The two documents

The entry visa, known here as the provisional residence permit, is a sticker collected at a Dutch embassy or consulate in your own country. It gives you the right to travel here. The residence permit itself is the card you collect once you have arrived.

Who skips the entry visa

Citizens of a defined list of countries apply for the residence permit directly. That list covers the European Union and the wider European Economic Area, Switzerland, and: Australia, Canada, Japan, New Zealand, South Korea, the United States, the United Kingdom, Monaco and Vatican City.

Everyone else applies for the entry visa first, unless one of the exemptions applies. Those exemptions cover specific situations rather than nationalities, and they are listed in the application forms themselves.

One exemption worth knowing

Someone who already holds a valid residence permit from another Schengen country skips the entry visa when an approved employer files for them here. For a company recruiting across Europe that shortens the timeline considerably: becoming an approved employer.

Where the sequence goes wrong

  • Travelling first. Arriving as a tourist and applying from here works for the list above and creates a problem for everyone else.
  • Working while waiting. Until the permit is granted, work stays closed off. That includes work for your own company.
  • Booking the move too tightly. The embassy appointment, the travel and the collection each carry their own lead time.

After you arrive

Register with the municipality, collect the residence card, and arrange the citizen service number that everything else depends on. Where a tuberculosis test was agreed at application, book it within three months of receiving the permit.

The order in which all this fits around forming a company sits in company first or permit first.

Where this advice stops

Holdwise builds the company structure: the entity, the salary, the tax position. The residence application itself belongs with an immigration lawyer, who follows the case law and the forms week by week. Arrange both in the same conversation and the two sides fit together; arrange them separately and one usually has to be redone.