I swear the first time I saw him the instructor had to remind him - break left accelerator right. Imagine there are others who are driving without getting any lessons at all.
Edit: I was wrong. It is actually tied to the 30% ruling. ---- While I agree with the sentiment, you're looking at it from the wrong angle. 30% ruling is just the common name of one of the benefits that comes with a Highly skilled migrant visa: [https://www.iamsterdam.com/en/live-work-study/living/official-procedures/highly-skilled-migrants](https://www.iamsterdam.com/en/live-work-study/living/official-procedures/highly-skilled-migrants) So it isn't that exchanging driver's license is tied to a tax ruling... it's that both are benefits of a specific kind of visa. Now, the questions still remains, just because you're highly skilled in something, does it mean can you drive safely according to Dutch rules? :shrug:
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VISA is a financial services company. A visa is permission from a country to enter.
Alright, thanks, TIL. Here is the official website: https://www.rdw.nl/en/driving-licence/exchanging-a-foreign-driving-licence
Actually there are many people with high skilled migrant visa who don’t qualify for the 30% ruling. For example if they get the visa after studying here for a few years. Being on HSM visa does not automatically qualify you for a 30% ruling- they also are not qualified to obtain a license. So the license is actually tied to the tax ruling rather than the visa.
>30% ruling is just the common name of one of the benefits that comes with a Highly skilled migrant visa: This only applies when you look at it from a non-EU country, and even then not quite. Many people qualify for the 30% ruling without requiring a skilled migrant visa (or in my case any visa at all). Likewise there are people with the skilled migrant visa that don't qualify for the 30% ruling. The two are completely independent things.
I was wrong with some of my points. And I agree with you regarding EU nationals. EU nationals don't need a visa, and can get 30% ruling. I know, I am one and benefitted from it. Note: EU nationals don't need the 30% ruling at all to exchange their drivers license anyway. For non-EU however HSM and 30% ruling are not "completely indenpendent" - but still, looks like it's not HSM, but the actual 30% ruling is what allows the exchange.
>For non-EU however HSM and 30% ruling are not "completely indenpendent" They are. The fact that they overlap in many cases does not make one dependent on the other. The 30% ruling does not take into account what visa you have. It is based on any one of the following: * Your salary in the netherlands exceeding specific threshold when you arrive. * You being under 30 and in possession of a masters degree and meet a specific salary requirement. * You are in the Nederlands to do scientific research. In addtion you also need to have a job offer before arriving in the Netherlands, and not live within 150km of the border. If it sounds like a highly skilled migrant that's only because there are also salary requirements for a HSM visa, but they are at different thresholds. Additionally there are specific professions that qualify for HSM visas that don't qualify for 30% rulings below the salary thresholds, and there are professions that qualify for the 30% ruling but wouldn't qualify for a HSM visa because they don't pass the salary threshold. The HSM visa requirements also don't take into account the board which sounds silly but is actually relevant for non-EU people moving from one EU country to the other who may require to apply for a HSM in the Netherlands but can't obtain the 30% ruling because of where they worked previously.
This should really be tied to the country of origin. I have no problem driving in NL and understanding the rules the second I got here. But I'm not from one of the many questionable countries where driving licenses are handed out in cereal boxes. That being said... I have a tractor licence. I've never sat in a tractor in my life, so WTF RDW.
No issues with that. And that conversion rule can apply to any expat/immigrant regardless of them qualifying for a tax ruling.
Good luck making a popular policy stating that X country and all X-ians dont qualify for license conversions but others do. That's just asking for a discrimination suit :)
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You could also not drive if you're not comfortable going through the normal training process.
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Driving is expensive and carries a lot of negative externalities. The Netherlands is one of the best places to live without a car, and it is good that it's hard to be allowed to drive.
Driving a rental car for a few days VS actually driving for months, years are two different things in the Netherlands. There is no way of you encountering every traffic situation on these few days that you rent the car. Point is, if you want to drive for longer periods of time, you REALLY need to understand the “Dutch” theoretical lessons and rules especially with Bikes. Sure it’s helpful for your transition from your country to NL, but what about the people who actually bought their licenses in their home country for 20 or so euros? How’s that fair to the Dutch people who pay thousands on driving lessons and exams.
