THIS VIDEO IS OUTDATED. Watch the 2023 update here: th-cam.com/video/0ceOjk2xSsk/w-d-xo.html Also: if you're an American exploring a move to the Netherlands, check out our 15-page moving guide. It includes all of the stuff we learned along the way and links and contact info for everything you'll need from immigration to buying furniture when you arrive. buncharted.gumroad.com/l/help-me-move-to-the-netherlands
The main reason that health insurance in the Netherlands is so much cheaper than the US is that it's government mandated, so everyone pays in. Doesn't matter that you are young and in great health, it's basically a solidarity based system that keeps the price relatively low for everyone.
I think your reply doesn’t do justice to the difference in health insurance between The Netherlands and the US. The government in The Netherlands dictates the basic health insurance coverage (basically covering all regular needs), with an own risk of EUR 385; and it dictates that all residents are required to have (this) basic health insurance. Second, health insurance parties determine their prices for this package independently, the government is not involved in the pricing and they pay no dime in the coverage, nor do they guarantee anything; fully market mechanism. Even with these constraints the cheapest insurance is EUR 131,95 per month. If you break your leg, get cancer, have a heart attack, you don’t pay more than the EUR 385 own risk. My view is that the health insurance cost in the US is higher because of other factors than regular market dynamics.
Health care in the US is profit driven, unlike here in the Netherlands. Plus the salaries of doctors are insanely high in comparison to here, which also reflects in the bill.
We retired to NL from UK 8yrs ago. We thought life her would be more expensive, so were very careful initially. We bought a cheap house and cheap car etc. We had some savings and expected that these would go down year on year, but in fact they've gone up. Life here is less expensive than we had expected. Some things (motoring, clothes) are more expensive, but others (groceries, council tax) are cheaper. Can't comment on rent, as we sold a house in the UK and bought one here with the proceeds, but generally housing is cheaper the further away you are from Amsterdam and the Randstad.
@@rgasta7765 €190k for a raw newbuild tussenwoning. About €250k once we'd got it kitted out and decorated. Bear in mind this was 9yrs ago. Asking price for a house on the same block is now €400k. Also bear in mind this is about 90km east of Amsterdam.
When you eventually buy a property be very aware of "erfpacht". Larger cities can have this, epecially Amsterdam, while smaller towns usually dont. Its a weird situation where you buy the property, but not the land on which its built. That land you have to rent from the city. Sometimes you will see that for example the rent for the next 20 years is included, after that you will have to renegotiate. This could be 100's of Euros a month. Further more, apartments are also always part of a "VVE", basically the community of owners that takes care of the builing as a whole. This includes things like roofing, elevators, cleaning of common hallways, foundations, things like that. This can also cost 100's of Euro's. This can lead to the weird situation that even though you fully own the apartment, you still have to pay like 500 a month. To avoid these additional monthly fees, look at single family homes in the suburbs or smaller towns. The land on which the house is build is almost always included and obviously you wont have any shared costs with other owners. Housing prices therefore can be very deceptive. One 300k home may be way more expensive than another 300k home in reality.
I would like to add extra context as another Dutch person. Vereniging van Eigenaars (VvE) is comparable to a homeowner association, except it's required by law for apartments here. Basically the law states that if you have a building which is subdivided a VvE is required for the upkeep (joint/collative upkeep paid by and/or done by the owners of the apartments). In America it may not be required to join a homeowner association, but here it's not only mandatory but you can even get fines if the owners of apartments within a building neglect to do any maintenance, the municipality/local government can even force/order the VvE to do upkeep and give fines, in the worse case scenario the local government could do the maintenance themselves and fine the VvE. Keep this in mind if you are going to buy an apartment. Make sure the VvE is active and if not make it active by actively participating in it and paying the upkeep together. In the end it's cheaper then getting fined through the teeth.
@@autohmae Indeed, but there is a small difference. It's not always required in the US, but here in The Netherlands it's mandatory by law when buying/owning an apartment.
@@RemziCavdar Right, a VvE for apartments is like a condo association or a strata in Canada or one of the other countries that uses that form of ownership. If you can, it's definitely a good idea to look into how the VvE is managed, what the monthly fees are, what their budget/reserves and upcoming costs are, etc. before making a purchase.
@@gerrittlighthart Indeed, and participation is mandatory by law here (for apartments - meaning a building subdivided). The fees are mandatory etc.. So you don't have a choice not to participate lol 😆😂
For 2300 a month you can buy quite the house. I would recommend buying, always. Rent is money wasted, mortgage is money saved. Yes, house prices are through the roof, but looking at your budget, I highly recommend buying. The is no way you would pay 2300 on interest (the money post that is wasted). Even if you would have a mortgage of 2300, then still about half of that is money you store in the house and you get back when you sell it.
Long term plans already, ey? Great! Draw a line between Rotterdam, Amsterdam and Utrecht. Everything within the triangle is 'de Randstad' (most industrialised part of NL) and will be premium priced. The further you go outside of it, the more housing prices will drop.
If you are planning on moving to a smaller city, look at Arnhem, capital of the Province of Gelderland. I've lived there most of my adult life and I loved it there. It has a bit of an international atmosphere, there are hills in the city, lots og green, national parks right outside the city and the River Rhine. Good public transport (trolley busses) and train station with trains in all directions. For instance: 35 minutes to Utrecht, 58 minutes to Amsterdam South, 1 hr and 5 minutes to Amsterdam Central and also the ICE, German high speed train, stops in Arnhem, it will take you to Cologne in 2 hours.
I would recommend visiting Arnhem to see how you like the city. The city is also pretty close to Germany if you ever want to do a short trip to a Christmas market for example! The train connections to the rest of the country are really good and there are a lot of cultural options if you like that. Hope you guys have fun exploring the country and find a nice city to call home!
As a Dutchy, get out of that appartment as soon as possible...I think you can buy (a decent old house in a cheaper town) for half the amount you are paying right now, and that's a lot of difference you can spend on other areas. Chase your perfect spot from that location if needed, the returns are immediate and you can save some.
I totally agree: a super beautiful old and modern city with over 365K inhabitants. Canals that look totally different than the ones in other Dutch cities. Foreigners often call it a smaller version of Amsterdam, with less tourists and therefore more authentic Dutch. Disadvantage: probably not less expensive than Rotterdam!
Yes I was in the Netherlands for 6 days recently. Im from the UK. I was staying in Amsterdam near the airport. I wasn’t too far from Utrecht but next time.
Great information! We, a small family, are moving to Netherlands in a couple of months. As a person who has lived in NYC for several years, I found comparisons btw US and Netherlands were especially useful. Thanks!
I think the biggest advice I can give you is to stay out of big cities. Personally I can only speak for Noord-Holland, as that's where I was born and raised, but the closer you get to Amsterdam, the more unnecessarily expensive it gets with no real added benefits to a small family, especially if you have younger kids. If you still want to live in a "big city", go to Alkmaar or Heerhugowaard. If you want a small city with a "big city feeling", you'll like Schagen or Hoorn. Den Helder is incredibly well connected to the rest of the country. Towns like Julianadorp, Anna Paulowna, Hippolytushoef, etc, are great small towns for young kids with good connections to bigger cities through PT (Anna Paulowna is a town with its own train connection even). In Noord Brabant where my family is from, you want to stay away from places like Eindhoven, Tilburg, Den Bosch, etc, but towns with great connections there are places like Vught, Rosmalen, and Best, or even Uden and Helmond, but especially Oss, which is between Den Bosch and Nijmegen, and Nijmegen can very easily get you throughout the country by just a single train.
Employers in the Netherlands do pay part of your health insurance too, it's lumped in the employee salary taxes (ZVW between 5.5-7%)... Being self employed, you need to pay those taxes too. being self employed you don't need a bookkeeper, you could do it yourself, but yes, it's easier, especially if you don't know what and where to pay.
As someone from the US looking to retire to NL, this is incredibly helpful. By my calculations even as retirees we'll save on healthcare, which is impressive. Housing costs are soaring as you know, but I'm optimistic the aggressive housing construction plan will eventually help with that and I have to say, outside of the hyper-desirable AMS and ROT markets rents are reasonable. To me, the great unknown are property taxes. Having trouble finding good data on that. Anyone care to answer what's the combined local and other property tax as a percent of property value?
If you own or rent a home, you must pay the so called 'municipal taxes'. Every year, the municipality in which you live calculates the value of your house on 1 January of the previous year, the so-called WOZ value. Based on this value, you pay property tax: 0.0431% (in Amsterdam, where I live, for example, it is 0.1%) of the WOZ value. If your house is worth 300K, the tax will be: 129.3 euros / year Then there are a number of fixed taxes for example Amsterdam; Waste charge: 1 person household 344 euros / year 2 or more person household 459 euros / year sewage charge: 152.50 euros / year In addition to these municipal charges, you also pay a water tax (this also differs per municipality). For Amsterdam this is about 375 euros / year
I pay €77 a month local tax on a property worth about 400k. Also €18.20 a month for water and €29.29 a month sewage. We are about 90km east of Amsterdam.
Energy consumption is extremely seasonal. Because of the differences in temperature between the seasons, nearly all of the energy (mostly gas) is used in the winter months. Monthly billing based on the actual consumption would cause serious financial problems for many people during the cold months. The solution with the monthly advances and the yearly bill makes the energy costs manageable for most people, especially the ones who are most likely to have financial problems. In return, the energy companies get a free loan from their customers out of it, which is used to buy the gas in advance when it is cheaper (usually summertime, when demand is lower).
Omg as a Dutch person I'm baffled at the grocery budget for 2 people! Do you throw a lot of dinner parties or do you have children? Do you buy a lot of Vegetarische Slager at Albert Heijn? That coupled with the health insurance and rent was most shocking to me :P
I live in the US born and raised and I'm stunned by their grocery bill and insurance. They're paying out too much on groceries for sure for two people I don't know what they're eating. And they say they're vegan so they're not buying meat which is expensive. I'm one person and I spend about $200 a month, sorry I don't know euros. Me spending $200 a month, I have plenty of food. As far as health insurance I guess I'm lucky because I have never paid for insurance. They talk about the "cobra" plans the an employer will offer, but I've never known anyone that paid for that insurance because it's too pricey. I always held down a full time job and my insurance was always paid for by the company. I'm currently disabled and the government pays my insurance now.
@@joycedominguez8997 Thanks for the insight, I understand the insurance much better now! Groceries are still a mystery to me, euro's and dollars are like same value right now, and my man and I spend between €250-300 a month here for the two of us and that includes meat. Vegetables are really cheap here too, unless you only buy the pre-cut ones I guess? But even a fresh and pre-cut stirfry mix, that feeds 3 people royally, costs only €1.50! At the expensive supermarket it's still under 3 bucks. My (American) boyfriend was actually surprised by how cheaply you can prepare a healthy meal here. All to say, I still don't understand how one gets to €500. Name brand snacks, fresh fish? Disregard for weekly sales? At any rate, always interesting to see the contrast 🙂
I think it depends on how much you are willing to pay. As a Dutch family of 3, we pay about 100 euros for the base groceries every week. And then about 50 euros each week for additional things like fruit and vegetables. That's excluding my personal lunch of about 90 euros per month. Can we safe on those expenses. Sure! Do we need to? Not really. As long as you are comfortable paying it, I think you can easily spend much more then required.
it’s just my wife and I and our “normal” grocery budget for a week is like $200-300 week. that doesn’t include the costco run which is about once a month and dining out. it is what it is🤷🏼♂️
Go live in a small city or village. We bought a house (325k) and pay €800,- per month. Tussenwoning by the water, 4 bedrooms, big bathroom, etc, etc. Rotterdam and cities like that are ridiculously expensive. Good luck in The Netherlands and nice to see people saying The Netherlands instead of Holland 👌🏻
Have a look at Alkmaar also….this historical small city is called Little Amsterdam because of the canals. It’s close to the sea and the dunes. And just 35 minutes to Amsterdam.
