The Netherlands Just Opened A Visa Category Nobody’s Talking About

A founder in Rotterdam needs a machine-learning lead. The person she wants lives in Austin. She doesn’t have half a million in funding to meet Blue Card salary levels, and the candidate wants upside, not just cash. The recruiter shrugs, then remembers a quiet line on the Dutch immigration site. It reads like a startup term sheet: salary plus at least 1 percent equity, fast advice from the Netherlands Enterprise Agency, and a 90-day decision window. This is the Dutch route that lets early teams bring in the one person they truly need—without pretending they are a 5,000-employee multinational.

If you only know the Highly Skilled Migrant path or the EU Blue Card, this will feel different. It was designed for tiny, innovative teams and it runs as a pilot through mid-2026. The short version is simple: if your Dutch startup is small, genuinely innovative, and needs a specific non-EU expert, you can sponsor them on a permit that bundles salary and equity at a realistic level for an early company. It caps team size, caps how many foreign hires you can bring, and forces real RVO screening so the program stays focused. It is not famous. It is very real.

Below is the straight map for October 2025: what the permit is, how it differs from Blue Card and HSM, the exact numbers on salary and equity, who qualifies, how to file without losing weeks, and the pitfalls that kill approvals. Use this as a working blueprint. Then decide if your next hire is actually a Dutch visa problem, or simply a paperwork sequence you haven’t run yet.

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The Quiet Visa With A Founder’s Logic

The category is called Residence Permit for Essential Start-Up Personnel. Think of it as an early-stage bridge between the founder visa and the corporate HSM track.

Three details make it a sleeper hit:

It was built for tiny teams. Your company is an innovative start-up with scalable activities, and no more than 15 employees. The law lets you sponsor up to five foreign hires under this route. That keeps the lane open for real startups, not shells or outsourcing shops.

It mixes salary with real participation. The hire must receive at least 1 percent equity (shares, depositary receipts, or options that must vest within three years) with no “performance-only” traps. In plain English, the equity must be guaranteed by time, not wishful thinking. Ownership aligns everyone instead of inflating base pay.

It moves at startup speed. The IND must decide within 90 days on a complete file, and the RVO (Netherlands Enterprise Agency) gives binding advice on whether you’re truly innovative and whether the person is essential. When your documents are clean, the timeline looks like a product sprint, not an enterprise procurement cycle. Speed makes this practical.

This is a pilot running 1 June 2021 through 1 June 2026. If you need your first or second crucial non-EU specialist, you are inside the window.

How It’s Different From HSM And The Blue Card

On paper, you could bring the same candidate on a Highly Skilled Migrant permit or an EU Blue Card. In practice, early-stage companies bounce off those routes because of salary thresholds, sponsor recognition, and the mismatch between a startup’s capital structure and a pure-salary test.

Salary expectations vs reality
The HSM minimums in 2025 step up with age and category: reduced-criterion graduates sit around €2,989 gross/month, standard HSM for 30+ jumps to €5,688 gross/month, and the Blue Card mirrors the upper tier. For a seed-stage team pre-revenue, paying a California-style salary in euros can kill runway. The essential start-up lane uses the €2,989 gross/month income requirement, then adds equity on top, which fits early-stage hiring math. Cash stays sane; upside is real.

Ownership as a requirement, not a perk
HSM and Blue Card don’t care if the hire has a stake. The start-up personnel permit requires at least 1 percent participation, granted or vesting within three years—and the IND is explicit that you cannot condition ownership on fuzzy achievements. That is how you keep this a talent magnet instead of a relocation scheme. Equity is policy, not swag.

Right-sized company gatekeeping
Where HSM assumes a recognized sponsor with an HR machine, the essential route calls in the RVO to evaluate two things: your innovative nature and the major role the person will play. Once your start-up gets a positive innovation advice, it stays valid three years for subsequent hires under this route, and repeated applications focus on the employment terms. The first approval is the hill; the rest get simpler.

Hard cap on team size and foreign hires
You can only use this if you’re still small (≤15 employees), and for at most five foreign essential hires. That nudges mature companies toward HSM/Blue Card, and it protects the pilot from being swallowed by scale-ups. It stays niche by design.

The Numbers That Matter In 2025

If you’re running the math for a single hire, here’s the budget and the thresholds.

Employer costs and timing

• Application fee: €405 to IND for the essential start-up personnel application.
• Decision period: up to 90 days; MVV and residence card issuance follow standard steps.
• Permit length: up to 3 years, extendable (and bridgeable to other permits after the pilot). Type I, temporary regular residence. Work note: “TWV not required for specific work,” meaning with your start-up; other work may require a permit. Know the label on the card.