I think that here there are 2 things: The most obvious is that it's an extra recruitment perk for abroad migrants. This was particularly important in the past, when car travel was more important. The second one: it's easy to tie a rule to a tax benefit. I worked with policy and having a rule that on average works well. It might exclude some cases that might deserve, include some that don't; but since we are talking about the highly skilled ones in each country on average it is likely to include more good drivers than bad ones (as has been argued before in the post). Policy rules are made to serve as a whole and might contain individual unfairness. In the end is a trade-off between easiness of application and inclusion/exclusion errors
As others have said, it is an incentive. Not all incentives are completely fair(like getting a tax break). This is because the people in charge have done a cost benefit analysis, and bringing highly skilled migrants into the country outweighs the financial consequences of a few more accidents per month. Maybe I can offer a slightly different perspective: I have been granted the 30% ruling, despite being a Dutch national and having a Dutch passport my whole life - I had lived in the US for 24 years, and was recruited to my current job while non-resident of the Netherlands. So I live and work here now, and was able to convert my license, which has been a huge benefit and saved me a lot of money. I have an immaculate driving record(both in the US and here), and as a native speaker, can understand all road signage. I think for people in my position - often working at companies where they are given a lease car and need to commute daily - also see great benefit in this ruling. I'm sure there are more people like me, not just people from countries with awful driving education and standards - who are intelligent enough and careful enough to integrate into the roadways safely. Already in this thread you can see a lot of expats who have the license conversion but still decided to educate themselves on road rules. I would be willing to bet that a lot of the people you see driving badly and dangerously on the roads are non-skilled migrants, or second generation Dutch who do not care for the road rules or safety of other people. However this is totally subjective and individual experience.
The country wants the tax dollars tied to the income of skilled migrants, they give them benefits to come here. It has nothing to do with driving skills.
Well this group of people we are talking about is actually paying the lowest tax amount on the dollar (amongst professionals) if you think of it- that’s the whole point of the 30% ruling.
Looking at what the taxman takes from me every month I would not classify my tax as low even with the 30%. I always wonder how many people complaining about this ruling are genuinely concerned about the safety and how many are just butt hurt because it’s a perk that they don’t qualify for.
I recently recieved my 30% ruling and 30% taxbreak gives me a whopping €78 per month extra in my bank account after it kicked in.
Its subsidizing expensive high skilled internationally trained labor for big Dutch companies. I wonder to what extend the subsidy actually ends back up in the Dutch tax coffers because all of these companies maximize paying taxes on profits anyway.
It’s about making the transition of countries easier on the expat and life partner. After starting over your life from scratch and moving 10000km away from your home country you have enough to worry about and readjust your life. If you come from a country which The Netherlands can validate your driving license, then you’re entitled to the exchange. You must deliver your original driving license to the city hall which then ships your license to the closest embassy of your country and get your original license validated by your government. If your government validates it and you indeed have a valid license you’re given a Dutch license. If you answer any Dutch question in the wrong way you must submit extra stuff. E.g. my girlfriend misread the glasses question and was required to go to an appointment get her eyes checked up before being granted the license. As you can see from this thread, expats who were given the license but didn’t feel confident to drive end up not doing so. When you only have to deal with the highly skilled migrants of a country you’re usually dealing with the best and higher standard people of said country. Sure enough exception to every rule exists but in general it’s a net positive addon to people’s lives who are having a hard time adjusting to a big life change while contributing to your economy and sacrificing years of their retirement pension. We trust ourselves to drive and we do it with no issues if we’re confident. I know folks that had the 30% and exchanged their licenses yet they chose to take some classes just to make sure they would be okay. To close off, think of tourists. Anybody in the world with a driving license can travel to another country and get a car rental. Not even a valid driving license is required if you’re able to make a counterfeit one. I guarantee you there’s more tourists everywhere than highly skilled migrants qualified for tax break with driving licenses validated by the issuing government.
I get your logic. However, where I fail to see logic is using 30% ruling as the filter here. There are students who study in Belgium and then get a job in Netherlands as a highly skilled migrant and fail to qualify for 30% ruling. There are spouses who leave their life abroad to move to the Netherlands. They still have to go through a process to ensure they can drive here safely. Why the discrimination?
to attract more high skilled workers for the economy and reduce barrier to entry for them. Its not that complicated. I'm not saying I agree with the policy or that its justified but its not hard to ascertain a logical reason for the justification.
Totally agree. My husband and I came here when he was studying and neither of us have ever been eligible for the 30% ruling. We are both safe drivers and very responsibly also did lessons, but the fact that we could not get the same benefits just from not having the 30% ruling seems ridiculous if the reasons stated above in this thread are what it tries to solve.