Hey neighbours! I live in Schiedam which is located very well near Rotterdam, Delft and the Hague and has much more affordable housing and excellent public transport options. Definitely check it out sometime when you start looking around.
Thank you! Great information :) We’re a family of 3 starting our research to move there after military retirement. We spend $3900 😳 on rent in CA, so housing seems much more affordable for us there.
You have three kinds of basic health insurance (basisverzekering), the cheap one (budget polis), the medium prized (natura polis) and the expensive one (restitutie polis). The cheap insurance gives you no choice, you can only use the medical facilities the insurance company dictates you. This could mean that if you need a knee operation f.e. you’ll will have to go to a hospital which they have a contract with for that specific operation, usually just one in the whole country, and this hospital could be on the other side of the country. The medium insurance gives you more medical facilities to choose from, but only the ones they have a contract with. With the expensive insurance you will have an almost free choice out of all the medical facilities. You will get the bill of the medical facility and sometimes you pay them first and get the money back from the insurance company and with bigger bills, you send the bill to them and they pay it for you. The thing is that you can only get access to the medical facilities, specialists and pharmacies via the huisarts (GP or family doctor), they are the gatekeeper of our health system. And they are not easily fooled or bribed. We Dutch don’t go to the huisarts when we have the flu or a cold. He won’t receive you, you cannot make an appointment, you won’t get past the assistant. Take a ibuprofen or aspirin and go to bed. No antibiotics (against bacteria) for the flu (virus) in this country, because it simply won’t work and makes bacteria resistant to antibiotics. The body must overcome the flu on itself, with rest, fluids and some lightly digestible food. And don’t go to work until you’re better, otherwise you’ll infect others. Simple and effective.
Michelle, are you going to be looking for a job here? Also just to clarify for people that don't know: not everyone in the Netherlands needs to pay these montly fees. Lower incomes get surtax to help pay. This can be up to €111 per month (for people making 22K a year or less). The absolute basic health insurance is around €125 a month, so those people would be paying €14 a month for health insurance.
good clarification - thank you! we were going to add some bits in here about the subsidizations offered by the government but we didn’t feel like we knew enough to speak about it confidently.
Judging by the price you probably live in one of the newer built luxury apartment towers like the Zalmhaventoren, Cooltoren or one of the high rises on the Kop van Zuid. A more normal price would be 1300-1500 for an apartment in the open market in Rotterdam.
Housing prices outside of de Randstad are a bit more realistic. Especially when you buy the house compared to renting. Also regarding the monthly installments on the energybill: what happens is that you provide your meterreading at moving in/start of contract. Based on historic consumption on that adress you get a monthly installment proposition. This will act as a savingsaccount for the year. At the end of the year you provide your meterreading again (manual or smart meter) and the actual usage (usage X price = actual cost) will be deducted from your paid installments. The difference you get returned or need to pay extra depending on your usage. This prevents the situation where one would pay €1 in july for actual usage and €500 in february and maybe getting into huge financial issues during the winter. This way you spread it into even amounts.
When you are going to look for a place to live in the Netherlands and don't want to be car dependent look for the places where the international trains stop. The Belgium bound ICE train does Breda, Rotterdam, Schiphol and Amsterdam. The commute between Breda and Amsterdam is one hour. The Germany bound IC train from Amsterdam has two trunks or options. Via Utrecht, Driebergen, Veenendaal, Ede-Wageningen and Arnhem. The other via Hilversum, Amersfoort, Apeldoorn and Deventer. The commute on the Germany bound train is one hour and 15 minutes or 30 minutes. Amsterdam, Rotterdam, Utrecht, Hilversum and Amersfoort are core cities of the Randstad and housing is less affordable depending on your means. Living in these cities give you quick access to Amsterdam, Brussel and Dusseldorf airports.
You should visit Leeuwarden, its a city in the north of the Netherlands. It's a ''bigger'' city, (nowhere near as big as Rotterdam though). BUT housing prices are half that of Rotterdam while stil having the feel of living in a bigger city.
Thank you! This is the first cost of living video I've seen that isnt from broke college students and specifically about Rotterdam. I'm moving my family from Massachusetts to Rotterdam next year and this is the most in depth coverage Ive seen so far.
Just be aware there is a mandotory 'own risk' eigen risico if you use certain parts of healthcare it is about 385 euro per year per adult. This f.i. some labwork, hosptal care.
Interessanting to hear the differences with the US! ☺️ Breda could be a good option for you in the future. Beautiful city, not too big, not too small. The housing prices are (a lot) lower than in Rotterdam and you still have a central location in the rest of the Netherlands.
@@buncharted appartement rent prices for the size you guys are looking for are around 800/1000 a month in breda but like you said there's allot of people wanting those. House prices for most appartements are around 250k and a normal house depending on size would be around 300k
Wow! As a native I must say that rent is gargantuan! I have some extra benefit having lived in the same spot for over 20 years, but I pay less then €500 rent each month. If you guys want to stay and buy a house, you'll be astonished at the morgage you'll pay. (hint, it'll be less)
Yeah if you can work from home you can save a TON not living in a big city with skyhigh free market rent. 500 euro is very little though. And in a small out of the way town you'd still be able to get good internet and big cities are not that far away, especially if you are used to U.S distances.
But as native civilian living in social housing i pay 365 euro/rent month right in the center of Amsterdam which is even more expensive then Rotterdam on average. for a 2 room apartment with small garden there is a very big rent difference between social and non social renting.
What are the things you are looking for in a smaller city you want to move to eventually? How much smaller are we talking, what are must haves, does location matter (in proximity of something) etc. I could (and I am fairly certain other Dutches here too) come up with a few places worth checking out for you if I had a little bit more information.
I would be careful buying a house on the short term, since due to the extreme low interest of past years, the prices are unrealisticly high. As we return to more normal interest levels, the house prices will probably drop in the next years. Meaning if you buy for the short time, you may end up loosing money and renting is a saver option for the next two or three years.
I'm from the Netherlands. 2350 for rent is an obscenely high amount. All your other expenses fade into nothing in comparison. I can rent a 150m2 house with swimming pool and garage for that kind of money, and have left over to lease 2 cars. It's insane. You are not required to have a bookkeeper, but for that amount I'd keep him. Make sure that when he's in error, he will take full accountability. 50 cent's kWh is actually okay a.t.m. There are variable day to day contracts that can get to ~20 cents. You might want to look into those. I pay 1.05 Euro kWh, but get 90 cents feed in tariff.
39 euro is council tax for council services, which you pay if you are a registered as a resident of a council (Rotterdam in your case). This is based on number of persons registered at your address. This pays for: sewage, garbage disposal, pest control, local road upkeep etc. This is Not for the property you are renting. Owner pays this to the council (and you eventually through your rent) which is much more, think in the 5-10000 euro range for a low/medium value home (around 2% of property value, differs per council).
These numbers can’t be right. I pay (and I’m single) to my municipality a tax for my property as an owner €270 a year. I also pay €216 for the municipal sewage system and €256 for sanitation/garbage disposal. Besides that I pay to the Waterboard two or three taxes, one is for all the pumps, dykes, locks, levies so we can keep living on land below sea level, and one tax for sewage treatment plants and surface water quality. I don’t know what I pay exactly to the Waterboard because I can’t find their tax bill (I just moved and everything is still in boxes), but it is about €300 a year. So if it really is €39/month for council tax it is a bargain and it’s for two persons.
Not only you are paying less than in the US, but also the quality of the services are better: they give you more certainty when things go bad. Health insurances have to accept you even with preexisting conditions, as a renter you have a very strong legal protection, you can apply for a rent allowance (huurtoeslag) and health insurance allowance (zorgtoeslag) from the national government and remission from the local taxes. I wonder whether this exists in the US.
I live in the Netherlands, and electricity is free for me, and i pay 115 for gas. Pay 30 for Healthcare because i get money for that and it's not basic Pay 50 for unlimited home and unlimited mobile combination
i live in a small town in the netherlands and my rent is roughly 600 to 700 euros and thats for a 2 bedroom family home, the costs of living in a large city is way higher. if you want to live here in the netherlands consider going to smal towns. public transit is good enough and you can get to bigger citys in 1 to 2 hours (depending on location) you dont realy need your own car to get anny where in the netherlands.
interesting video! As a resident of the Netherlands I would recommend s-Hertogenbosch to check it out. Beautiful city but smaller and more friendly than the Randstad. From there you can travel to Eindhoven, Nijmegen, Utrecht and Amsterdam in about 30-60 minutes. We do celebrate 'under the rivers' carnival in February, then the city is turned upside down with party people 🤣
I can tell you this...2350 just for rent is very high. So depending on what you want, there are cheaper places to live in the Netherlands. I've lived in many places, but like Utrecht the most. If you are paying that kind of rent...it would be a lot cheaper to buy a home, your mortgage would be way lower and it would eventually be more useful later on. What I have noticed is that in the USA you might pay a lot on insurance, taxes and that sort of stuff, but other stuff like clothes, toys and things like that, that you buy in stores seem to be a lot cheaper.
Bookkeeper is not compulsory. You can learn it yourself and cut these unneeded expenses. By the way, if you are a freelancer then there are some ways to save for retirement with tax benefits. Regarding small towns: nearby Rotterdam try Breda or Roosendaal. Den Bosch and Nijmegen are also very lovely.
2:15 You dont have to pay property taxes when you are renting in the Netherlands. This tax is for the owners only! The owner is not allowed to let people who rent a house, pay that tax. (onroerend goed belasting) As the user you do have to pay for sewer (riool), your waste, and waterschap. Bookkeeping is not required to have someone else do it. If you know how, you are allowed to do everything yourself.
Tip: have a look at the city Deventer, there is a bunch of new apartments build mostly small due to the actual need for living. and the prices as far as i could tell aren't too bad.
@@buncharted You could consider Arnhem as well. Especially the Schuytgraaf neighbourhood. Relatieve high density of expats for the region, close to other significant towns/cities and eveything you need, nature included.
The UK also has the same energy billing concept that they estimate your annual total and divide it by 12, correcting it based on actual meter readings from time to time. I think this is because many people cannot run a household budget successfully and would get into debt in the winter when the energy bills are higher. I live in Finland and we are billed every 2 months based on the actual usage of the previous 2 months. Perhaps people are able to budget their living costs better here.
