
Why (or why not) to move your company to Amsterdam - inbys
http://startupjuncture.com/2013/03/08/four-reasons-to-move-your-startup-to-amsterdam-and-2-challenges/
======
josscrowcroft
So, although I found the article a little bit light, I'm fascinated to hear
anybody's experience of Amsterdam for solo entrepreneurs and creatives. I've
been considering it as a place to live, work and play for a while.

E.g. what are the pros/cons of moving there for 3–6 months, assuming there are
no plans to raise funding, hire staff or rent an office?

~~~
digitalengineer
Dutchman here. Depends on where your from. Trying to find an affordable place
to live can be difficult. (Depending on what you feel is affordable). On the
other hand, distance is nothing in Holland. You drive through the entire
country in 3 hours. An affordable place to live just 30 min outside Amsterdam
is a lot easier. Public transport is good, most of the time. Driving and
parking in A'dam is expensive as well... Most people just drive a bike (not a
motorbike). There's a ton of info over at <http://appsterdam.rs/>

~~~
raverbashing
Can you give a ballpark on rent figures?

Also on average 'take home pay' for jobs

~~~
digitalengineer
Here's an overview with pictures and prices. Remember it's cheaper 30 min
outslide of the city. <http://www.funda.nl/huur/amsterdam/sorteer-huurprijs-
op/p8/>

Edit: What kind of jobs exactly?

~~~
raverbashing
Thanks for the link

This prices are not expensive

Ok, let me be more specific

\- Sw developer makes how much, and that's how much after taxes?

\- Senior Sw/Tech lead makes how much, takes how much home?

For reference, here's Dublin:

\- Sw dev jobs pay around 3k to 5k per month, taking home btw 2k and 3k for
that interval

\- A small flat, city center, 1 bedroom can go between 600 to 900, if you go a
little further you can have a better price per bedroom. (even get a house for
1400 in some locations)

~~~
nephronim
moving from dublin to amsterdam the housing is a nightmare in general. But
once you get the ring of it, you will be okay. There is more freelance
opportunities but you need dutch working with the tax system.

It a relaxed transient culture in amsterdam and it takes time to break into
circles.

And in general the weather is better than ireland.

~~~
digitalengineer
Very true: "but you need dutch working with the tax system." Hell, even I have
help with the tax-system. A small tip regarding housing: Visit the
neighbourhood of choice after/around eight o'clock to get a feel of the
streets.

------
generalseven
Very lively, internationally oriented, creative environment.

Very strong hacker community with excellent people who are unfortunately
(still) undervalued and misunderstood by their government.

The article is probably wrong on one point:

I don't believe you ever get used to the weather.

------
subsystem
The real question is of course "Is it better than Berlin?". I personally
wouldn't bother with any European city with housing market problem, excluding
London.

~~~
nirvana
No. And contrary to what others have said, more Germans know english than
Dutch know english, on a day to day basis. Though you can get by without
knowing dutch in amsterdam with a little creativity.

~~~
Glowbox
Do you have any numbers to back that up? This site (<http://www.nfia-
india.com/why_english_speaking_society.html>) says 62% vs 91% in favor of the
Netherlands.

edit: seeing this guys profile/comments in this thread it's an obvious troll.

~~~
raverbashing
62% of the pop of Germany is more than 91% of population of Netherlands

Lies, damned lies and statistics ;)

------
pogosian
Do they have some sort of startup visa in Netherlands? Something like UK's
Tier 1 Entrepreneur perhaps?

~~~
digitalengineer
Even better, according to the guys at Appsterdam there's this piece of law
created after WW2 where anyone from the US can start their own company in
Holland. USA citizens can apply for a Dutch residence permit to be self-
employed or operate their business in the Netherlands. They can also sponsor
their married partners and minor children for residence.
<http://www.expatlaw.nl/dutch_american_friendship_treaty.htm>

~~~
joonix
I'm guessing residents under this visa don't get any government benefits such
as free healthcare, correct?

~~~
digitalengineer
I think you just buy regular basic insurance like the rest. It costs about
€99,-

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nephronim
If we can get the startup community in Amsterdam actively collaborating with
each other I think Amsterdam could be as strong as any startup hub in Europe.
Hence the mention of <http://pitch.rs> in the article.

