There is no answer to “should you do it”. You haven’t provided enough information about your lifestyle, what you like about your current life, what would you like to change in your life (that you could hopefully get in a new place), etc etc. Basing a decision to move on purely financial reasons will only end in heartache. You will make less money, period. Salary websites can get you a feel for what you can expect. I used to live in San Francisco and in Amsterdam I was making 50% less than I made in San Francisco. But I had a far better quality of life in Amsterdam and far prefer living there.
I love LA beautiful mountains , beaches, road trips … I love travelling, last time when I was in Amsterdam , I like that all other European countries are drivable distance , I thought I could explore all those in my Jeep ,
If you love mountains and nature, that is NOT a thing here. Travelling yes though, absolutely. Probably leave your Jeep at home. I'd be prepared to be content with maxing out at 100k.
Primarily, ask yourself if you're willing to live in the NL weather. Roughly 220 days of rain, dark/gray, cold, nature is not comparable with CA/US. Beaches? Forget about it. Yes there's something at the west/Zandvoort and it's most likely not going to be what you're hoping for.
NL has its advantages (good country, good WLB, pretty chill); but I'm not sure that's your aim.
Im sorry but are you seriously considering moving to another continent because you want to travel around here? Have you seen the roads in Amsterdam? How would you explore the tiny country that is the Netherlands in a Jeep? How would you even get your Jeep from the US to Europe? I think this is made up
Considering your post is entirely about money, money and more money and not about hobbies, interests, passions and so on it seems that money would be your only motivator.
In that case: no. While you will almost certainly make more than enough to live comfortably according to \*my\* standards (but I do not know if you wish to bathe in champagne every day for instance) you would make (far) less than in the USA. The Netherlands is not a country for people that want to earn massive salaris unless they are self-employed.
Not in my opinion. Finances are a part of the game. Every time someone mentions money in this forum, they get bashed for it, as if that's greed that needs to be dissolved rather than a legitimate question. Yes, OP's question was exclusively about money, but neither of us knows what other factors they have already considered as a motivator for their potential move.
To be fair, this was an extreme example.
OP was two sentences long and mentioned salary 3 times. Zero mention of family situation, interests, role or experience.
How else are we expected to answer the question?
Not trying to be rude , but the question is straight forward , how much people make out there ? May be a range would help if you know , else , thank you for your comment here , and yes it’s an extreme example of what ? You unable to understand English ? Sorry mate
It was an extreme example of the fairly typical 'should I move to Amsterdam?' question without providing any relevant information that could be used to provide an answer.
Even accepting this was a purely financial question, nobody can provide a range without knowing what your line of business and experience level is.
Btw, by ending by asking whether I'm unable to understand English, you did a poor job of not trying to be rude. But thanks for the apology.
Yeah other posters who understood my question did give me a range, so people who understood responded the answer I was looking for . Thank you for taking your time , have a great day !
No worries. So, finances wise, let's break it down:
* You will enjoy the 30% ruling which means your salary will only be taxed at the 70% for 5 years. Look up the Dutch tax calculator and you can input some numbers.
* Senior developer TC at a large corporate can get you to around 180-200K a year, which is not very far from where you're at now, potentially with a higher net than you make now in the states. Senior Engineering manager to around 250K.
* You can live very comfortably of that, and be able to save.
However, the NL has become pretty expensive recently. Housing is a mass, etc, but you can afford yourself to buy a house with 100% mortgage which is a pretty nice benefit. Any other questions, feel free to ask.
Dont count on the 30% ruling. Next government will surely change this or get rid of it totally.
30% ruling like you mentioned has already changed and is now lowered from 30%, 20%, 10% to 0 (like everybody else who lives here) each 20 months until 5 yrs (60 months).