If you’re looking for a smaller and reasonably priced city then Groningen might be for you! It has about 200k inhabitants, a large student population making the city very vibrant and progressive, a large international population meaning you’ll manage fine with only speaking English, possibly better than with Dutch. Its housing prices are about 75% of those in the Randstad, while also having much larger homes with comparatively a lot of outside space for sale. And there’s a direct train connection to Schiphol meaning it’s still easy for your friends and family to come over or vice versa! If you’re reliant on a job in the randstad area you should definitely look at Utrecht. It’s very similar to Groningen altho much bigger (and more expensive). Despite being bigger it does still kind of have that ‘small city’ charm to it, and altho more expensive than Groningen it’s much cheaper than Amsterdam and Rotterdam while only being a 20 minute train ride! Sincerely hope you’ll find a great home to enjoy your time in the Netherlands. Cheers!
I was a student in Belgium and learned Dutch there. Back here in America I saw a car with a bumper sticker with what looked like a Dutch dialect, but I didn't recognize it. A young woman got out of the car and I asked her if it was a Dutch dialect and she said, "yes, it is the dialect of Groningen."
Ook als geboren en getogen Utrechter kan ik zeggen: Groningen is een beregezellige stad. Utrecht is te groot en te druk geworden, Groningen herinnerd me sterk op een positieve manier aan Utrecht uit mijn jeugd. Mijn overgrootouders komen er vandaan en mijn grootouders zijn "geemigreerd" naar Utrecht pakweg 100 jaar geleden. Maar er woont nog steeds veel familie van me (Dijksterhuis is een echte Groningse naam) , ook de provincie is prachtig. Wie weet, als ik met pensioen ga, dat ik terugkeer naar het land van mijn voorvaderen, haha. Fijne avond Roy!
Move East (Gelderland) or North (Groningen), with cheaper cost of living, however you need car(-s) for mobility. Working from home and by Internet can be from anywhere in The Netherlands.
Im surprised about the heating installment you mentioned. I was also paying 120€ per month until I saw the real consumption in the app. And it was 500€ per month in this winter. ( its me and my wife and we only heat living room) Also don’t understand, what people eat, when they say 500€ is too much for 2 people. We spend 600€ on average. 😏
our apartment is new and has an A energy rating, which is nice (and one of a few things that helps us justify the extremely high rent, at least to ourselves 😆) groceries are different for everyone, i agree. we're vegetarian at home which tends to cost more, plus we have two cats, so that means buying cat food and litter. i would like to get better about buying stuff that's on sale though.
I do mis te insurance for incapacity for work? If you’re self-imploded (ZZP) you need yourself to fix a long time plan. Lots off ZZP’ers don’t choose for this insurance, no because they don’t need it but just because is to expensive same goes for a pension plan.
You are not required to have someone do your bookkeeping if you’re self employed. I’ve been for 5 years and do it myself. They do recommend it. But my bookkeeping for the ‘ZZP’ is quite simple cause it’s next to a fulltime job.
As a person who has lived abroad as well, i totally understand your remarks. Your medical insurance cost however is not properly calculated. As an employee your employer will keep 5,5% of your gross for health purposes. As a self employed person you will get, next to your income tax bill also a health contribution bill of about 7% of your turnover. Besides that you will have to pay the first 385 euros of medical cost in a year yourself, as your own risk.
2350 on rent? WOW. I live in a small village in the Netherlands and i own a home. Just a normal "Rijtjeshuis" (terraced house??). It's 3 bedroom, 1 bathroom, attic and huge livingroom with open kitchen, house. Oh, and a seperate toilet in the hall near the entrance. Since i bought it, i have a mortgage on the house. I pay NEARLY 600,- on the mortgage. That makes me a home owner....i am shocked about the rental in Rotterdam......just mind-blowing.
My wife and I pay for 3 old derelict ( for US standards) village houses we own in the South of France 3.000 € local taxes per year.Quite lot for that kind of real estate . I pay 50 € for both our cellphones, seems slightly cheaper than in the NL.
Rotterdam and Amsterdam do have a housing problem, but if you move to the Hague, you will find it more easy to find what your looking for, and way more cheaper, And the Hague is a very beautiful city, and very close to the Beach
the hague was where we ran into the situation michelle spoke about in the video. :( it was our first choice of where we wanted to live! we love den haag ❤️
Like everyone already mentioned you are extremely overpaying for your rent. Get in the subway in Rotterdam and take a little trip to the beach destination “Hoek van Holland”. While you are in the train look out the window you will pass several little city’s Schiedam, Vlaardingen and Maassluis. All minutes close to Rotterdam to commute but way greener and way cheaper to rent. We Dutch people will never pay ridicculous ammounts like 2000,- or more on rent. We all pay way less. Oh and do this on a sunny day and you wil also discouver the nice beach.😊
Renting a housse or appartment especially in one of the major cities is far more expensive then buying one outside those major cities . I live in the most southern part of the Netherlands and I own a 4 bedroom row house with 150m2 garden , my mortgage is 310 euro's a month. You can buy a really nice appartment here for around 1200 a month.
about the taxes, every household pays taxes/fees for water system usage (waterschappen), property taxes (onroerend zakenbelastig OZB) and waste management (afvalstoffenheffing). The tarifs vary per county.
Dental insurance has a maximum compensation, which is usually about twice the amount you pay for it. So if you pay 250 per year for the insurance, it will at most cover about 500 euro cost per year. I don't think the financial risk, that the insurance covers, is worth the insurance premium. Unless you know or expect to have dental problems.
You do have to pay for health insurance out of your income. Your employer does it and if you are self-employed you will be taxed. It is 5.75% of the first €58,300 of your gross income. That's why health insurance is so cheap and why people with low income can get the same health insurance.
Buying a house is the outskirts of a medium sized city in the Netherlands, like Breda or Roosendaal will cost you around €1200 per month for a three to four bedroom house (rijtjeshuis, 1 gezinswoning)
My husband and I worked at the same place in the US. We just quit our jobs and are moving to NL in 3 weeks. While with that company, we were fortunate to have an employer who offered insurance (since it isn’t required) AND heavily subsidized the cost for us. Although they underpaid everyone to also cover the benefits. The majority of my jobs in the US did not offer insurance or offered plans that were at too high a cost to me to be able to sign up for them. When we quit, the amount we would have had to pay ourselves to keep the insurance (which was a basic plan- no bells and whistles) was $1800 a month EACH.
yes! we talk about this a bit in the cost of living video that we just posted (it's a 2023 update to this video - highly recommend checking it out). but our health care cost as self-employed people here is the same as our own contribution in the US -- even though employers were paying MOST of the costs there. that's crazy. and yeah, we wouldn't be able to do this in the US, because the cost of insurance when you're self-employed is absolutely bananas.
You are going to have to pay your own risk on your health plan. Round 350.- a year if you use it up. Which will likely happen if you have prescription medication. And Rotterdam is probably the 4th most expensive city behind Amsterdam, Utrecht, Haarlem
Hi, you could buy a 3 bedroom apartment in Rhoon, which is close to Rotterdam, for less than € 400.000,- . Monthly mortgage would then be approx. € 1400,- nett (incl. mortgage interest deduction). That would save you around € 1000,- a month.
You can rent a 'one famely house' for less then € 800,- outside the big city's. For the saved mony you can buy a car or travel as much as you like with public transportation.
You missed the €385 eigen risico, so you're gonna pay for your €10 per month medication anyway (if you didn't have any other costs before that). It's just billed by your health insurance and not directly by the farmacy. The first €385 of health costs during a year is at your own expense. Also you missed waterschapsbelasting it seems which can be up to €80 per month and is used for water management and flood protection expenses (you might not have had that letter yet because it only comes once a year, and it also varies greatly per municipality how much it is).
i should have mentioned the deductible. it would have made the comparison to US insurance even greater - the costs we talked about in the video were with a deductible (our expense) that is much higher than in the NL! and i didn’t know about the waterschapsbelasting - thank you for telling us!
Are you listing all your insurances here? If so, I would advice to take out some additional insurances such as travel insurance, liability insurance, law-assistance insurance. They are all fairly cheap (
i didn’t go into a ton of detail on my business expenses, but you’re right that i definitely should have mentioned liability insurance. is travel insurance for medical? that’s included in our health care plan. we have separate providers because we want KPN fiber and KPN doesn’t have unlimited calling/texting to the US, but t-mobile does! so that ended up making more economic sense.
@@buncharted I'm not an insurance expert, and I don't know your health care plan, but in my case I do need extra medical insurance when travelling. In some cases you need extra medical travel insurance. For example if you go skiing or snowboarding. Another example is (which might apply to you) that in general the standard medical insurance covers costs abroad up to the amount that it would cost you if you would undergo the procedure in the Netherlands, so if you go to a more expensive country (which there aren't a lot of) like the US or Switzerland, you might need an extra travel medical insurance. I don't know if this is the case for every health care plan, so you should check this specifically since I'm assuming you plan on travelling to the US in some future :) The good news is that you only need the insurance for the dates that you are actually travelling. (it's still rather cheap so I just keep it turned on) Your choice to split the provider makes a lot of sense :)
If you'r a student you pay around 800 euro for an approximately 10 square meters room in Amsterdam, Utrecht and Rotterdam. You guy's are very and I mean very lucky with that. If you at the 80 euro's per m2 I think you will pay a lot more than the US especially if you take in consideration that people that do use gas for the house are paying like 400 to 500 euro's each month. This is not included in the rent. You got a goldmine, nicely done. P.S.I'm dutch
There are employers who offer collective health insurance which is often a better deal. Better coverage and less premium per month. That also gets taken out of your paycheck.
Y'all... You're paying 2k+ for a three bedroom ggfhgfghg. First of all, wanna say that two-bedroom housing is now the legal standard, every residence, whether rented or sold, cannot be rented or sold if it doesn't have at least two bedrooms, so there's that. Second of all, when rent for an apartment is below 700€, you can get part of your rent back from the tax department if your income is below minimum wage (which is 1.6k€ at time of writing). My apartment is 431€, two bedrooms (one is my laundry/PC room, because I live alone), and I get 199€ back from that, making my rent 232€ in practice (this includes service costs for the building and getting anything in my house fixed by the housing association). And I live in a city that's the end station to the intercity train that gets you just about anywhere in the country (if you're Dutch, you know exactly which city that is). Since I'm low income, I pay about 165€ on basic health insurance including own risk fees, which I max out (385€) every year due to my medical needs, but I get 154€ a month back from the tax department. My grocery budget is 250€ because I buy and cook large quantities of food and chuck it fresh into my dedicated freezer (partially bc it's cheaper and partially bc I HATE cooking with a vengeance). I also spread my purchases across supermarkets, usually at Lidl, Albert Heijn, and Vomar, though I only buy sales at AH, bc €€€. I have funeral insurance that's €7.22, I have home insurance that covers everything 100% whether it's my fault or not, covers me against theft in and outside my home, and accidents in and outside my home towards others and their property, which costs me €13,92 a month. My phone bill is €10 a month at Simpel, SIM-only, unlimited calling and texts and 8GB data that I legit just don't use because WiFi is everywhere. My internet is 60.50€ at Ziggo, nets me 600MB/s, but as soon as 1GB/s is available in my apartment, I'll switch, bc it costs 62€ pm. The only biggest thing rn for me is my electricity, for December, my bill was 209€, and I use under average for both gas and electricity, because I can't use gas for anything in my house except for heating (and I prefer cold), and aside from my desktop, I don't have big energy eaters in my house. But you know, energy crisis, so it's gonna suck for a good while. Living in a big city is unnecessarily expensive. My city isn't big, got about 65k people living here, but it *is* the end station for PT connections, meaning I can get anywhere in the country in max 3 hours if I needed to. I can be in Amsterdam in less than 90 minutes with traffic. If you go to live in the NL, if you love yourself, stay out of big cities. It's just gonna drive up costs and you don't gain a lot more than if you were to live in a nearby or well-connected small city.