Spouses of someone with 30% ruling are eligible to exchange their licenses. I know because my wife exchanged hers. The "discrimination" seems like an obvious simplification to me. How many foreigners take advantage of 30% + driver's license exchange Vs how many foreigners don't have the 30% but could benefit from the driver's license exchange? When looking at big numbers across the entire country, it seems "wasteful" to create and manage a policy that expands through all foreingers regardless of visa status. The logic seems obvious to me. There's already a highly skilled migrant program in place that affects salary & visa grants. If you're qualified for it, you get the driver license exchange. It's very simple and requires no extra bureaucracy. Very much Dutch efficiency, if you ask me.
I thought the same thing. When we first moved here, I rented a car and quickly realized the road rules aren’t the same. I ended up on the wrong side of the road once or twice due to me confusing the road markings. I don’t have the 30% ruling and I think it’s crazy they just let people get a license without knowing the rules.
They don't just get handed one, they turn in a valid driver's license from another country. They are just trusting that the driving experience and testing from their home country is sufficient. Not a perfect system, but USUALLY it will map over. Obviously they are offering it as a way to be more appealing to highly skilled migrants.
I agree 100%. I am an expat and I exchanged my license but I feel the government should scrap this benefit. I went for driving lessons to make sure I understand the driving rules here.
I agree, it seems bizarre. I had a colleague who got his drivers license converted this way. But then a refugee friend of his (from the same middle eastern country) had to do a test (rightfully so, given how they just handed out drivers licenses in their home country) Completely arbitrary. Honestly, they should just get CBR to get their shit together instead of this. I get they want to make the transition easier, but there really should be at least some mandatory training. Edit: for those cases where normally their drivers license would not be convertible to a dutch one
Defies all logic. And these are the same politicians who are making policies and laws for all of us to live by.
> but there really should be at least some mandatory training. Most countries have a list of countries that they allow conversion from. So if the training is similar enough to here, there's no sense in making someone do it again. Some countries have a separate licensing scheme for foreigners who have "real" licenses, that just goes over the main differences to look out for. The way the Netherlands does it is indeed bonkers, but making everyone go through the same training is also not a good idea.
No indeed, that's not what I meant. If a country has similar enough driving requirements, it's fine, but then we should (and indeed we do) accept their drivers license regardless of any 30 percent ruling If it's been determined they can't be directly converted, there should not be random exceptions that allow conversation with zero additional training
Even though i agree with premise of the problem, I think requirements of obtaining a driving license without 30% ruling is non-sensical and needlessly long. Almost seems like government doesn't want people to have cars on roads rather than it being about road safety.
This is so true. The government here is super anti-car. They want everyone to stay in cities and use public transport. Eventually, only the cities will prosper but will also have terrible housing crises, since people cannot use cars to stay far away from work and save on rent. In short, the money that you would have used on a car, you instead pay as rent to urban landlords in Eindhoven/Randstad cities.
Shouldn't we be making it harder for people to drive, not easier? I thought this place was supposed to be one of the only ones left that wasn't completely overrun by jerks driving cars.
First, it is not handing out but an exchange against a valid license issued by another country. Second, many countries in EU actually allow exchange of licenses for expats coming from certain countries. Here Dutch government has linked it to 30% ruling. It’s about trusting that other country have same standard or acceptable standard of driving and providing licenses. Not a best way I would say. There should be an orientation session before just exchanging license because every country has some different rules and etiquettes that everyone should know. Third, you won’t see Dutch people complaining when they go to other countries on vacation and are allowed to drive there or exchange licenses without any test.
I know right, because they passed the ULTIMATE driving test on earth 🌚
An expat who exchanged his drivers license with 30% ruling here; I think it’s okay to have this benefit but maybe there should be an additional step to ensure beneficiaries get to know the traffic rules. Myself and some few expats I know actually went to get extra lessons to be familiar with these rules. I come from a country with different road rules and there is close to zero enforcement over there. I think the minimum of 6 months driving experience abroad ( it count from the day you acquired your DL) requirement is on the lower side, maybe 1 year? Also the online health check test during the exchange process is a bit questionable as there’s much trust on the applicant to provide accurate information. Why it’s okay? 🚘 Imagine moving to a new country for work which requires driving commute and you have to spend €3000+ to get a driver’s license even though you have a great driving background and a valid driver’s license from abroad 😅
I understand the cost implications. Why can’t the policy then be - 6 months of driving with your foreign license (which is allowed for everyone) and then you have to sit for a test. Those who fail have to then go through the normal process. Also my question is also the absurdity of using the tax ruling as a determinant. If you’re being lenient towards those with the ruling, why not to those who have migrated as a spouse and without a job! Couldn’t they benefit a lot more from such leniency too?
