Dutch government increases cost for immigration

Posted November 30th, 2009 by johan

Dutch State Secretary of Justice Albayrak increased the administrative expenses to obtain a residence permit in the Netherlands at the end of 2009. This increase has to lead to a higher coverage of the operational costs of the Immigration- and Naturalization Service (IND) for the issue of (replacing) residence permits as well for the five-yearly renewal of the permanent residence permit.

Highly Skilled Migrants

Also the costs of MVV’s (provisional residence permits) for Highly Skilled Migrants (kennismigranten) have been increased significantly. Employers employing highly skilled new recruits under this program, will now have to pay € 750.- for a MVV instead of € 250.-. Due to the quick procedure, knowledge migrants have an answer to their request of stay within two weeks with minimum administrative costs. The State Secretary expects this huge increase of administrative fees to be of no influence on the number of knowledge migrants, since research of the advisory board of foreign affairs has shown that the height of administrative fees is of no influence on the closure of employment contracts. Mostly these fees are paid by the employer. It is known that employers mostly value the quick procedures over the height of the fees.