By this comparison it seems like cost of living would be lower in the Netherlands - until you account for average wage. $5,615 in Austin vs. €2300 in NL is definitely something to take into account! Also the fact that in the Netherlands the minimum income requirement for a €1500 apartment is €4500 for one person and €5500 for two people, this already makes it impossible to find a place to live if you don't make above average wage in the majority of the country.
You need to know that a €1500 apartment is not that common. The average rent is €775, half of what you use as an example. When you pay €1500 you are on premium locations in city centres, or you have a luxurious sized house outside the city. Me and my ex used to live outside the city, we rented a part of a farm. Our rent was just about €700 ,on the main floor we had the living room with an open kitchen, a scullery/laundry room next to it to place your washing machine/dryer etc.. A big room you could use as office space, a toilet (these are usually separate from showers etc). a large bathroom with bathtub. upstairs we had 3 large bedrooms another toilet, another bathroom but with a shower and on top of that a huge attic. So, that is what we had for €700 in the countryside, not to mention the stunning environment you are in, for €1500 in the countryside you would live like a king. and probably not even use half of the space you are renting for that money. Living in cities IS expensive, that is because every expat wants to live there, every student from abroad wants to live there. It's the place to party, shop, meet people from other countries. Not to mention that our country is one of the most dense populated countries in the world and living space is getting more precious every year because everyone wants to move to the Netherlands. And with the help of google maps you can see the farm, , Country: Netherlands Place: Banholt Street: Bredeweg 2. click on streetview in google maps to have a proper view. The part we rented was at the left from the main green gate. The owners lived in the right side.
@@mrnobody043 The average rent is so low because of social housing, which is cheap but again you have to fit in a certain income group and well even if you fit in that income group you won't be getting that cheap housing anytime soon. Of course rent is a bit higher if you live further away from cities but then you also will have to take into account increased transport costs, at least if your career involves working around a city. Just know that if you do end up getting kids and you live far away from a city you are doing them one solid problem for their future. The lack of vicinity of a university or maybe even work with a pretty rough way out towards a city with the lack of affordable housing and youth wages that are... criminally underpaid.
As of your reaction on the rent for an appointment for instance, you should look at surrounding villages. Are you go to the village is usually cheaper than living in the city. If you figure out there is a lot of public transport. It doesn’t matter if you live in Rotterdam or somewhere in the neighbourhood it’s just a tip
The gas prices are weird tho, given the fact we have enough gas for 30 years, under the province of Groningen. But we love to sell it to other countries and then buy back more expensive. The water tho is something else. It’s very clear and can drink it from the ‘kraan’.
Those municipal taxes (not taxes for renting/owning a house it's just linked to your address) and sewage taxes are for all the benefits our country offers and most Dutch take for granted but expat notice and point out often. Our bike paths are build from those city taxes for instance or firetrucks and upkeep at our fire stations, landscaping and upkeep in public spaces, garbage trucks underground garbage etc and sewage taxes is so that you can drink our water straight out of the tap without getting sick, and to regulate our waterways efficient since we have some trouble with to much water otherwise. To mention some things, there is a lot more that get paid from those taxes.
we happily pay them (well, as happily as one can pay taxes, haha). we tell everyone back home that it is nice to see our taxes put to work here on things that improve our lives!
I also live in the netherlands, near rotterdam, i would advise you to look up krimpen aan de ijssel, or near villages. Or take a tour through the near villages
Thanks for this video. It's really helpful for people moving to NL. I saw a similar video before moving to Rotterdam and the biggest saving I learned was to get Budget mobile for phones. I pay 60 euros for 3 lines with unlimited data, call and text.
Nice comparison videos i love them. I would like to add that when you're self-employed it's not mandatory to have a bookkeeper, you can do it yourself if you now how to do it. It's my advise to use one, but still not mandatory.
Oh man, you can buy a house in Brabant very easily if that's your rent. But you should be smart and look at the housing market prices and make a tactical decision. I live in tilburg and you can buy a house in the quiet/safer sub-urban area between 200(++)-500k. (some provinces are cheaper) idk precisely about the mortgage loans at the moment but you got serious opinions if you want it. Just a well meant advice, it's none of my business but I'm shocked to hear those rent prices tbh.
we live in a village in friesland. surrounded by everything you could need. we rent a two story gas free house for 700 a month. i knew the bigger cities were expensive but jees. that's a lot.
You should check out Schiedam (just check which neighbourhood), it’s one of the cheapest cities to live in the entire country and is next to Rotterdam, connected to the city with public transport (metro, tram, bus, train).
Depending on how much you earn, remember that you can ask for subsidy if you pay too much rent, health care and so on. The state will pay everything that goes above a certain minimum percentage, you are able to do this at the tax office.
If you like Rotterdam and still want to be close look towards neighbouring villages. Like, Berkel en Rodenrijs, Pijnacker etc. You would be still super close to the Rotterdam city centre with the metro (10-15 minutes) and would get more bang for buck when looking to buy a home.
Rent is very much depending on location but overall indeed high. But 2k pm is ridiculous. Try buying, morgage will be half of that if you are lucky. (If you are allowed/able)
You left out the "own risk" in health ensurance €385 p.p. annually. This is for care that is partially covered or when more advanced medical treatment is needed, when you need to visit a specialist in a hospitalfor example. O yeah an when you do drive a car fuel prices are about €7 a gallon .
A bookkeeper is not required in the Netherlands. Might be convenient. Especially in combination with a tax specialist. For those who are not familiar with the system and therefore pay too much tax it is handy to have one. As for houses. This has become a huge problem. Result of a liberal government that believed more in the workings of the free market. The current government has again included a minister for housing. Which again determines the annual maximum rent increase. For houses in the free sector, which you also rent, that was the inflation correction plus a maximum of 3% fore 2022. A maximum increase of 3% will probably apply for 2023. Given the current inflation, the old system is then not valid. In view of the problems on the housing market, Amstetdam's municipal council recently passed a law that obliges home buyers to live there themselves for the first five years. So don't rent. Except parents or children. Or turn it into an AirBnB. Rotterdam will also follow this example. One more thing about health insurance. If you have good teeth. And in the immediate family there are no problems either. Would I again take a good look at what the (maximum) compensations are. And whether that monthly extra insurance is really necessary. Most Dutch people not have taken this
Like mentioned by others, moving out of the randstad will greatly reduce housing costs so for sure look into that. Now for festivities look into carnaval (ASAP) big celebrations in the more southern provinces.
I live in a village just outside of Zwolle, in a semi-detached home which I bought about 20 years ago (which at today's prices would probably around 400k euros to buy). My mortgage fees are just around 320 euro's (without repayment, and I have basically repaid almost nothing of the mortgage so far). Remind you, that's gross, as we have a mortgage deductible (hypotheekrenteaftrek), which you don't get for rental apartments... The government is scaling that down gradually, but for 2023 the mortgage deductible is still 36,93% of the gross fee deducted from your income tax. So my net mortgage costs me ± 200 euros/month. With gas, lighting, water, taxes etc. included will still be less than 500 euros/month net. Owning a house is far cheaper than renting a place to live... Especially if you stay out of the city, and aim for the suburbs or villages/towns in the area. Avoid the Randstad, or you pay a considerably premium... Be aware that mortgage fees have gone up since, but housing prices are dropping a little lately, and availability of properties to buy is increasing from the insane shortage of the last couple of years. For 2.350 euros a month you can live like a king in the province of Overijssel... Which is definitely one of the more beautiful provinces to live in, in terms of variety in scenery.
your mortgage fees are low because you did not have to lend much 20 years ago. You can t say to those american people you are paying 300 euros for a 400k house, you would have to mention that you only had to lend 100.000 euro s for that house at that time. And the sort of mortgage you have, is not that cheap anymore, because the deduction you mention (hypotheekafrenteaftrek) is not allowed for all these kind of mortgages that started after 2013. Furthermore, I am sure I am paying less for my rental house now, than I would pay monthly for a mortgage if I had to buy this house right now. And I don t have the tax and maintenance costs for it. Furthermore, with the energytransistion going on, you can have a lot of additional costs if you have to transit from gas to another system for heating, in near future....
Oink! €2350,- per month rent for an apartment??? In Groningen (in a village in the countryside) I pay € 548,33 per month rent for a three bedroom house, two floors and a garden... (and yes, here we use a comma to keep the euros separate from the cents.)
THIS VIDEO IS OUTDATED. Watch the 2023 update here: th-cam.com/video/0ceOjk2xSsk/w-d-xo.html
Also: if you're an American exploring a move to the Netherlands, check out our 15-page moving guide. It includes all of the stuff we learned along the way and links and contact info for everything you'll need from immigration to buying furniture when you arrive.
buncharted.gumroad.com/l/help-me-move-to-the-netherlands
omg the rent in Rotterdam.. insane. I will watch the updated one now.
The main reason that health insurance in the Netherlands is so much cheaper than the US is that it's government mandated, so everyone pays in. Doesn't matter that you are young and in great health, it's basically a solidarity based system that keeps the price relatively low for everyone.
Plus you have zorgtoeslag, so everyone can get healthcare, no matter of your income.
Also prices on medicine, equipement? (not sure about that) and doctors, nurses incomes are regulated.
And the insurance providers there aren't just trying to make billions in profits while lobbying government to write laws in their favor
I think your reply doesn’t do justice to the difference in health insurance between The Netherlands and the US. The government in The Netherlands dictates the basic health insurance coverage (basically covering all regular needs), with an own risk of EUR 385; and it dictates that all residents are required to have (this) basic health insurance. Second, health insurance parties determine their prices for this package independently, the government is not involved in the pricing and they pay no dime in the coverage, nor do they guarantee anything; fully market mechanism. Even with these constraints the cheapest insurance is EUR 131,95 per month. If you break your leg, get cancer, have a heart attack, you don’t pay more than the EUR 385 own risk. My view is that the health insurance cost in the US is higher because of other factors than regular market dynamics.
Health care in the US is profit driven, unlike here in the Netherlands.
Plus the salaries of doctors are insanely high in comparison to here, which also reflects in the bill.
We retired to NL from UK 8yrs ago. We thought life her would be more expensive, so were very careful initially. We bought a cheap house and cheap car etc. We had some savings and expected that these would go down year on year, but in fact they've gone up. Life here is less expensive than we had expected. Some things (motoring, clothes) are more expensive, but others (groceries, council tax) are cheaper. Can't comment on rent, as we sold a house in the UK and bought one here with the proceeds, but generally housing is cheaper the further away you are from Amsterdam and the Randstad.
How much did you pay for the house?
@@rgasta7765 €190k for a raw newbuild tussenwoning. About €250k once we'd got it kitted out and decorated. Bear in mind this was 9yrs ago. Asking price for a house on the same block is now €400k. Also bear in mind this is about 90km east of Amsterdam.