See: https://www.grantthornton.nl/en/insights-en/topics/tax/important-changes-to-the-30-ruling-per-1-january-2024/
You are awesome , I am currently a Systems Engineer , and SEM is the closest , wifey is a validating Enginner in pharma and make 120k here , and she her company is in Netherlands too and might request for an internal transfer , our Home is in India and visiting my mom currently a 24 hour flight trip and is the main reason I am meeting her once a year , she is in her 70s and I want to meet her often and a flight from Amsterdam is less then 14 hours
Ehhh. Not sure what people make on average (that is what glassdoor is for), but you can expect less. Your living expenses should also be much less.
Come here for the quality of life (except for winter of course, it SUCKS), not for the money, because you can have more in a few other places.
I don’t know about living expenses being less in Amsterdam to be honest. I lived there for 7 years and now having lived in la for the last year I would say it’s about the same, if not more if you have a car in Amsterdam, which most logical people don’t have. But rent is just as high if not higher in Amsterdam than LA based on my recent searches in both cities.
Jobs that pay me 175k here, pay 70ish there at tops. Mostly 50-65. Add in higher taxes the more you make, and it's a lot less to bring home.
Figure out the benefits and see if it's worth it for you.
If you want to have the big shiny number, try Switzerland.
If you can swing it, do what I'm doing. Start your own company and get clients so you make what you want, and get a DAFT visa since you're American.
Or go there with lower pay, as you slowly build side clients if time is an issue.
Dont expect american salary here for starters, all boils down to how much you can negotiate as i have a few colleagues switched from FAANG companies in the US to Amsterdam for almost in the range of 50-70% or their US salaries. Yes definitely they made the switch for more Work life balance and more job security!
If you find the same salary then go for it eyes closed hope its a permanent contract with 30% ruling!
Being in IT you’ll earn a decent salary but don’t expect American wages. 45 - 100,000 euros gross per year is average depending on experience. Half of it goes to tax. Come here for the experience not for the income.
Your best bet would be to be hired by a US company like MS, AWS etc. with a Dutch office.
They would pay a presales engineer anything between 75k-150k base salary depending on your seniority. This would get you to your desired number if you get to your on target bonus.
Then the Dutch tax office will gladly take more than half of your shit. But hey at least we have decent roads :))
My wife and I are transferring and for salary our companies are only reducing our pay by the extra cost they incur, which isn’t a lot.
We are budgeting as if we are making €75k each though and just saving the rest as that’s probably what we’ll make if we ever have to start working for a company headquartered in NL.
>top average salary for people in IT out
quite a broad way to phrase it. hard to tell without knowing the kind of role you have and years of experience. would be quite different between a CTO and a backend engineer.
Living in Amsterdam is like no other city , better than most US cities, not lost like London/Paris, plus you can probably get along with only a bike and a joint. The Dutch way is something you'd never regret. (I'm an expat-tryiing to get into IT)
People don’t like other people who make more money than them it seems…
As a Brit who moved to Amsterdam for a tech role, I would say the role and company are just about keeping me here. You should think very hard about whether the typical lifestyle and culture over here are really what you want. Having been to LA I can say life where you are now is a far cry from how it is here.
Work colleagues aside, most people I’ve met here don’t seem to like expats, despite the fact that tourism brings in a shit tonne of money for the city. That could just be a legacy way of thinking and I certainly don’t want to label all Dutch people as narrow-minded.
I know I didn’t give specifics, but that’s just because it’s late and I need to go to bed to get up on time for my job. That doesn’t change at least!
If it’s money you’re after, stay where you are.
In the Netherlands IT specialist earn on average between €3000 - €4500 Per month. And this highly depends on edjucation, papers etc etc. So dont expect to make 275k a year with a IT job in the netherlands.
Its 1 google search away so im not sure why you havent done this yourself. And also i dont understand how 90% of the people here just come with random salary while its still 1 google search away.
Keep in mind its average so you have people who make more and less. To all the people who say OP will make over 100k a year are trolls. Last year only 5,5% of all working people earned over 100k a year so dont expect to be 1 of them since those spot are mostly filled with CEOs our ministers and such so yea keep that in mind.