Employee pay and equity

• Salary floor: €2,989 gross per month without holiday allowance (valid Jan–Dec 2025 for this category).
• Equity: ≥1 percent in shares, DRs, or options; must vest within 3 years and cannot be contingent on arbitrary “performance.”
• Counting compensation: base salary must meet the IND floor. Equity is required in addition, not as a substitute for cash. Do not try to salary-wash with options.

Company eligibility

• Innovation test: product or service new to the Netherlands, or you use new technology or a new way of organizing.
• Scale test: ≤15 employees total at the start-up.
• Headcount cap: up to five foreign essential hires on this route across the pilot period. Pick your five wisely.

Who This Works For (And Who Should Use A Different Door)

This is not a universal shortcut. It perfectly fits a few scenarios.

Perfect fits

• First data scientist for a hardware-AI team in Delft that is pre-Series A. The candidate brings a specialized skill and wants options alongside pay.
• Senior full-stack with niche domain knowledge for a healthTech pilot in Utrecht. The job description would not pass a generic HSM screening but clearly counts as essential to a small, innovative team.
• Product lead with rare market access for a Rotterdam logistics start-up. The person’s role can be articulated as major in RVO’s eyes, and the equity clause seals alignment.

Use another door

• Scale-ups with >15 employees or hiring a sixth foreign specialist for the same start-up. At that point, HSM or Blue Card is the right lane, and your compensation likely clears the higher thresholds anyway.
• Freelance-first arrangements. The essential route requires an employment contract with your start-up; pure contractor setups don’t fit. Consider self-employed or the start-up founder permit if you’re actually hiring a co-founder, not an employee.

Exactly How To File Without Getting Stuck

Treat this like a fundraising data room. You’re telling a clear story to RVO and IND in this order.

1) Prove you’re an innovative start-up
Your RVO advice turns on three axes: innovation, scalability, and the candidate’s essential role. Write a two-page memo that answers: What is new in the Dutch context, where is the technology edge, and what revenue-scale path exists in 12–24 months. Attach concise product docs, a one-page roadmap, and any Dutch pilot/customer letters. RVO is allergic to buzzwords; show working reality.

2) Lock the employment terms to the rulebook
Your offer letter should state the gross monthly salary (≥ €2,989, ex-holiday allowance), the equity instrument (shares/DR/options), the percentage (≥1 percent fully diluted target), and the vesting that ensures delivery within three years without performance hurdles. Add a simple cap table and option plan excerpt. Clarity here is half your approval.

3) Build the document stack once, not twice

• Company docs: chamber extract, articles, capitalization summary, payroll registration.
• Employee docs: passport, degree or résumé supporting “expert in a special field,” background certificate if requested, and MVV readiness.
• Translations/legalizations: anything foreign gets translated into Dutch/English by a sworn translator; foreign civil docs must be legalized/apostilled. Formatting matters as much as facts.

4) File through the correct form and pay
Use the pilot 7570/7571 forms for sponsor/foreign national, submit by post (yes, really), and pay the €405 fee. Track the 90-day decision window; if IND stops the clock for missing items, respond with the exact page they want, not a new novella. Speed comes from completeness.

5) Sequence MVV and arrival without drama
When approved, the candidate books the MVV appointment at the listed consulate, gives biometrics, and travels. Book the IND card pick-up in the Netherlands early; some desks fill faster than others. Logistics is your last bottleneck.

Pitfalls Most Teams Miss

Calling a role “essential” without proof
“Essential” is not a compliment; it is a function test. Tie the role to a deliverable you cannot ship without—for example, “Build v1 inference stack that cuts unit costs 23 percent to hit supermarket pilots.” That language translates to RVO.

Trying to pay the floor and call it a day
The salary floor is necessary, not sufficient. If the seniority requires market pay, underpaying and papering with 1 percent will look like gaming. Show a reasonable comp+equity mix for the job, then reference the floor.

Messy equity instruments
Options must be clearly documented and vest within three years, with no “achievement only” traps. If your plan’s legalese is vague, rewrite it before filing. This is the most common file defect we see.

Forgetting the cap table reality
If your last round created liquidation preferences that bury common equity, the RVO/IND still sees “1 percent” but your hire gets phantom value. Be transparent about how the 1 percent participates so the participation looks genuine, not cosmetic.

