Straightforward, sourced guides on the topics founders and relocating employees actually run into — tax and payroll, the startup visa and company setup, and housing.
Polder Guides
Every guide links to the relevant Polder service and to official sources.
Both routes let non-EU nationals live and work in the Netherlands, but they solve different problems: the Startup Visa is for founders without a job offer, the Highly Skilled Migrant scheme is for people a Dutch employer sponsors. Picking the wrong one costs months.
The besloten vennootschap (BV) is the default legal structure for founders incorporating in the Netherlands — limited liability, no meaningful minimum capital, and recognised by investors and banks. Here is what the process actually involves.
The 30% ruling lets eligible employees recruited from abroad receive part of their salary tax-free, to cover the extra cost of working in the Netherlands. Here is how eligibility, duration and the payroll mechanics actually work.
Almost nothing else in the Netherlands works without a BSN — not payroll, not a bank account, not health insurance. Here is how founders and relocating employees actually get one, and where the process trips people up.
The Dutch rental market is genuinely tight almost everywhere, and it interacts directly with your BSN and payroll registration. Here is what to actually expect, what to prepare in advance, and where to search — including nestd.nl, Polder's housing-search partner.
Almost every relocating founder or employee hits a gap between arriving and having permanent housing sorted. Here are the realistic bridge options, and the one detail that actually matters: whether the place lets you register with the municipality.