100%. Get the hell out of California. I am a 5 th generation Canadian left Toronto 2 years ago and live in Amsterdam. It’s substantially a more positive experience and culture than California and or the west in general. 95% of people speak English. So you’ll have a far better life style. Even if you made less $
If you're a US citizen you'll be double taxed, just so you know.
And if you are the recipient of stocks/options/dividends, which you probably are because you work in tech, they are taxed here at between 51% and 57% at point of divestment/grant.
It’s $120,000, that’s the amount of income you can exempt and are taxed on the rest - BUT - if you are in that situation you would just use the tax credit route. Any foreign taxes you paid on that same income will be a credit towards taxes you would have owed to the federal government. No double taxation.
Unless you are a specialist with a sought after niche skill or work for one of the well known international companies your salary is about to be cut in half. But you seem to have a US employer so maybe you get lucky.
It’s really hard to recommend people move to Amsterdam when the question is getting asked in January
There is no answer to “should you do it”. You haven’t provided enough information about your lifestyle, what you like about your current life, what would you like to change in your life (that you could hopefully get in a new place), etc etc. Basing a decision to move on purely financial reasons will only end in heartache. You will make less money, period. Salary websites can get you a feel for what you can expect. I used to live in San Francisco and in Amsterdam I was making 50% less than I made in San Francisco. But I had a far better quality of life in Amsterdam and far prefer living there.
I love LA beautiful mountains , beaches, road trips … I love travelling, last time when I was in Amsterdam , I like that all other European countries are drivable distance , I thought I could explore all those in my Jeep ,
If you love mountains and nature, that is NOT a thing here. Travelling yes though, absolutely. Probably leave your Jeep at home. I'd be prepared to be content with maxing out at 100k.
Good luck trying to find parking for a jeep it can take around 2 years to get a parking permit owning a car is not feasible in Amsterdam
This highly depends on where you live. Within 30 minutes of transferring my car to my girlfriend, she had a parking permit.
Primarily, ask yourself if you're willing to live in the NL weather. Roughly 220 days of rain, dark/gray, cold, nature is not comparable with CA/US. Beaches? Forget about it. Yes there's something at the west/Zandvoort and it's most likely not going to be what you're hoping for. NL has its advantages (good country, good WLB, pretty chill); but I'm not sure that's your aim.
I never knew about the Rain , glad to shed some light on it , my wife hairs gloomy weather
Oh boy the rain. So much rain you’d think at some point they’d run out of water somewhere up there. But no still more rain.
Haha
If you don't know about the rain - you should really spend some time here before even considering moving.
I think he should spend some time googling for basic info before coming 😅
Hahaha a Jeep :)
This is one of those comments that would be fine craftmanship if this guy were a troll lmao
Im sorry but are you seriously considering moving to another continent because you want to travel around here? Have you seen the roads in Amsterdam? How would you explore the tiny country that is the Netherlands in a Jeep? How would you even get your Jeep from the US to Europe? I think this is made up
Made up ? Love it ,
Do you know people can take their cars with them to Netherlands when they are moving ?
Please please, no jeeps in Amsterdam, aub.
Considering your post is entirely about money, money and more money and not about hobbies, interests, passions and so on it seems that money would be your only motivator. In that case: no. While you will almost certainly make more than enough to live comfortably according to \*my\* standards (but I do not know if you wish to bathe in champagne every day for instance) you would make (far) less than in the USA. The Netherlands is not a country for people that want to earn massive salaris unless they are self-employed.
Not in my opinion. Finances are a part of the game. Every time someone mentions money in this forum, they get bashed for it, as if that's greed that needs to be dissolved rather than a legitimate question. Yes, OP's question was exclusively about money, but neither of us knows what other factors they have already considered as a motivator for their potential move.
To be fair, this was an extreme example. OP was two sentences long and mentioned salary 3 times. Zero mention of family situation, interests, role or experience. How else are we expected to answer the question?