@@tarquinmidwinter2056 wow great appreciation
Got lucky on housing, small cheap 60 year old apartment easily goes for 300K now.
How did you experience the Brexit lie campaign and eventually the vote to leave the EU as someone from the UK living abroad?
When you eventually buy a property be very aware of "erfpacht". Larger cities can have this, epecially Amsterdam, while smaller towns usually dont. Its a weird situation where you buy the property, but not the land on which its built. That land you have to rent from the city. Sometimes you will see that for example the rent for the next 20 years is included, after that you will have to renegotiate. This could be 100's of Euros a month. Further more, apartments are also always part of a "VVE", basically the community of owners that takes care of the builing as a whole. This includes things like roofing, elevators, cleaning of common hallways, foundations, things like that. This can also cost 100's of Euro's. This can lead to the weird situation that even though you fully own the apartment, you still have to pay like 500 a month. To avoid these additional monthly fees, look at single family homes in the suburbs or smaller towns. The land on which the house is build is almost always included and obviously you wont have any shared costs with other owners. Housing prices therefore can be very deceptive. One 300k home may be way more expensive than another 300k home in reality.
The most similar to VVE would be "home owners association' in the US, I think.
I would like to add extra context as another Dutch person. Vereniging van Eigenaars (VvE) is comparable to a homeowner association, except it's required by law for apartments here. Basically the law states that if you have a building which is subdivided a VvE is required for the upkeep (joint/collative upkeep paid by and/or done by the owners of the apartments).
In America it may not be required to join a homeowner association, but here it's not only mandatory but you can even get fines if the owners of apartments within a building neglect to do any maintenance, the municipality/local government can even force/order the VvE to do upkeep and give fines, in the worse case scenario the local government could do the maintenance themselves and fine the VvE.
Keep this in mind if you are going to buy an apartment. Make sure the VvE is active and if not make it active by actively participating in it and paying the upkeep together. In the end it's cheaper then getting fined through the teeth.
@@autohmae Indeed, but there is a small difference. It's not always required in the US, but here in The Netherlands it's mandatory by law when buying/owning an apartment.
@@RemziCavdar Right, a VvE for apartments is like a condo association or a strata in Canada or one of the other countries that uses that form of ownership. If you can, it's definitely a good idea to look into how the VvE is managed, what the monthly fees are, what their budget/reserves and upcoming costs are, etc. before making a purchase.
@@gerrittlighthart Indeed, and participation is mandatory by law here (for apartments - meaning a building subdivided). The fees are mandatory etc.. So you don't have a choice not to participate lol 😆😂
For 2300 a month you can buy quite the house. I would recommend buying, always. Rent is money wasted, mortgage is money saved.
Yes, house prices are through the roof, but looking at your budget, I highly recommend buying. The is no way you would pay 2300 on interest (the money post that is wasted). Even if you would have a mortgage of 2300, then still about half of that is money you store in the house and you get back when you sell it.
Forgotten is that you get a tax credit for mortgage interest payments. Assume it to be app 30%
Long term plans already, ey? Great! Draw a line between Rotterdam, Amsterdam and Utrecht. Everything within the triangle is 'de Randstad' (most industrialised part of NL) and will be premium priced. The further you go outside of it, the more housing prices will drop.
And the more you will enjoy
If you are planning on moving to a smaller city, look at Arnhem, capital of the Province of Gelderland. I've lived there most of my adult life and I loved it there. It has a bit of an international atmosphere, there are hills in the city, lots og green, national parks right outside the city and the River Rhine. Good public transport (trolley busses) and train station with trains in all directions. For instance: 35 minutes to Utrecht, 58 minutes to Amsterdam South, 1 hr and 5 minutes to Amsterdam Central and also the ICE, German high speed train, stops in Arnhem, it will take you to Cologne in 2 hours.
You should really visit Amersfoort, it's a beautiful 750 year old city that has most conveniences of the big cities only a lot more green and nature.
I would recommend visiting Arnhem to see how you like the city. The city is also pretty close to Germany if you ever want to do a short trip to a Christmas market for example! The train connections to the rest of the country are really good and there are a lot of cultural options if you like that. Hope you guys have fun exploring the country and find a nice city to call home!
As a Dutchy, get out of that appartment as soon as possible...I think you can buy (a decent old house in a cheaper town) for half the amount you are paying right now, and that's a lot of difference you can spend on other areas. Chase your perfect spot from that location if needed, the returns are immediate and you can save some.
As someone who was born in the Netherlands I would recommend that you visit Utrecht, it's a really beautiful city
I totally agree: a super beautiful old and modern city with over 365K inhabitants. Canals that look totally different than the ones in other Dutch cities. Foreigners often call it a smaller version of Amsterdam, with less tourists and therefore more authentic Dutch. Disadvantage: probably not less expensive than Rotterdam!
Yes I was in the Netherlands for 6 days recently. Im from the UK. I was staying in Amsterdam near the airport. I wasn’t too far from Utrecht but next time.
Don't tell them.
@@on-the-pitch-p3w lol 😂
@@on-the-pitch-p3w amsterdam is a tourist trap. Utrech is a great place to live and work
Great information! We, a small family, are moving to Netherlands in a couple of months. As a person who has lived in NYC for several years, I found comparisons btw US and Netherlands were especially useful. Thanks!
Enjoy living in the Netherlands! Welcome!
welcome to our country
I think the biggest advice I can give you is to stay out of big cities. Personally I can only speak for Noord-Holland, as that's where I was born and raised, but the closer you get to Amsterdam, the more unnecessarily expensive it gets with no real added benefits to a small family, especially if you have younger kids.
If you still want to live in a "big city", go to Alkmaar or Heerhugowaard. If you want a small city with a "big city feeling", you'll like Schagen or Hoorn. Den Helder is incredibly well connected to the rest of the country. Towns like Julianadorp, Anna Paulowna, Hippolytushoef, etc, are great small towns for young kids with good connections to bigger cities through PT (Anna Paulowna is a town with its own train connection even).
In Noord Brabant where my family is from, you want to stay away from places like Eindhoven, Tilburg, Den Bosch, etc, but towns with great connections there are places like Vught, Rosmalen, and Best, or even Uden and Helmond, but especially Oss, which is between Den Bosch and Nijmegen, and Nijmegen can very easily get you throughout the country by just a single train.
@@GHOST-in-the-MACHINE Thank you!
If you stay outside the big city's you can buy a decent sized house for 1/3rd of those cost.
Employers in the Netherlands do pay part of your health insurance too, it's lumped in the employee salary taxes (ZVW between 5.5-7%)... Being self employed, you need to pay those taxes too.
being self employed you don't need a bookkeeper, you could do it yourself, but yes, it's easier, especially if you don't know what and where to pay.
i would say for peopleself employed and not grown up here in the netherlands i would say it is almost mandetory. because our taxlaws be wierd man
As someone from the US looking to retire to NL, this is incredibly helpful. By my calculations even as retirees we'll save on healthcare, which is impressive. Housing costs are soaring as you know, but I'm optimistic the aggressive housing construction plan will eventually help with that and I have to say, outside of the hyper-desirable AMS and ROT markets rents are reasonable. To me, the great unknown are property taxes. Having trouble finding good data on that. Anyone care to answer what's the combined local and other property tax as a percent of property value?
If you own or rent a home, you must pay the so called 'municipal taxes'. Every year, the municipality in which you live calculates the value of your house on 1 January of the previous year, the so-called WOZ value. Based on this value, you pay property tax: 0.0431% (in Amsterdam, where I live, for example, it is 0.1%) of the WOZ value. If your house is worth 300K, the tax will be: 129.3 euros / year
Then there are a number of fixed taxes
for example Amsterdam;
Waste charge: 1 person household 344 euros / year
2 or more person household 459 euros / year
sewage charge: 152.50 euros / year
In addition to these municipal charges, you also pay a water tax (this also differs per municipality).
For Amsterdam this is about 375 euros / year
@@sanderdevink8193 Dank u wel! Dat is erg handig.
I pay €77 a month local tax on a property worth about 400k. Also €18.20 a month for water and €29.29 a month sewage. We are about 90km east of Amsterdam.
@@tarquinmidwinter2056Leiden?
@@stanbasov42 Apeldoorn. Leiden is south of Amsterdam and (I suspect) almost as expensive, though it is a lovely city.
Energy consumption is extremely seasonal. Because of the differences in temperature between the seasons, nearly all of the energy (mostly gas) is used in the winter months. Monthly billing based on the actual consumption would cause serious financial problems for many people during the cold months. The solution with the monthly advances and the yearly bill makes the energy costs manageable for most people, especially the ones who are most likely to have financial problems. In return, the energy companies get a free loan from their customers out of it, which is used to buy the gas in advance when it is cheaper (usually summertime, when demand is lower).
ah ha - that makes sense! thank you!
Omg as a Dutch person I'm baffled at the grocery budget for 2 people! Do you throw a lot of dinner parties or do you have children? Do you buy a lot of Vegetarische Slager at Albert Heijn? That coupled with the health insurance and rent was most shocking to me :P
I live in the US born and raised and I'm stunned by their grocery bill and insurance. They're paying out too much on groceries for sure for two people I don't know what they're eating. And they say they're vegan so they're not buying meat which is expensive. I'm one person and I spend about $200 a month, sorry I don't know euros. Me spending $200 a month, I have plenty of food. As far as health insurance I guess I'm lucky because I have never paid for insurance. They talk about the "cobra" plans the an employer will offer, but I've never known anyone that paid for that insurance because it's too pricey. I always held down a full time job and my insurance was always paid for by the company. I'm currently disabled and the government pays my insurance now.
@@joycedominguez8997 Thanks for the insight, I understand the insurance much better now! Groceries are still a mystery to me, euro's and dollars are like same value right now, and my man and I spend between €250-300 a month here for the two of us and that includes meat. Vegetables are really cheap here too, unless you only buy the pre-cut ones I guess? But even a fresh and pre-cut stirfry mix, that feeds 3 people royally, costs only €1.50! At the expensive supermarket it's still under 3 bucks. My (American) boyfriend was actually surprised by how cheaply you can prepare a healthy meal here. All to say, I still don't understand how one gets to €500. Name brand snacks, fresh fish? Disregard for weekly sales? At any rate, always interesting to see the contrast 🙂
@@xColdNostalgia you're welcome. Have a wonderful day. 😉
I think it depends on how much you are willing to pay. As a Dutch family of 3, we pay about 100 euros for the base groceries every week. And then about 50 euros each week for additional things like fruit and vegetables. That's excluding my personal lunch of about 90 euros per month. Can we safe on those expenses. Sure! Do we need to? Not really. As long as you are comfortable paying it, I think you can easily spend much more then required.
it’s just my wife and I and our “normal” grocery budget for a week is like $200-300 week. that doesn’t include the costco run which is about once a month and dining out. it is what it is🤷🏼♂️
Hello! Thank you for this video! I am an American who is in the process of moving to Amsterdam for a post-doc. This video helped me a lot.