Using the wrong IND category mid-process
Teams sometimes start an HSM dossier and switch to essential when they see the salary threshold. Don’t do that mid-stream. Withdraw cleanly and re-file under the essential route so your paper trail matches the category.

What This Costs Versus HSM Or Blue Card

Let’s put a realistic early-stage hire next to the common alternatives.

Essential Start-Up Personnel

• Cash: €2,989+ gross/month base, plus holiday allowance; equity ≥1 percent.
• Fees: €405 application fee plus standard legal/translation costs.
• Time: ~90 days for a decision on clean files.
• Risk: RVO rejects “innovation” or “essential role,” or equity docs fail the within-3-years test.

Highly Skilled Migrant (age 30+)

• Cash: €5,688 gross/month minimum, often more to be competitive.
• Fees: employer recognition (if not already recognized), standard application fees.
• Time: similar IND clocks, but sponsor recognition and salary verification add friction.

EU Blue Card

• Cash: typically aligned with the €5,688 tier in 2025, with degree documentation and contract length rules.
• Fees/Time: comparable to HSM. Good for mobility across the EU, but expensive for a seed-stage team.

In founder language: the essential route trades higher cash for equity and RVO diligence. If your product is real and your role is mission-critical, this is the cheapest way to legally bring in top non-EU talent before your Series A.

The 14-Day Sprint To Your First Approval

You can get from “we found the person” to “filed” in two weeks if you run this like a release.

Day 1–2: Decision memo
Write the two-page innovation+role memo for RVO. Include one paragraph that quantifies the scalability and one that declares precisely what breaks without this hire.

Day 3–4: Comp + equity lock
Issue an offer that states salary, equity instrument, percent, and vesting within three years. Attach the cap table and option plan clauses.

Day 5–7: Document sweep
Collect company registry extracts, payroll proofs, and product annexes; get the candidate’s passport, résumé/degree, and any needed legalizations. Book sworn translations now so a translator blocks time.

Day 8–9: Forms and fee
Populate the pilot 7570/7571 forms, sign, and prepare the postal packet. Include a cover sheet with a one-line checklist matching IND headings to your pages.

Day 10–12: Quality audit
Run a mismatch check on names, dates, and numbers. If anything forces an explanation, write the explanation on a separate ¼ page and reference it in situ.

Day 13–14: Ship and track
Send by traceable post, calendar the 90-day decision date, and prepare the candidate’s MVV slot at the chosen consulate. Quietly draft a relocation timeline so you can move fast on approval.

If You’re Running The Numbers (Founder View)

• Hiring a 30+ HSM at €5,688 base versus an essential hire at €2,989 base plus 1 percent is a trade between burn rate and dilution. At seed stage, cash is king; 1 percent is the price of oxygen.
• The application fee delta is irrelevant; the real savings are the salary band and the fact that you can hire before sponsor recognition would ordinarily be ready for HSM.
• If your plan is to convert the person to HSM or standard employment later, you can. After five years of lawful residence (across qualifying permits) the person can seek permanent residence subject to the usual rules. There is a long game baked in.

Common Pushback (And Good Answers)

“Why not just use HSM like everyone else.”
Because you are not “everyone else.” Your runway prefers €2,989 + 1 percent to €5,688 with zero upside. And your candidate prefers ownership. This route is literally designed for teams like yours.

“RVO will never believe we’re innovative.”
Show what is new in the Netherlands, not in Silicon Valley. A workflow that is ordinary in San Diego can be novel in Dutch health administration. Anchor your claim to local pilots, partners, or datasets.

“Equity is complicated; can’t we bonus instead.”
No. The participation is mandatory. Keep it simple with time-vesting options that satisfy the within-3-years rule. Complexity kills files; plain vanilla passes.

“What if the pilot ends in 2026.”
The scheme currently runs to 1 June 2026. If it sunsets, people already on the permit can keep working for one year after abolition, and many will switch to HSM or another category by then. It is a bridge, not a trap.

What This Means For You

If you have a small Dutch company, a specific non-EU specialist you can name, and a product that is actually new in the Netherlands, you do not have to wait for a Series A to compete on talent. The essential start-up personnel route exists for exactly this moment. Put the €2,989 salary floor next to 1 percent equity, write a two-page memo that reads like your internal roadmap, and let RVO validate the innovation you’re already building.

Most people still default to the Blue Card or HSM because they have heard of them. That is fine for scale-ups. For you, the quiet lane has better math and faster clocks. Use it while it exists. And choose your first five carefully. They will likely become the people who make your fifteenth hire obvious.