Residence permits and dealing with the IND

The IND decides whether you may stay, and it is not the gemeente.

Two separate organisations run two separate registers, they check each other, and confusing them is the most common reason a first month goes wrong.

The IND grants the permit.

The gemeente records where you live and issues the BSN.

You will deal with both, in that order, and neither will do the other’s job.

Whether you need a permit at all

Citizens of the EU, the EEA and Switzerland do not need a residence permit.

You still register with the gemeente, you still need a BSN, but the IND is not part of your life.

Everyone else needs permission, and for most purposes that permission is applied for before you arrive, as a combined application: the MVV, a provisional residence permit that gets you into the country, and the residence permit itself, requested together.

The IND calls it the TEV procedure.

In practice your employer or the institution admitting you usually files it.

The permit categories

The IND organises everything by purpose of stay, and the purpose is what determines the conditions, the fee and the paperwork.

The main families are work, study, family and partner, au pair and exchange, long-term EU residency, and asylum.

Work is the biggest of these in The Hague, and the highly skilled migrant permit is the workhorse.

It is not a points test.

It is a salary test plus a sponsor test: your employer must be a sponsor recognised by the IND, and your gross monthly salary must clear a threshold set by age.

For 2026 those thresholds are €5,942 a month for applicants aged 30 and over and €4,357 a month for applicants under 30, both excluding holiday allowance.

There is a reduced criterion of €3,122 a month for people who have just completed a Dutch orientation year after graduating.

The European Blue Card uses the same €5,942, with a reduced figure of €4,754.

Those numbers move every January and sometimes again in July, so check the IND’s own table rather than a salary figure someone quoted you last year.

An offer that cleared the threshold in December can miss it in January.

What it costs

The fees change on 1 January every year and run to 31 December.

The current amounts, straight from the IND’s fee table:

• Highly skilled migrant, first application or extension: €423
• Paid employment: €423
• Family member or partner: €254
• Child under 18 joining a parent: €85
• Study: €254
• Permanent residence permit: €254, or €85 for a child under 18
• Long-term EU resident status: €254, or €85 for a child under 18
• Naturalisation: €1,139 alone, €1,454 with a partner, €168 for a child under 18 with a parent

The gap between €423 for a work permit and €1,139 for naturalisation is worth noticing early, because the second one arrives years later and is not usually budgeted for.

How long it takes

The IND publishes a legal decision period for each application type, which is the maximum it is allowed to take rather than a promise about how long it will take.

90 days covers most of what internationals in The Hague apply for: highly skilled migrant, paid employment, and regular temporary residence permits with or without an MVV, including extensions and changes of purpose.

60 days applies to study and to research, with the IND aiming at two weeks when a recognised sponsor submits the application.

Six months applies to permanent residence and to long-term EU resident status.

The recognised-sponsor route is the real difference in speed.

It is also why employers that hire internationally get themselves recognised: the filing is theirs, the target is two weeks rather than ninety days, and the IND treats the sponsor as accountable for the facts in the file.

Where you physically go

Biometrics, residence endorsement stickers and collection of the permit card itself are counter jobs.

The IND runs its own desks around the country, and in this region The Hague International Centre hosts an IND desk in the City Hall atrium at Spui 70, alongside municipal registration, for people who qualify to use it.

Qualifying means working for a recognised IND sponsor, an innovative company, a business assisted by The Hague Business Agency or InnovationQuarter, or an international organisation, embassy, NGO, university, school or knowledge institution, and living in The Hague, Delft, Rijswijk or Leidschendam-Voorburg.

If none of that applies, you use an ordinary IND desk and an ordinary gemeente appointment, which works perfectly well and is simply slower to book.

After the permit

Register at the gemeente straight away, bringing the permit or the IND’s letter of approval, because the address record and the permit are checked against each other.

Tell the IND when things change.

A new employer, a new address, a marriage, a child: all of these have reporting obligations, and a permit granted on the basis of a job does not survive the job quietly disappearing.

If you are coming with a partner or children, their applications are a distinct set of conditions rather than an extension of yours, and bringing family is worth reading as its own subject.

If the plan is to stay, the civic integration requirement starts mattering long before naturalisation does.

And if the reason you moved is a job offer with a tax package attached, the expat scheme has its own separate application to the Belastingdienst with its own four-month deadline, which the IND has nothing to do with.

When a case is genuinely contested, a refusal, a withdrawal, an objection or an appeal, that is the point at which professional help earns its fee.

Immigration lawyers in The Hague handle those, and relocation and immigration services handle the routine filings.

For a straightforward application through a recognised sponsor, neither is necessary.

Sources

• IND, residence permits: the categories of stay, the combined MVV and residence permit application, and the structure of the permit system
• IND, fees: €423 for highly skilled migrant and paid employment, €254 for family and partner, study, permanent residence and long-term EU residence, €85 for a child under 18, €1,139 and €1,454 for naturalisation and €168 for a child, and the statement that fees change each year on 1 January and are valid from 1 January to 31 December
• IND, decision periods: the 90-day legal decision period for highly skilled migrant, paid employment and regular temporary residence permits with or without an MVV, the 60-day period for study and research with a two-week target for recognised sponsors, and the six-month period for permanent residence and long-term EU resident status
• IND, required amounts and income requirements (1 July to 31 December 2026): €5,942 gross per month for highly skilled migrants aged 30 and over, €4,357 for those under 30, the reduced criterion of €3,122, the European Blue Card at €5,942 and its reduced criterion of €4,754
• IND, residence permit for a highly skilled migrant: the recognised sponsor requirement, the €423 fee and the 90-day decision period
• The Hague International Centre, arrange your formalities and make an appointment for registration: the IND desk covering biometrics, residence endorsement stickers and collection of residence documents, the eligibility conditions, and the address at City Hall (Atrium), Spui 70