Go live in a small city or village. We bought a house (325k) and pay €800,- per month. Tussenwoning by the water, 4 bedrooms, big bathroom, etc, etc. Rotterdam and cities like that are ridiculously expensive. Good luck in The Netherlands and nice to see people saying The Netherlands instead of Holland 👌🏻
Have a look at Alkmaar also….this historical small city is called Little Amsterdam because of the canals. It’s close to the sea and the dunes. And just 35 minutes to Amsterdam.
Hey neighbours! I live in Schiedam which is located very well near Rotterdam, Delft and the Hague and has much more affordable housing and excellent public transport options. Definitely check it out sometime when you start looking around.
@@on-the-pitch-p3w Who hurt you?
@@henrimuldre Amsterdam and Rotterdam will never get along. It's okay.
Thank you! Great information :) We’re a family of 3 starting our research to move there after military retirement. We spend $3900 😳 on rent in CA, so housing seems much more affordable for us there.
You have three kinds of basic health insurance (basisverzekering), the cheap one (budget polis), the medium prized (natura polis) and the expensive one (restitutie polis). The cheap insurance gives you no choice, you can only use the medical facilities the insurance company dictates you. This could mean that if you need a knee operation f.e. you’ll will have to go to a hospital which they have a contract with for that specific operation, usually just one in the whole country, and this hospital could be on the other side of the country. The medium insurance gives you more medical facilities to choose from, but only the ones they have a contract with. With the expensive insurance you will have an almost free choice out of all the medical facilities. You will get the bill of the medical facility and sometimes you pay them first and get the money back from the insurance company and with bigger bills, you send the bill to them and they pay it for you. The thing is that you can only get access to the medical facilities, specialists and pharmacies via the huisarts (GP or family doctor), they are the gatekeeper of our health system. And they are not easily fooled or bribed. We Dutch don’t go to the huisarts when we have the flu or a cold. He won’t receive you, you cannot make an appointment, you won’t get past the assistant. Take a ibuprofen or aspirin and go to bed. No antibiotics (against bacteria) for the flu (virus) in this country, because it simply won’t work and makes bacteria resistant to antibiotics. The body must overcome the flu on itself, with rest, fluids and some lightly digestible food. And don’t go to work until you’re better, otherwise you’ll infect others. Simple and effective.
Michelle, are you going to be looking for a job here?
Also just to clarify for people that don't know: not everyone in the Netherlands needs to pay these montly fees. Lower incomes get surtax to help pay. This can be up to €111 per month (for people making 22K a year or less). The absolute basic health insurance is around €125 a month, so those people would be paying €14 a month for health insurance.
good clarification - thank you! we were going to add some bits in here about the subsidizations offered by the government but we didn’t feel like we knew enough to speak about it confidently.
Judging by the price you probably live in one of the newer built luxury apartment towers like the Zalmhaventoren, Cooltoren or one of the high rises on the Kop van Zuid. A more normal price would be 1300-1500 for an apartment in the open market in Rotterdam.
Housing prices outside of de Randstad are a bit more realistic. Especially when you buy the house compared to renting.
Also regarding the monthly installments on the energybill: what happens is that you provide your meterreading at moving in/start of contract. Based on historic consumption on that adress you get a monthly installment proposition. This will act as a savingsaccount for the year. At the end of the year you provide your meterreading again (manual or smart meter) and the actual usage (usage X price = actual cost) will be deducted from your paid installments. The difference you get returned or need to pay extra depending on your usage.
This prevents the situation where one would pay €1 in july for actual usage and €500 in february and maybe getting into huge financial issues during the winter.
This way you spread it into even amounts.
Excellent content. I like the flow of the discussion
When you are going to look for a place to live in the Netherlands and don't want to be car dependent look for the places where the international trains stop. The Belgium bound ICE train does Breda, Rotterdam, Schiphol and Amsterdam. The commute between Breda and Amsterdam is one hour. The Germany bound IC train from Amsterdam has two trunks or options. Via Utrecht, Driebergen, Veenendaal, Ede-Wageningen and Arnhem. The other via Hilversum, Amersfoort, Apeldoorn and Deventer. The commute on the Germany bound train is one hour and 15 minutes or 30 minutes. Amsterdam, Rotterdam, Utrecht, Hilversum and Amersfoort are core cities of the Randstad and housing is less affordable depending on your means. Living in these cities give you quick access to Amsterdam, Brussel and Dusseldorf airports.
You should visit Leeuwarden, its a city in the north of the Netherlands.
It's a ''bigger'' city, (nowhere near as big as Rotterdam though).
BUT housing prices are half that of Rotterdam while stil having the feel of living in a bigger city.
Thank you! This is the first cost of living video I've seen that isnt from broke college students and specifically about Rotterdam. I'm moving my family from Massachusetts to Rotterdam next year and this is the most in depth coverage Ive seen so far.
good luck on the move!
Bernie Sanders told you ….
Just be aware there is a mandotory 'own risk' eigen risico if you use certain parts of healthcare it is about 385 euro per year per adult. This f.i. some labwork, hosptal care.
Interessanting to hear the differences with the US! ☺️ Breda could be a good option for you in the future. Beautiful city, not too big, not too small. The housing prices are (a lot) lower than in Rotterdam and you still have a central location in the rest of the Netherlands.
we are looking in breda! 😄
@@buncharted appartement rent prices for the size you guys are looking for are around 800/1000 a month in breda but like you said there's allot of people wanting those. House prices for most appartements are around 250k and a normal house depending on size would be around 300k
Wow! As a native I must say that rent is gargantuan! I have some extra benefit having lived in the same spot for over 20 years, but I pay less then €500 rent each month. If you guys want to stay and buy a house, you'll be astonished at the morgage you'll pay. (hint, it'll be less)
Yeah if you can work from home you can save a TON not living in a big city with skyhigh free market rent. 500 euro is very little though. And in a small out of the way town you'd still be able to get good internet and big cities are not that far away, especially if you are used to U.S distances.
But as native civilian living in social housing i pay 365 euro/rent month right in the center of Amsterdam which is even more expensive then Rotterdam on average. for a 2 room apartment with small garden there is a very big rent difference between social and non social renting.
What are the things you are looking for in a smaller city you want to move to eventually? How much smaller are we talking, what are must haves, does location matter (in proximity of something) etc. I could (and I am fairly certain other Dutches here too) come up with a few places worth checking out for you if I had a little bit more information.
I would be careful buying a house on the short term, since due to the extreme low interest of past years, the prices are unrealisticly high. As we return to more normal interest levels, the house prices will probably drop in the next years. Meaning if you buy for the short time, you may end up loosing money and renting is a saver option for the next two or three years.
I'm from the Netherlands. 2350 for rent is an obscenely high amount. All your other expenses fade into nothing in comparison. I can rent a 150m2 house with swimming pool and garage for that kind of money, and have left over to lease 2 cars. It's insane.
You are not required to have a bookkeeper, but for that amount I'd keep him. Make sure that when he's in error, he will take full accountability.
50 cent's kWh is actually okay a.t.m. There are variable day to day contracts that can get to ~20 cents. You might want to look into those. I pay 1.05 Euro kWh, but get 90 cents feed in tariff.
39 euro is council tax for council services, which you pay if you are a registered as a resident of a council (Rotterdam in your case). This is based on number of persons registered at your address. This pays for: sewage, garbage disposal, pest control, local road upkeep etc. This is Not for the property you are renting. Owner pays this to the council (and you eventually through your rent) which is much more, think in the 5-10000 euro range for a low/medium value home (around 2% of property value, differs per council).
These numbers can’t be right. I pay (and I’m single) to my municipality a tax for my property as an owner €270 a year. I also pay €216 for the municipal sewage system and €256 for sanitation/garbage disposal. Besides that I pay to the Waterboard two or three taxes, one is for all the pumps, dykes, locks, levies so we can keep living on land below sea level, and one tax for sewage treatment plants and surface water quality. I don’t know what I pay exactly to the Waterboard because I can’t find their tax bill (I just moved and everything is still in boxes), but it is about €300 a year. So if it really is €39/month for council tax it is a bargain and it’s for two persons.
@@RealConstructor I agree, i pay over 900 euro's a year to the council and 280 for the waterboard.
Not only you are paying less than in the US, but also the quality of the services are better: they give you more certainty when things go bad. Health insurances have to accept you even with preexisting conditions, as a renter you have a very strong legal protection, you can apply for a rent allowance (huurtoeslag) and health insurance allowance (zorgtoeslag) from the national government and remission from the local taxes. I wonder whether this exists in the US.
I live in the Netherlands, and electricity is free for me, and i pay 115 for gas.
Pay 30 for Healthcare because i get money for that and it's not basic
Pay 50 for unlimited home and unlimited mobile combination
i live in a small town in the netherlands and my rent is roughly 600 to 700 euros and thats for a 2 bedroom family home, the costs of living in a large city is way higher. if you want to live here in the netherlands consider going to smal towns. public transit is good enough and you can get to bigger citys in 1 to 2 hours (depending on location) you dont realy need your own car to get anny where in the netherlands.
interesting video! As a resident of the Netherlands I would recommend s-Hertogenbosch to check it out. Beautiful city but smaller and more friendly than the Randstad. From there you can travel to Eindhoven, Nijmegen, Utrecht and Amsterdam in about 30-60 minutes. We do celebrate 'under the rivers' carnival in February, then the city is turned upside down with party people 🤣
Come this week with Carnaval 🎉
Really cool video, you guys are very good at this!
Thank you for this video! How are you guys still liking the Netherlands? Would you say it is still cheaper than the U.S?
I can tell you this...2350 just for rent is very high. So depending on what you want, there are cheaper places to live in the Netherlands. I've lived in many places, but like Utrecht the most. If you are paying that kind of rent...it would be a lot cheaper to buy a home, your mortgage would be way lower and it would eventually be more useful later on. What I have noticed is that in the USA you might pay a lot on insurance, taxes and that sort of stuff, but other stuff like clothes, toys and things like that, that you buy in stores seem to be a lot cheaper.
it used to be 0.25 euro per kwh. also keep in mind, usa is 110/120v, eu is 230/240.
Voltage is irrelevant, voltage would only matter if you were paying per amp-hour instead of per (kilo-)watt-hour
Bookkeeper is not compulsory. You can learn it yourself and cut these unneeded expenses.
By the way, if you are a freelancer then there are some ways to save for retirement with tax benefits.
Regarding small towns: nearby Rotterdam try Breda or Roosendaal. Den Bosch and Nijmegen are also very lovely.
2:15 You dont have to pay property taxes when you are renting in the Netherlands. This tax is for the owners only! The owner is not allowed to let people who rent a house, pay that tax. (onroerend goed belasting)
As the user you do have to pay for sewer (riool), your waste, and waterschap.
Bookkeeping is not required to have someone else do it. If you know how, you are allowed to do everything yourself.
Tip: have a look at the city Deventer, there is a bunch of new apartments build mostly small due to the actual need for living.
and the prices as far as i could tell aren't too bad.
i have a feeling that’ll be where we end up!
@@buncharted You could consider Arnhem as well. Especially the Schuytgraaf neighbourhood. Relatieve high density of expats for the region, close to other significant towns/cities and eveything you need, nature included.
The UK also has the same energy billing concept that they estimate your annual total and divide it by 12, correcting it based on actual meter readings from time to time. I think this is because many people cannot run a household budget successfully and would get into debt in the winter when the energy bills are higher. I live in Finland and we are billed every 2 months based on the actual usage of the previous 2 months. Perhaps people are able to budget their living costs better here.