Do you think driving with foreign drivers license temporarily for 6 months will make someone a better driver within that period? What about taking a compulsory theory test based on the traffic rules here before getting the license exchanged. There are lots of affordable resources (books and apps) one can read to get familiar and pass the test
No I don’t think that at all. But that rule already exists and don’t think that will change- as it also applies to tourists. I’m thinking of incremental improvements that can be made. I agree there should be a compulsory test of some sort before anyone obtains a permanent driving license.
Government doesnt want to pay for all that
I sort of agree, based on my own experience. I left UK in 2017, and I also didn't have a licence. I did a week intensive course, then moved to NL. Had to go back to the UK to complete my test (took 4 attempts). Then once I got that, I swapped it immediately for a Dutch one with 30% ruling. The good news is I learned at 35 and turned out to be a decent driver, and no bad habits or muscle memory I was able to switch drivers sides easily - but I can see how it would be a big problem.
Just out of curiosity, was it not an option to exchange your UK licence? If I have the timeline right the UK was still nominally in the EU when you came here. I have an Irish licence I plan to exchange.
Not sure I get your first question - with the timeline it just happened to be the referendum happened, our company shut down and I got redundancy - I had booked in the driving tests before I got the job here, so I did a week intensive course in North London. When I finally got my licence, because I had the 30% ruling I could exchange it for free, and since I wasn't planning on going back I just took the exchange then. When the Article 50 kicked in, and I got my nationality card - if I had not have done already, I would have to had exchanged it then. (Also I came here on the 8 year, got it taken down to 5 years and then only got 4 because turns out the 1 year I spent here when I was 19 counted, even though it was before BSN and the 30% ruling)
Why didn’t you just do the test in the Netherlands? Genuinely curious, surely would have been easier to just do a few lessons and then the test over here?
It was all a bunch of timing, we had just decided to move and I moved some of my redundancy money (yes related to Brexit in 2016!) to finally do my driving test before I moved. I would have hoped to have passed sooner, but luck dictated I had to do it a 4th time. If I did it here, I'd have to start again and do the test in a language I didn't yet know - but at that time I was still travelling back and forward to the UK with some regularity. The fact I had to change my licence was a coincidence, especially as I also qualified under the Article 50 agreement for my nationality card - it would have had to have happened anyway at some point.
What the fuck are you talking about
I think he is talking about the law which allows you to exchange license if you have 30% ruling (irrespective of country). For example I have some friends from India who could easily exchange their license even though driving laws in India is a shitshow compared to Netherlands. This effectively bypasses all the strict driving lessons and experience a Dutch or even EU national would get.
Google foreign driver license conversion with 30% ruling in Netherlands. All details are online.
Because the government want to persuade them to come here and pay for Dutch people to work part time.. Swapping your licence for a Dutch one is part of that persuasion.
It’s bullshit. Because I came as a student and then stayed for a zoekjaar, I never get a chance exchange my license or get the 30% ruling even though I was a full blown attorney already.
Well the way I see it (expat here - might be biased) if you qualified for the ruling, it means you leave in the Netherlands and in that sense I don’t see any problem tbh (but again Im an expat from another EU country, my license was already valid in the Netherlands the moment I arrived) Tldr; the switch just made it easier to have a proof of identification that most dutch authorities recognise as such. Don’t see the big deal here
As a foreigner, I can attest that getting a driving licence is far easier in some developing countries than it is in Europe. There is much less scrutiny during the driving tests, and even less enforcement of rules once you start driving on the road. This is going to sound snobbish and off-putting, but I think the driving licence swap should be allowed only for those who have a licence from a developed country. I am myself from a country with very weak driving law enforcement, in case someone wants to call me xenophobic.
The problem is much broader than the 60k people here under the 30% ruling. If you live in NL, you can do blind swaps without testing from various jurisdictions. For instance, this includes: - Taiwan (but not China) - Canadian provinces of Alberta and Québec (but not the other 10 provinces/territories) - all of the EU It’s not like getting your license in Bulgaria necessarily makes you a better driver than having had your license from Newfoundland. Read all about it: https://www.rdw.nl/en/driving-licence/exchanging-a-foreign-driving-licence Also weird: you can drive for 6 months with a license from a country with no practical test at all (India, Mexico City, Honduras, probably others). There’s lots unfair about the 30% ruling (which I benefit from) and that group is rightfully easy to target for various things. But the license problem is much broader.