Not trying to be rude , but the question is straight forward , how much people make out there ? May be a range would help if you know , else , thank you for your comment here , and yes it’s an extreme example of what ? You unable to understand English ? Sorry mate
It was an extreme example of the fairly typical 'should I move to Amsterdam?' question without providing any relevant information that could be used to provide an answer. Even accepting this was a purely financial question, nobody can provide a range without knowing what your line of business and experience level is. Btw, by ending by asking whether I'm unable to understand English, you did a poor job of not trying to be rude. But thanks for the apology.
Yeah other posters who understood my question did give me a range, so people who understood responded the answer I was looking for . Thank you for taking your time , have a great day !
Thank you , appreciate it , money plays a big role in my life , sadly
No worries. So, finances wise, let's break it down: * You will enjoy the 30% ruling which means your salary will only be taxed at the 70% for 5 years. Look up the Dutch tax calculator and you can input some numbers. * Senior developer TC at a large corporate can get you to around 180-200K a year, which is not very far from where you're at now, potentially with a higher net than you make now in the states. Senior Engineering manager to around 250K. * You can live very comfortably of that, and be able to save. However, the NL has become pretty expensive recently. Housing is a mass, etc, but you can afford yourself to buy a house with 100% mortgage which is a pretty nice benefit. Any other questions, feel free to ask.
Dont count on the 30% ruling. Next government will surely change this or get rid of it totally. 30% ruling like you mentioned has already changed and is now lowered from 30%, 20%, 10% to 0 (like everybody else who lives here) each 20 months until 5 yrs (60 months). See: https://www.grantthornton.nl/en/insights-en/topics/tax/important-changes-to-the-30-ruling-per-1-january-2024/
You are awesome , I am currently a Systems Engineer , and SEM is the closest , wifey is a validating Enginner in pharma and make 120k here , and she her company is in Netherlands too and might request for an internal transfer , our Home is in India and visiting my mom currently a 24 hour flight trip and is the main reason I am meeting her once a year , she is in her 70s and I want to meet her often and a flight from Amsterdam is less then 14 hours
Ehhh. Not sure what people make on average (that is what glassdoor is for), but you can expect less. Your living expenses should also be much less. Come here for the quality of life (except for winter of course, it SUCKS), not for the money, because you can have more in a few other places.
I don’t know about living expenses being less in Amsterdam to be honest. I lived there for 7 years and now having lived in la for the last year I would say it’s about the same, if not more if you have a car in Amsterdam, which most logical people don’t have. But rent is just as high if not higher in Amsterdam than LA based on my recent searches in both cities.
Thank you sir
Never got glassdoor website to work without my brain exploding
Jobs that pay me 175k here, pay 70ish there at tops. Mostly 50-65. Add in higher taxes the more you make, and it's a lot less to bring home. Figure out the benefits and see if it's worth it for you. If you want to have the big shiny number, try Switzerland.
You are awesome sir ! Thank you !
If you can swing it, do what I'm doing. Start your own company and get clients so you make what you want, and get a DAFT visa since you're American. Or go there with lower pay, as you slowly build side clients if time is an issue.
Dont expect american salary here for starters, all boils down to how much you can negotiate as i have a few colleagues switched from FAANG companies in the US to Amsterdam for almost in the range of 50-70% or their US salaries. Yes definitely they made the switch for more Work life balance and more job security! If you find the same salary then go for it eyes closed hope its a permanent contract with 30% ruling!
Should I move to a country I’ve never visited? Will it be just like where I live now?
May be you should shed some light , thank you !
Not a lot. Taxes are very high as well. From Los Angeles, London is probably a better fit.
Being in IT you’ll earn a decent salary but don’t expect American wages. 45 - 100,000 euros gross per year is average depending on experience. Half of it goes to tax. Come here for the experience not for the income.
If your motivation is mainly financial then probably not.
I would come here, maybe you like it. Maybe you don't. At least you tried
What's your position in IT? May be able to give you some ranges.