Oh man you two are the jam. So helpful for serious consideration. You’re a great team. Thank you.
If you’re looking for a smaller and reasonably priced city then Groningen might be for you!
It has about 200k inhabitants, a large student population making the city very vibrant and progressive, a large international population meaning you’ll manage fine with only speaking English, possibly better than with Dutch. Its housing prices are about 75% of those in the Randstad, while also having much larger homes with comparatively a lot of outside space for sale. And there’s a direct train connection to Schiphol meaning it’s still easy for your friends and family to come over or vice versa!
If you’re reliant on a job in the randstad area you should definitely look at Utrecht. It’s very similar to Groningen altho much bigger (and more expensive). Despite being bigger it does still kind of have that ‘small city’ charm to it, and altho more expensive than Groningen it’s much cheaper than Amsterdam and Rotterdam while only being a 20 minute train ride!
Sincerely hope you’ll find a great home to enjoy your time in the Netherlands. Cheers!
thank you! we will *definitely* be looking at groningen!
I was a student in Belgium and learned Dutch there. Back here in America I saw a car with a bumper sticker with what looked like a Dutch dialect, but I didn't recognize it. A young woman got out of the car and I asked her if it was a Dutch dialect and she said, "yes, it is the dialect of Groningen."
@@jimjungle1397 Haha no kidding! I knew we’re a proud people over here, but that goes beyond my expectations! Cool!
Ook als geboren en getogen Utrechter kan ik zeggen: Groningen is een beregezellige stad. Utrecht is te groot en te druk geworden, Groningen herinnerd me sterk op een positieve manier aan Utrecht uit mijn jeugd. Mijn overgrootouders komen er vandaan en mijn grootouders zijn "geemigreerd" naar Utrecht pakweg 100 jaar geleden. Maar er woont nog steeds veel familie van me (Dijksterhuis is een echte Groningse naam) , ook de provincie is prachtig. Wie weet, als ik met pensioen ga, dat ik terugkeer naar het land van mijn voorvaderen, haha. Fijne avond Roy!
Move East (Gelderland) or North (Groningen), with cheaper cost of living, however you need car(-s) for mobility. Working from home and by Internet can be from anywhere in The Netherlands.
Im surprised about the heating installment you mentioned. I was also paying 120€ per month until I saw the real consumption in the app. And it was 500€ per month in this winter. ( its me and my wife and we only heat living room)
Also don’t understand, what people eat, when they say 500€ is too much for 2 people. We spend 600€ on average. 😏
our apartment is new and has an A energy rating, which is nice (and one of a few things that helps us justify the extremely high rent, at least to ourselves 😆)
groceries are different for everyone, i agree. we're vegetarian at home which tends to cost more, plus we have two cats, so that means buying cat food and litter. i would like to get better about buying stuff that's on sale though.
I do mis te insurance for incapacity for work? If you’re self-imploded (ZZP) you need yourself to fix a long time plan. Lots off ZZP’ers don’t choose for this insurance, no because they don’t need it but just because is to expensive same goes for a pension plan.
You are not required to have someone do your bookkeeping if you’re self employed. I’ve been for 5 years and do it myself. They do recommend it. But my bookkeeping for the ‘ZZP’ is quite simple cause it’s next to a fulltime job.
As a person who has lived abroad as well, i totally understand your remarks. Your medical insurance cost however is not properly calculated. As an employee your employer will keep 5,5% of your gross for health purposes. As a self employed person you will get, next to your income tax bill also a health contribution bill of about 7% of your turnover. Besides that you will have to pay the first 385 euros of medical cost in a year yourself, as your own risk.
2350 on rent? WOW. I live in a small village in the Netherlands and i own a home. Just a normal "Rijtjeshuis" (terraced house??). It's 3 bedroom, 1 bathroom, attic and huge livingroom with open kitchen, house. Oh, and a seperate toilet in the hall near the entrance. Since i bought it, i have a mortgage on the house. I pay NEARLY 600,- on the mortgage. That makes me a home owner....i am shocked about the rental in Rotterdam......just mind-blowing.
My wife and I pay for 3 old derelict ( for US standards) village houses we own in the South of France 3.000 € local taxes per year.Quite lot for that kind of real estate .
I pay 50 € for both our cellphones, seems slightly cheaper than in the NL.
Rotterdam and Amsterdam do have a housing problem, but if you move to the Hague, you will find it more easy to find what your looking for, and way more cheaper,
And the Hague is a very beautiful city, and very close to the Beach
the hague was where we ran into the situation michelle spoke about in the video. :( it was our first choice of where we wanted to live!
we love den haag ❤️
@@on-the-pitch-p3w These people aren’t tourists. They want to live here!! Stop posting this comment over and over.
Like everyone already mentioned you are extremely overpaying for your rent. Get in the subway in Rotterdam and take a little trip to the beach destination “Hoek van Holland”. While you are in the train look out the window you will pass several little city’s Schiedam, Vlaardingen and Maassluis. All minutes close to Rotterdam to commute but way greener and way cheaper to rent. We Dutch people will never pay ridicculous ammounts like 2000,- or more on rent. We all pay way less. Oh and do this on a sunny day and you wil also discouver the nice beach.😊
Renting a housse or appartment especially in one of the major cities is far more expensive then buying one outside those major cities . I live in the most southern part of the Netherlands and I own a 4 bedroom row house with 150m2 garden , my mortgage is 310 euro's a month. You can buy a really nice appartment here for around 1200 a month.
about the taxes, every household pays taxes/fees for water system usage (waterschappen), property taxes (onroerend zakenbelastig OZB) and waste management (afvalstoffenheffing). The tarifs vary per county.
Dental insurance has a maximum compensation, which is usually about twice the amount you pay for it. So if you pay 250 per year for the insurance, it will at most cover about 500 euro cost per year. I don't think the financial risk, that the insurance covers, is worth the insurance premium. Unless you know or expect to have dental problems.
That very high rent i am currently living in Rotterdam near station blaak and pay 950 euro for a 2 bedroom apt
You do have to pay for health insurance out of your income. Your employer does it and if you are self-employed you will be taxed. It is 5.75% of the first €58,300 of your gross income. That's why health insurance is so cheap and why people with low income can get the same health insurance.
Buying a house is the outskirts of a medium sized city in the Netherlands, like Breda or Roosendaal will cost you around €1200 per month for a three to four bedroom house (rijtjeshuis, 1 gezinswoning)
My husband and I worked at the same place in the US. We just quit our jobs and are moving to NL in 3 weeks. While with that company, we were fortunate to have an employer who offered insurance (since it isn’t required) AND heavily subsidized the cost for us. Although they underpaid everyone to also cover the benefits. The majority of my jobs in the US did not offer insurance or offered plans that were at too high a cost to me to be able to sign up for them.
When we quit, the amount we would have had to pay ourselves to keep the insurance (which was a basic plan- no bells and whistles) was $1800 a month EACH.
yes! we talk about this a bit in the cost of living video that we just posted (it's a 2023 update to this video - highly recommend checking it out). but our health care cost as self-employed people here is the same as our own contribution in the US -- even though employers were paying MOST of the costs there. that's crazy.
and yeah, we wouldn't be able to do this in the US, because the cost of insurance when you're self-employed is absolutely bananas.
Thank you! Me and my significant other plan to move here in a year
Nijmegen. is a nice city near the german border. And u can ask for rent compensation . In dutch it is huur toeslag korting
You are going to have to pay your own risk on your health plan. Round 350.- a year if you use it up. Which will likely happen if you have prescription medication.
And Rotterdam is probably the 4th most expensive city behind Amsterdam, Utrecht, Haarlem
Hi, you could buy a 3 bedroom apartment in Rhoon, which is close to Rotterdam, for less than € 400.000,- . Monthly mortgage would then be approx. € 1400,- nett (incl. mortgage interest deduction). That would save you around € 1000,- a month.
You can rent a 'one famely house' for less then € 800,- outside the big city's. For the saved mony you can buy a car or travel as much as you like with public transportation.
You missed the €385 eigen risico, so you're gonna pay for your €10 per month medication anyway (if you didn't have any other costs before that). It's just billed by your health insurance and not directly by the farmacy. The first €385 of health costs during a year is at your own expense.
Also you missed waterschapsbelasting it seems which can be up to €80 per month and is used for water management and flood protection expenses (you might not have had that letter yet because it only comes once a year, and it also varies greatly per municipality how much it is).
That depends on how those costs are covered. Eigen risico only applies to the basic insurance package, not to any additions.
i should have mentioned the deductible. it would have made the comparison to US insurance even greater - the costs we talked about in the video were with a deductible (our expense) that is much higher than in the NL!
and i didn’t know about the waterschapsbelasting - thank you for telling us!
waterschapsheffing is not 80 euro per month. more like 300 euro per year.
@@bas7492 it does differ per waterschap. But 80 per month seems ridiculously high
Are you listing all your insurances here? If so, I would advice to take out some additional insurances such as travel insurance, liability insurance, law-assistance insurance. They are all fairly cheap (
i didn’t go into a ton of detail on my business expenses, but you’re right that i definitely should have mentioned liability insurance.
is travel insurance for medical? that’s included in our health care plan.
we have separate providers because we want KPN fiber and KPN doesn’t have unlimited calling/texting to the US, but t-mobile does! so that ended up making more economic sense.
@@buncharted I'm not an insurance expert, and I don't know your health care plan, but in my case I do need extra medical insurance when travelling.
In some cases you need extra medical travel insurance. For example if you go skiing or snowboarding. Another example is (which might apply to you) that in general the standard medical insurance covers costs abroad up to the amount that it would cost you if you would undergo the procedure in the Netherlands, so if you go to a more expensive country (which there aren't a lot of) like the US or Switzerland, you might need an extra travel medical insurance.
I don't know if this is the case for every health care plan, so you should check this specifically since I'm assuming you plan on travelling to the US in some future :) The good news is that you only need the insurance for the dates that you are actually travelling. (it's still rather cheap so I just keep it turned on)
Your choice to split the provider makes a lot of sense :)
If you'r a student you pay around 800 euro for an approximately 10 square meters room in Amsterdam, Utrecht and Rotterdam. You guy's are very and I mean very lucky with that. If you at the 80 euro's per m2 I think you will pay a lot more than the US especially if you take in consideration that people that do use gas for the house are paying like 400 to 500 euro's each month. This is not included in the rent.
You got a goldmine, nicely done.
P.S.I'm dutch
look for homes in the north Groningen or Drenthe ..or Friesland you wil be amaisd what the prices are
There are employers who offer collective health insurance which is often a better deal. Better coverage and less premium per month. That also gets taken out of your paycheck.
Y'all... You're paying 2k+ for a three bedroom ggfhgfghg. First of all, wanna say that two-bedroom housing is now the legal standard, every residence, whether rented or sold, cannot be rented or sold if it doesn't have at least two bedrooms, so there's that.
