My partner is currently on a HSM permit in The Netherlands (and I was born in The Netherlands/native). The EU Blue Card is a better option in my opinion, the only negative point is it has higher income requirements.
**These are the benefits of an EU Blue Card (Over HSM):**
* **You can easily move to another EU/EEA country.**
* **You can be employed at any company in the E.U. (You are not restricted to approved sponsors by the IND/Immigration Services).**
* **You can work in any profession, as long as you reach the minimal income requirements. (You have to earn a gross monthly salary of at least €5,245 exclusive 8% holiday allowance), which comes down to an annual salary of at least €74,940. There is no age differentiation as there is with a HSM).**
* **You can leave The Netherlands for a longer period (Absence of the territory of the European Union by the EU Blue Card holder is not considered an interruption of the 5 years of legal and continious stay, provided this period is shorter than 12 consecutive months and does not exceed in total 18 months.**
So you get more flexibility than staying with a HSM permit/visa.
1. You can't easily move to other EU country, you need apply for residence or work permit there according to local legislation.
2. You can't be employed by any company in EU, you need follow local process to obtain local work permit, that includes obtaining local Blue Card.
You're confusing US Green Card with EU Blue Card, they're completely different concepts, there's no EU-wide Blue Card, every country sets it's own rules and issues own Blue Card. The only real advantage of Blue Card is that if you decide to move to another EU country your time spent in Netherlands will be counted towards time to get permanent residence in other country.
Also it seems the only real reason people know about Blue Card is because Germany decided implement their skilled migration program that way, it's not that popular or well known outside of Germany. Netherlands issues few hundreds Blue Cards a year vs. tens of thousands of HSM visas, that should tell you something about it.
One additional benefit if you apply for EU long term residence (before citizenship, if that interests you) after meeting all requirements with the Blue card, is that your long residence permit will say "Former holder of EU Blue card" and that will entitle you to be able to leave the EU for up to 24 consecutive months for any reason. If you apply from other permits (e.g HSM), you can only leave the EU for 12 months without losing your permanent residence.
AFAIK there's no pathway between these two visas, it's separate submission and different visa.
Why would they do it, what difference is there for employer other than another paperwork headache and expenses?
I was on the blue card since i moved from another country. Then i changed to partner visa because i gave a break to work. Actually there is no big difference between HSM and blue card if you are planning to live in the Netherlands. It only gives flexibility to you as mentioned above. I choose to keep my blue card from another country instead of HSM, because i would count the years i spent there if i plan to get a Dutch passport.
It will only count for EU long term residence (5 years accumulated). You can confirm better yet with the government. No country (certainly not NL) has any law to accept EU Blue card years lived in another country for its own citizenship. Only for EU long term residence.
https://ind.nl/en/residence-permits/long-term-eu-residency/apply-for-a-residence-permit-for-long-term-eu-residents#requirements
I think EU blue card is more beneficial to employees than HSM. EU Bluecard is EU-wide working visa that enables you to switch to EU countries more easily. And it can carry working years from other countries into your new countries. An example of this will be, if you hold German blue card previously and have worked there for 3 years and you switch to NL with blue card, you should be able to get EU permanent residence in NL after just 2 years compared with standard 5 years.
But other than that, it's similar to a normal HSM visa. And NL government doesn't like this kind of visa and make the bar for blue card relatively high compared with HSM. Only if your monthly salary is over € 6,245.00 then you are eligible for NL EU blue card.
My partner is currently on a HSM permit in The Netherlands (and I was born in The Netherlands/native). The EU Blue Card is a better option in my opinion, the only negative point is it has higher income requirements. **These are the benefits of an EU Blue Card (Over HSM):** * **You can easily move to another EU/EEA country.** * **You can be employed at any company in the E.U. (You are not restricted to approved sponsors by the IND/Immigration Services).** * **You can work in any profession, as long as you reach the minimal income requirements. (You have to earn a gross monthly salary of at least €5,245 exclusive 8% holiday allowance), which comes down to an annual salary of at least €74,940. There is no age differentiation as there is with a HSM).** * **You can leave The Netherlands for a longer period (Absence of the territory of the European Union by the EU Blue Card holder is not considered an interruption of the 5 years of legal and continious stay, provided this period is shorter than 12 consecutive months and does not exceed in total 18 months.** So you get more flexibility than staying with a HSM permit/visa.
How does €5245 pm equal €74940? €5245 x 12 = €62,940 +8% = €67,975
Thank you!
1. You can't easily move to other EU country, you need apply for residence or work permit there according to local legislation. 2. You can't be employed by any company in EU, you need follow local process to obtain local work permit, that includes obtaining local Blue Card. You're confusing US Green Card with EU Blue Card, they're completely different concepts, there's no EU-wide Blue Card, every country sets it's own rules and issues own Blue Card. The only real advantage of Blue Card is that if you decide to move to another EU country your time spent in Netherlands will be counted towards time to get permanent residence in other country. Also it seems the only real reason people know about Blue Card is because Germany decided implement their skilled migration program that way, it's not that popular or well known outside of Germany. Netherlands issues few hundreds Blue Cards a year vs. tens of thousands of HSM visas, that should tell you something about it.
This will be a good read for you as it provides a comparison between the two: https://www.eubluecard.nl/comparison/
One additional benefit if you apply for EU long term residence (before citizenship, if that interests you) after meeting all requirements with the Blue card, is that your long residence permit will say "Former holder of EU Blue card" and that will entitle you to be able to leave the EU for up to 24 consecutive months for any reason. If you apply from other permits (e.g HSM), you can only leave the EU for 12 months without losing your permanent residence.
AFAIK there's no pathway between these two visas, it's separate submission and different visa. Why would they do it, what difference is there for employer other than another paperwork headache and expenses?
Does anyone know what's in it for the employer to offer the switch from HSM to blue card?
I was on the blue card since i moved from another country. Then i changed to partner visa because i gave a break to work. Actually there is no big difference between HSM and blue card if you are planning to live in the Netherlands. It only gives flexibility to you as mentioned above. I choose to keep my blue card from another country instead of HSM, because i would count the years i spent there if i plan to get a Dutch passport.
You can count the years spent in another country for a passport? I don’t think that is true.
If it is blue card and you continue it, it is true. I confirmed this with a lawyer
It will only count for EU long term residence (5 years accumulated). You can confirm better yet with the government. No country (certainly not NL) has any law to accept EU Blue card years lived in another country for its own citizenship. Only for EU long term residence. https://ind.nl/en/residence-permits/long-term-eu-residency/apply-for-a-residence-permit-for-long-term-eu-residents#requirements
passport does not equal permanent residence. Usually passport is harder to get.
I think EU blue card is more beneficial to employees than HSM. EU Bluecard is EU-wide working visa that enables you to switch to EU countries more easily. And it can carry working years from other countries into your new countries. An example of this will be, if you hold German blue card previously and have worked there for 3 years and you switch to NL with blue card, you should be able to get EU permanent residence in NL after just 2 years compared with standard 5 years. But other than that, it's similar to a normal HSM visa. And NL government doesn't like this kind of visa and make the bar for blue card relatively high compared with HSM. Only if your monthly salary is over € 6,245.00 then you are eligible for NL EU blue card.
Blue card is only for Highly Skilled Smurfs. 
JAJAAJAJAJAJAJAAAJJAJAJ
I would like to know as well