The Highly Skilled Migrant (Kennismigrant) Visa in Amsterdam: Salary Thresholds and the Sponsor System

The Official Rule

If you’re moving to Amsterdam for a role at a bank, a fintech, or a tech scale-up, there’s a good chance your residence permit runs through the kennismigrant (highly skilled migrant) scheme rather than a standard work-permit route. The defining feature of this permit isn’t really about you as the applicant, it’s about your employer. Only a company the IND has approved as a recognized sponsor can apply for a kennismigrant permit on your behalf, full stop. Roughly 10,000 organizations nationwide currently hold that status, everything from large multinationals to small, specifically-approved startups, and the register is public, so you can check a specific employer before you get too attached to a job offer.

The other hard requirement is salary. Your gross monthly pay has to clear a published threshold that the IND reviews once a year, on 1 January, and holds for the full calendar year (unlike some other Dutch income requirements that adjust twice a year). For 2026, those thresholds are:

The reduced criterion applies to recent graduates of a Dutch institution and to people on a valid search-year (orientation year) permit, not to graduates generally or indefinitely. A parallel scheme, the EU Blue Card, runs alongside kennismigrant with its own thresholds and its own eligibility rules (generally tied to a recognized higher-education qualification); if your situation might fit either route, it’s worth asking your employer’s immigration contact which one they’re actually filing.

Two more things worth knowing going in: there’s no labor market test, your employer never has to prove that no Dutch or EU candidate was available, and the application fee is 423 EUR. The IND’s legal decision period is 90 days, the same statutory maximum that applies across most regular permit categories.

Why 90 Days Isn’t the Number to Plan Around

Here’s where the sponsor system actually pays off. Because a recognized sponsor has already been vetted by the IND on an ongoing basis (financial soundness, reliability, compliance history), the case-by-case scrutiny that slows down other permit types largely doesn’t apply here. In practice, applications filed through a recognized sponsor commonly clear in 2 to 4 weeks, well inside the 90-day legal ceiling.

The gap opens up if your nationality requires an MVV, a provisional visa sticker you need before you can travel to the Netherlands at all. Even after the IND approves your permit, you still have to book an appointment at a Dutch embassy or consulate to collect that sticker, and that step alone can take a couple of weeks depending on the country and how busy the local mission is. Once you add that on top of the IND’s own processing, realistic total timelines for MVV-nationality applicants tend to run 5 to 7 weeks rather than 2 to 4.

Treat the 90-day figure the way you’d treat any legal ceiling: it’s the point at which you’re entitled to push back if you’ve heard nothing, not a forecast of your actual start date.

Why Amsterdam’s Sponsor Pool Runs Deep

Recognized-sponsor status is a national IND status, not a city-specific one, but Amsterdam’s concentration of finance and tech employers means the practical odds of your specific employer already being on the register are higher here than almost anywhere else in the country. The Zuidas business district alone is home to Amsterdam-headquartered recognized sponsors like Booking.com, Adyen, Optiver, and Mollie, and the wider Amsterdam tech and scale-up scene adds plenty more. The register also includes major national employers, like chipmaker ASML, whose staff frequently end up living in or commuting from Amsterdam even though the company itself is based elsewhere in the country.

Photo by Masood Aslami on Pexels

The IN Amsterdam Shortcut

Once your permit is approved, Amsterdam offers a genuinely useful shortcut that doesn’t exist for every permit category or every city. IN Amsterdam, a dedicated service point run out of the World Trade Center in Amsterdam Zuid (Strawinskylaan 1767), can combine three separate administrative steps, your residence permit, your municipal address registration (BRP), and your BSN issuance, into a single appointment lasting roughly 45 minutes. That’s a meaningfully different experience from the general IND process, where biometrics happen at one desk (Pieter Calandlaan, for the standard track) and BRP registration happens separately at a Stadsloket, often with its own multi-week wait.

A few practical details worth knowing:

• IN Amsterdam’s service area covers the wider Amsterdam metropolitan region, not just the city proper, including Almere, Diemen, Haarlem, Haarlemmermeer, Hilversum, and Velsen.
• It isn’t automatic. Your employer has to hold recognized-sponsor status and actively route your application through IN Amsterdam rather than the standard IND channel. Ask your employer’s HR or immigration contact which path they’re using before you assume you’ll get the combined appointment.
• Your BSN typically comes through the same day if you’re registering an address in Amsterdam or Amstelveen itself; for the other municipalities in the service area, it can take up to two additional days.

Step by Step

1. Confirm your employer’s recognized-sponsor status. If there’s any doubt, check the IND’s public register yourself before signing anything that assumes a kennismigrant permit is a formality.
2. Check which salary bracket applies to you, standard age-based threshold or the reduced graduate/search-year rate, and make sure your contract’s gross monthly figure clears it.
3. Your employer files the application as your sponsor and pays the 423 EUR fee; this isn’t something you submit yourself.
4. If your nationality needs an MVV, watch for the IND’s approval notice, then book your visa-sticker appointment at the nearest Dutch embassy or consulate as early as possible.
5. Travel to the Netherlands once your permit (and MVV sticker, if required) is in hand.
6. Complete registration, either through IN Amsterdam’s combined appointment if your employer uses that route, or through the standard IND biometrics plus a separate Stadsloket BRP appointment if not.
7. Once you have your BSN, move on to DigiD, a bank account, and health insurance, the next links in the newcomer chain.

What You’ll Need

• An employment contract with a gross monthly salary that clears your applicable threshold.
• Confirmation that your employer is listed in the IND’s public register of recognized sponsors.
• A valid passport, and an MVV visa sticker if your nationality requires one.
• The 423 EUR application fee (in practice, most employers cover this as part of the relocation package, but confirm rather than assume).

Compliance Note

This page explains the general rules as published by the IND and reported by immigration practitioners as of 2026. It is not immigration advice for your specific situation. Salary thresholds are reviewed annually and recognized-sponsor status can change, so confirm current figures and your employer’s status directly with the IND or a licensed immigration lawyer before relying on anything here for a real application.