Second of all, when rent for an apartment is below 700€, you can get part of your rent back from the tax department if your income is below minimum wage (which is 1.6k€ at time of writing). My apartment is 431€, two bedrooms (one is my laundry/PC room, because I live alone), and I get 199€ back from that, making my rent 232€ in practice (this includes service costs for the building and getting anything in my house fixed by the housing association). And I live in a city that's the end station to the intercity train that gets you just about anywhere in the country (if you're Dutch, you know exactly which city that is).
Since I'm low income, I pay about 165€ on basic health insurance including own risk fees, which I max out (385€) every year due to my medical needs, but I get 154€ a month back from the tax department.
My grocery budget is 250€ because I buy and cook large quantities of food and chuck it fresh into my dedicated freezer (partially bc it's cheaper and partially bc I HATE cooking with a vengeance). I also spread my purchases across supermarkets, usually at Lidl, Albert Heijn, and Vomar, though I only buy sales at AH, bc €€€.
I have funeral insurance that's €7.22, I have home insurance that covers everything 100% whether it's my fault or not, covers me against theft in and outside my home, and accidents in and outside my home towards others and their property, which costs me €13,92 a month. My phone bill is €10 a month at Simpel, SIM-only, unlimited calling and texts and 8GB data that I legit just don't use because WiFi is everywhere. My internet is 60.50€ at Ziggo, nets me 600MB/s, but as soon as 1GB/s is available in my apartment, I'll switch, bc it costs 62€ pm.
The only biggest thing rn for me is my electricity, for December, my bill was 209€, and I use under average for both gas and electricity, because I can't use gas for anything in my house except for heating (and I prefer cold), and aside from my desktop, I don't have big energy eaters in my house. But you know, energy crisis, so it's gonna suck for a good while.
Living in a big city is unnecessarily expensive. My city isn't big, got about 65k people living here, but it *is* the end station for PT connections, meaning I can get anywhere in the country in max 3 hours if I needed to. I can be in Amsterdam in less than 90 minutes with traffic.
If you go to live in the NL, if you love yourself, stay out of big cities. It's just gonna drive up costs and you don't gain a lot more than if you were to live in a nearby or well-connected small city.
By this comparison it seems like cost of living would be lower in the Netherlands - until you account for average wage. $5,615 in Austin vs. €2300 in NL is definitely something to take into account! Also the fact that in the Netherlands the minimum income requirement for a €1500 apartment is €4500 for one person and €5500 for two people, this already makes it impossible to find a place to live if you don't make above average wage in the majority of the country.
You need to know that a €1500 apartment is not that common. The average rent is €775, half of what you use as an example. When you pay €1500 you are on premium locations in city centres, or you have a luxurious sized house outside the city. Me and my ex used to live outside the city, we rented a part of a farm. Our rent was just about €700 ,on the main floor we had the living room with an open kitchen, a scullery/laundry room next to it to place your washing machine/dryer etc.. A big room you could use as office space, a toilet (these are usually separate from showers etc). a large bathroom with bathtub. upstairs we had 3 large bedrooms another toilet, another bathroom but with a shower and on top of that a huge attic. So, that is what we had for €700 in the countryside, not to mention the stunning environment you are in, for €1500 in the countryside you would live like a king. and probably not even use half of the space you are renting for that money. Living in cities IS expensive, that is because every expat wants to live there, every student from abroad wants to live there. It's the place to party, shop, meet people from other countries. Not to mention that our country is one of the most dense populated countries in the world and living space is getting more precious every year because everyone wants to move to the Netherlands. And with the help of google maps you can see the farm, , Country: Netherlands Place: Banholt Street: Bredeweg 2. click on streetview in google maps to have a proper view. The part we rented was at the left from the main green gate. The owners lived in the right side.
@@mrnobody043 Indeed. My two bedroom apartment is just shy over €820 and that includes all utilities, taxes, internet and a parking space.
@@mrnobody043 The average rent is so low because of social housing, which is cheap but again you have to fit in a certain income group and well even if you fit in that income group you won't be getting that cheap housing anytime soon. Of course rent is a bit higher if you live further away from cities but then you also will have to take into account increased transport costs, at least if your career involves working around a city. Just know that if you do end up getting kids and you live far away from a city you are doing them one solid problem for their future. The lack of vicinity of a university or maybe even work with a pretty rough way out towards a city with the lack of affordable housing and youth wages that are... criminally underpaid.
If you make an Austin salary and live in NL that’s the ideal
@@exphised4515 I rent in the private sector but I am an outlier for sure.
As of your reaction on the rent for an appointment for instance, you should look at surrounding villages. Are you go to the village is usually cheaper than living in the city. If you figure out there is a lot of public transport. It doesn’t matter if you live in Rotterdam or somewhere in the neighbourhood it’s just a tip
The gas prices are weird tho, given the fact we have enough gas for 30 years, under the province of Groningen.
But we love to sell it to other countries and then buy back more expensive.
The water tho is something else. It’s very clear and can drink it from the ‘kraan’.
Those municipal taxes (not taxes for renting/owning a house it's just linked to your address) and sewage taxes are for all the benefits our country offers and most Dutch take for granted but expat notice and point out often. Our bike paths are build from those city taxes for instance or firetrucks and upkeep at our fire stations, landscaping and upkeep in public spaces, garbage trucks underground garbage etc and sewage taxes is so that you can drink our water straight out of the tap without getting sick, and to regulate our waterways efficient since we have some trouble with to much water otherwise. To mention some things, there is a lot more that get paid from those taxes.
we happily pay them (well, as happily as one can pay taxes, haha). we tell everyone back home that it is nice to see our taxes put to work here on things that improve our lives!
I also live in the netherlands, near rotterdam, i would advise you to look up krimpen aan de ijssel, or near villages. Or take a tour through the near villages
Thanks for this video. It's really helpful for people moving to NL. I saw a similar video before moving to Rotterdam and the biggest saving I learned was to get Budget mobile for phones. I pay 60 euros for 3 lines with unlimited data, call and text.
I'm researching because I plan on moving to the Netherlands by years end. I appreciate this!
Nice comparison videos i love them. I would like to add that when you're self-employed it's not mandatory to have a bookkeeper, you can do it yourself if you now how to do it. It's my advise to use one, but still not mandatory.
Oh man, you can buy a house in Brabant very easily if that's your rent. But you should be smart and look at the housing market prices and make a tactical decision. I live in tilburg and you can buy a house in the quiet/safer sub-urban area between 200(++)-500k. (some provinces are cheaper) idk precisely about the mortgage loans at the moment but you got serious opinions if you want it. Just a well meant advice, it's none of my business but I'm shocked to hear those rent prices tbh.
we live in a village in friesland. surrounded by everything you could need. we rent a two story gas free house for 700 a month. i knew the bigger cities were expensive but jees. that's a lot.
You should check out Schiedam (just check which neighbourhood), it’s one of the cheapest cities to live in the entire country and is next to Rotterdam, connected to the city with public transport (metro, tram, bus, train).
Which neighbourhoods would you recommend?
about healt insurance.. the employee pays its part too.. you just dont notice. Its called werkgeversheffing
Depending on how much you earn, remember that you can ask for subsidy if you pay too much rent, health care and so on. The state will pay everything that goes above a certain minimum percentage, you are able to do this at the tax office.
we aren’t eligible based on our residence permit, but that’s good advice for other folks looking to move to the netherlands!
@@buncharted To qualify for rent allowance (Huurtoeslag), the joint income is used for the calculation. The monthly rent may not exceed € 808.06.
If you like Rotterdam and still want to be close look towards neighbouring villages. Like, Berkel en Rodenrijs, Pijnacker etc. You would be still super close to the Rotterdam city centre with the metro (10-15 minutes) and would get more bang for buck when looking to buy a home.
Bookie cost is not obliged in NL
In Eibergen you pay 450 to 800 rent for a 3 bedroom house. To buy a house you pay about 400.000 euro
Rent is very much depending on location but overall indeed high. But 2k pm is ridiculous. Try buying, morgage will be half of that if you are lucky. (If you are allowed/able)
You left out the "own risk" in health ensurance €385 p.p. annually. This is for care that is partially covered or when more advanced medical treatment is needed, when you need to visit a specialist in a hospitalfor example. O yeah an when you do drive a car fuel prices are about €7 a gallon .
A bookkeeper is not required in the Netherlands. Might be convenient. Especially in combination with a tax specialist. For those who are not familiar with the system and therefore pay too much tax it is handy to have one. As for houses. This has become a huge problem. Result of a liberal government that believed more in the workings of the free market. The current government has again included a minister for housing. Which again determines the annual maximum rent increase. For houses in the free sector, which you also rent, that was the inflation correction plus a maximum of 3% fore 2022.
A maximum increase of 3% will probably apply for 2023. Given the current inflation, the old system is then not valid.
In view of the problems on the housing market, Amstetdam's municipal council recently passed a law that obliges home buyers to live there themselves for the first five years. So don't rent. Except parents or children. Or turn it into an AirBnB. Rotterdam will also follow this example.
One more thing about health insurance. If you have good teeth. And in the immediate family there are no problems either. Would I again take a good look at what the (maximum) compensations are. And whether that monthly extra insurance is really necessary. Most Dutch people not have taken this
Keep it going, great video!!
tab water is a companie and sewer is munispality tax and sewer filtration tax wich you pay for 1 or 3 persons in the netherlands
Like mentioned by others, moving out of the randstad will greatly reduce housing costs so for sure look into that.
Now for festivities look into carnaval (ASAP) big celebrations in the more southern provinces.
I live in a village just outside of Zwolle, in a semi-detached home which I bought about 20 years ago (which at today's prices would probably around 400k euros to buy). My mortgage fees are just around 320 euro's (without repayment, and I have basically repaid almost nothing of the mortgage so far). Remind you, that's gross, as we have a mortgage deductible (hypotheekrenteaftrek), which you don't get for rental apartments... The government is scaling that down gradually, but for 2023 the mortgage deductible is still 36,93% of the gross fee deducted from your income tax. So my net mortgage costs me ± 200 euros/month. With gas, lighting, water, taxes etc. included will still be less than 500 euros/month net. Owning a house is far cheaper than renting a place to live... Especially if you stay out of the city, and aim for the suburbs or villages/towns in the area. Avoid the Randstad, or you pay a considerably premium...
Be aware that mortgage fees have gone up since, but housing prices are dropping a little lately, and availability of properties to buy is increasing from the insane shortage of the last couple of years. For 2.350 euros a month you can live like a king in the province of Overijssel... Which is definitely one of the more beautiful provinces to live in, in terms of variety in scenery.
your mortgage fees are low because you did not have to lend much 20 years ago. You can t say to those american people you are paying 300 euros for a 400k house, you would have to mention that you only had to lend 100.000 euro s for that house at that time. And the sort of mortgage you have, is not that cheap anymore, because the deduction you mention (hypotheekafrenteaftrek) is not allowed for all these kind of mortgages that started after 2013.
Furthermore, I am sure I am paying less for my rental house now, than I would pay monthly for a mortgage if I had to buy this house right now. And I don t have the tax and maintenance costs for it. Furthermore, with the energytransistion going on, you can have a lot of additional costs if you have to transit from gas to another system for heating, in near future....
Oink! €2350,- per month rent for an apartment??? In Groningen (in a village in the countryside) I pay € 548,33 per month rent for a three bedroom house, two floors and a garden... (and yes, here we use a comma to keep the euros separate from the cents.)