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Salary and Bonus in Amsterdam/NL

Posted in Netherlands forum

I'm currently based in London and have been offered a job with €70k gross (inclusive of holiday and social security) and eligible for 30% ruling. I have two specific questions:

1. Is this salary sufficient to have a good standard of living for a family of two in Amsterdam? I have been getting mixed response, so wanted to get first hand experience from some expats based there.

2. Also, the firm is not specifying Bonus or any Bonus related clause in the contract but I have been told Bonus levels only verbally. I have been told that it's common in NL as employers don't want lawsuits. This is contrary to practice in UK where they specify bonus % but add descretion clause on top of it.

Any comments or feedback will be helpful to aid my decision making.

  • Go to Merel Bosma's profile

    posted by  in Netherlands forum 

    Hi sur pal,

    I think the yearly salary should be enough to live comforably with a family of 2, but i'm not qualified to judge that.
    The biggest monthly expense is usually rent, as they tend to be high especially in the big cities like Amsterdam and Rotterdam. The more you move out of the city, the cheaper this gets. Other costs are usually low.

    As far as the 30% ruling, make sure you apply for this as soon as you move to the Netherlands. Either your company can apply this for you, or you can do this yourself. There are plenty of tax advisors out there to help, like this one http://broadstreet.nl/30-ruling/. However, you will still need approval from your employee if you apply for this yourself.

    Hope this helped and good luck!

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