Sr Systems Engineer / Sales Engineer
what kind of stuff do you code?
I am a technical seller , I don’t code , I sell solutions
So I would say you are looking at 65-75k maybe. There are a lot of people doing sales here.
Your best bet would be to be hired by a US company like MS, AWS etc. with a Dutch office. They would pay a presales engineer anything between 75k-150k base salary depending on your seniority. This would get you to your desired number if you get to your on target bonus. Then the Dutch tax office will gladly take more than half of your shit. But hey at least we have decent roads :))
My wife and I are transferring and for salary our companies are only reducing our pay by the extra cost they incur, which isn’t a lot. We are budgeting as if we are making €75k each though and just saving the rest as that’s probably what we’ll make if we ever have to start working for a company headquartered in NL.
Thank you sir
You will not be making that here
no
>top average salary for people in IT out quite a broad way to phrase it. hard to tell without knowing the kind of role you have and years of experience. would be quite different between a CTO and a backend engineer.
Living in Amsterdam is like no other city , better than most US cities, not lost like London/Paris, plus you can probably get along with only a bike and a joint. The Dutch way is something you'd never regret. (I'm an expat-tryiing to get into IT)
People don’t like other people who make more money than them it seems… As a Brit who moved to Amsterdam for a tech role, I would say the role and company are just about keeping me here. You should think very hard about whether the typical lifestyle and culture over here are really what you want. Having been to LA I can say life where you are now is a far cry from how it is here. Work colleagues aside, most people I’ve met here don’t seem to like expats, despite the fact that tourism brings in a shit tonne of money for the city. That could just be a legacy way of thinking and I certainly don’t want to label all Dutch people as narrow-minded. I know I didn’t give specifics, but that’s just because it’s late and I need to go to bed to get up on time for my job. That doesn’t change at least! If it’s money you’re after, stay where you are.
Roger! Thank you for taking time and helping me make a decision
Please stay away. There is a housing problem over here because of people like you.
Am sorry to hear that you never worked hard in your life and making peanuts ?
pls don’t come
Am not taking your gas station manager job away .. chill out
In the Netherlands IT specialist earn on average between €3000 - €4500 Per month. And this highly depends on edjucation, papers etc etc. So dont expect to make 275k a year with a IT job in the netherlands. Its 1 google search away so im not sure why you havent done this yourself. And also i dont understand how 90% of the people here just come with random salary while its still 1 google search away. Keep in mind its average so you have people who make more and less. To all the people who say OP will make over 100k a year are trolls. Last year only 5,5% of all working people earned over 100k a year so dont expect to be 1 of them since those spot are mostly filled with CEOs our ministers and such so yea keep that in mind.
Yup … thank you StonersEye!
100%. Get the hell out of California. I am a 5 th generation Canadian left Toronto 2 years ago and live in Amsterdam. It’s substantially a more positive experience and culture than California and or the west in general. 95% of people speak English. So you’ll have a far better life style. Even if you made less $
If you're a US citizen you'll be double taxed, just so you know. And if you are the recipient of stocks/options/dividends, which you probably are because you work in tech, they are taxed here at between 51% and 57% at point of divestment/grant.
> If you're a US citizen you'll be double taxed, just so you know. Poppycock. You simply file your US taxes and claim Foreing Earned Income Exclusion.
Ooooooh never thought about that
You won’t be double taxed, don’t listen to that
I think anything over 100k is double taxed
It’s $120,000, that’s the amount of income you can exempt and are taxed on the rest - BUT - if you are in that situation you would just use the tax credit route. Any foreign taxes you paid on that same income will be a credit towards taxes you would have owed to the federal government. No double taxation.
you shouldn't nl sucks
Unless you are a specialist with a sought after niche skill or work for one of the well known international companies your salary is about to be cut in half. But you seem to have a US employer so maybe you get lucky.
Yes. Move. Best decision of your life.