Kennismigrant Visa vs 30% Ruling: What Indian Professionals Need to Know

Two things get treated as one thing in almost every conversation about moving to the Netherlands.

"I'm coming on the highly skilled migrant visa, so I'll get the 30% ruling." That sentence contains a permit, a tax scheme, and an assumption and the assumption is wrong often enough to cost people real money.

They're separate. Different authority, different application, different salary test, different timing. You can have the permit and not the tax benefit. You can meet one salary threshold comfortably and fall short on the other with exactly the same contract. And the second one is worth thousands of euros a year, so it's worth understanding before you sign, not after.

What is the difference between the kennismigrant visa and 30% ruling in the Netherlands

The highly skilled migrant permit (kennismigrant) is immigration. It's what makes it legal for you to live and work in the Netherlands. It's decided by the Immigration and Naturalisation Service, and your employer has to be a recognised sponsor (erkend referent) registered with them. Without it, you cannot take the job at all.

The 30% ruling officially the expat scheme (expatregeling) is tax. It lets your employer pay part of your salary as a tax-free reimbursement for the extra costs of relocating, so you pay income tax on a smaller amount. It's decided by the Dutch Tax Administration, in a written decision (beschikking). Without it, you can still work in the Netherlands. You just take home less.

One is permission. The other is money. The immigration service does not assess your tax position, and the tax authority does not assess your right to be in the country.

Can an Indian professional get the 30% ruling with a kennismigrant visa

Yes - most do. But the permit doesn't grant it. You have to qualify separately, on five conditions:

Recruited from abroad. Your Dutch employer hired you while you were living outside the Netherlands, or transferred you in from a group company abroad. Moving to the Netherlands first and job-hunting afterwards generally disqualifies you. The tax authority looks at who started the hiring.

The 150-kilometre test. For more than 16 of the 24 months before your first working day, you must have lived more than 150 kilometres from the Dutch border, measured in a straight line. For anyone relocating from India, this is automatic. It's the condition that excludes people coming from Belgium, Luxembourg, much of Germany, and northern France.

A real Dutch employment relationship, with an employer that withholds Dutch payroll tax.

The salary norm a separate test from the immigration one, covered in the next section.

A granted decision. You and your employer apply jointly. The employer submits the form; you sign it. The employer cannot apply the benefit until the tax authority has approved it.

The good news for Indian professionals specifically: the distance test and the recruitment test the two that trip up most applicants are almost never a problem when you're relocating from India directly into a Dutch role.

Kennismigrant visa and 30% ruling requirements for Indian professionals

Here's where the two tests genuinely diverge, and it's not a technicality.

The immigration test looks at your gross monthly salary. For 2026, the immigration service requires €5,942 a month if you're 30 or older, and €4,357 if you're under 30. A reduced criterion of €3,122 applies if you're applying during a Dutch orientation year (zoekjaar), or within three years of graduating, completing a doctorate, or finishing a research permit. The 8% holiday allowance (vakantiegeld) is excluded from this calculation. Fixed allowances such as a thirteenth month do count but only if they're contractual and paid monthly in twelve equal instalments, not as an annual lump sum.

The tax test looks at your annual taxable salary after the tax-free portion has been deducted. For 2026, that figure must be at least €48,013 or €36,497 if you're under 30 with a recognised master's degree.

Same contract, two completely different calculations. One is monthly and gross. The other is annual and net of the benefit you're applying for.

How does the 30% ruling work with a Dutch kennismigrant visa

The mechanic that surprises people: the salary norm doesn't just decide whether you qualify. It caps how much you get.

Your employer can pay up to 30% of your salary tax-free but only down to the point where what's left still clears the norm. So the maximum tax-free amount is whichever is lower: 30% of your salary, or your total salary minus €48,013.

A worked example. On a total salary of €54,000, 30% would be €16,200. But taking €16,200 off leaves €37,800, which is below the norm. So the tax-free amount is capped at €5,987 the gap between €54,000 and €48,013. You qualify, but you get roughly a third of the benefit you expected.

The practical threshold: to receive the full 30%, your total salary needs to be around €68,600 or more in 2026 under the standard norm. Below that, you get a reduced amount. This is exactly why someone can clear the immigration threshold comfortably and still be disappointed by their first payslip.

Three timing points that cost money.

The application must be submitted within four months of your first working day. Inside four months, an approved ruling is backdated to day one. Miss it, and the benefit only starts from the month you file you lose the months in between permanently. This is your employer's responsibility, which is why it's worth raising in your first week rather than assuming HR has it handled.

The ruling runs for a maximum of five years (60 months), and any earlier time you spent in the Netherlands is deducted from that.

If you change employers, the ruling can continue provided you start the new job within three months of leaving the old one, and the new employer applies within four months of your start date.

What Indian professionals should know before accepting a Netherlands job offer

The rate drops on 1 January 2027. The maximum falls from 30% to 27%. According to the Dutch government's business portal, the salary norm also rises legislated at €50,436, and €38,338 for under-30s with a master's degree. Those are 2024 price levels and are indexed annually, so the published 2027 figures will be higher. The 2027 indexation hasn't been announced yet.

Transitional protection is two-tier. Employees already using the scheme in the final pay period of 2023 keep 30% for their full term and are exempt from the one-off norm increase. Employees using it in the final pay period of 2024 move to 27% but are also exempt from the one-off increase, subject to normal indexation. Everyone starting after that gets both changes.

This matters for offers being signed today. The reduction applies to the remainder of your term, not only to future joiners. Start in late 2026 and your net pay falls at the beginning of your second year, on the same contract. Ask directly whether the gross salary accounts for it.

Two questions to ask before you sign. First: is the employer a recognised sponsor, and has the permit application been submitted against the 2026 threshold? Second: has the 30% ruling application been prepared, and what's the estimated tax-free amount at your specific salary not "30%," but a euro figure.

If the answer to the second question is vague, model it yourself. Total salary minus €48,013, capped at 30%. That's your number.

Bottom line

The permit decides whether you can go. The tax ruling decides what the move is actually worth.

Most Indian professionals relocating on a highly skilled migrant permit will qualify for both the distance and recruitment tests are straightforward from India, and the salary levels required for the permit generally sit high enough to support the ruling. But "generally" isn't "automatically," the two tests measure different things, and the four-month application window closes quietly.

Treat them as two separate approvals with two separate deadlines. Check both before you accept, not after you arrive.

If you're weighing up a Dutch offer and want to work through what it's actually worth after tax, we're happy to talk it through. Reach us at experts@adtsolution.com.

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