------
sgt
Also factor in the time you're going to be spending learning Dutch. You'll
probably get by with English alone since everyone will speak it with you, but
it's certainly less than optimal.

~~~
mtrimpe
Apart from London Amsterdam is probably the city where you can get by most
easily speaking only English.

It will be hard to fully integrate into Dutch social life without learning
proper Dutch of course, but professionally it will not be much of a problem
and the expat community is so large that it is fairly easy to build a decent
social life within it.

~~~
jonascopenhagen
> Amsterdam is probably the only city, apart from London, where you can get by
> perfectly speaking only English.

You can get by perfectly speaking only English in most of Northern Europe.

Southern Europe is a different story.

~~~
mtrimpe
Seeing that your from Copenhagen; how is the expat community there?

Here it feels very thriving, lively and well-functioning, but quite insular
because on the one hand we make it _so_ easy to get by with English alone but
on the other hand we don't truly accept people into our social circles unless
they speak Dutch.

Can you relate to that?

~~~
jonascopenhagen
Yes and no - the Americans I know who live here are generally very happy with
it. Some are so used to being able to speak English everywhere in Denmark that
they live here for years without getting to know the language. But I would
definitely recommend people who live here for a longer time (two or more
years) to learn a little Danish. It's not that hard, and they can use their
knowledge of Danish to easily learn similar languages like German, Swedish,
etc.

~~~
mtrimpe
That sounds very similar to here; although here learning the language usually
starts closer to the 4 or 5 year mark.

Once again I'm forgetting Denmark as 'the other country that is so much like
ours.'

------
Mvandenbergh
The real question of course is 'move from where?'. Should you move your
company from Silicon Valley to Amsterdam? Probably not. Should you move it
from somewhere else in Europe? Maybe.

------
prtamil
You should not move your company to Amsterdam because every employee can smoke
pot legally :)

~~~
cpursley
Better add Colorado and Washington state to that list.

And maybe we should move all of our companies to Saudia Arabia since employees
can drink legally everywhere else.

------
kosherbeefcake
How easy is it to move or at least move a business over to Amsterdam, from the
US?

------
sangupta
Any links to finding more information on moving from Asia?

------
nirvana
If you run a successful business in holland, and pay yourself a salary out of
it, your tax rate is over %70! And on top of that, you have %20 VAT. And this
isn't even going into the manifold fees and other types of taxes you are
subjected to.

\-------------------------------

This comment is not spam. It had a nice positive score until the socialists
arrived. Of course, socialists being unable to deal with reality (or history!)
must censor those who point out simple facts that undermine their ideology.
And so this comment has been downvoted to obscurity (-15 at this moment) to
make it less likely others would be made aware of the high tax rates in
holland.

This kind of dishonesty and censorship is why you can't have fruitful
discussion on hacker news. The site is overrun by ideologues and moderated by
ideologues and anything that doesn't strictly toe to the fascist modern
ideology gets the boot.

Ok, just accept, though, that you're anti-intellectual in a very profound way.

When you can't tolerate people stating inconvenient facts, it's time to admit
you're an intellectual coward.

Frankly, I think you're all shit. You've elected a guy who claims he has the
right to kill any american with a drone strike, in america, without any due
process.

And you're so proud of it! It's astounding. You should be ashamed. Profoundly
ashamed.

But know this, it is your cowardice and intellectual dishonesty that caused
the state of affairs we find ourselves in. Run away to amsterdam if you like,
see how long it remains nice.

~~~
walshemj
Why would you include corp taxes in that.

I looked at Amsterdam as a move and it was about the same as the UK and other
European states, and as I have the max years in for the uk pension scheme I
was temped to move to Holland to buildup a second pension there.

The lack of a VCT's, CGT exemption and taper relief is an issue for smaller
investors - Seems to me that the ducth have a lot of german style Mittelstand
companies and cgt/taxsystems is trageted at that .

and the 30% rule ie 30% of you salary is disregarded for 10 years for migrant
workers is an amazing tax
break(<http://www.expatax.nl/30ruling.php#.UTnYdjfRqE8>)

~~~
nirvana
Ok, so you don't pay %50 on 1/3rd of your salary for 10 years. I wouldn't
exactly call that "an amazing tax break". You're still paying way too much in
taxes.

~~~
walshemj
um you do know how to calculate % do you this is effectively adding 30% tax
free to the base you do not get taxed at 52% on all the rest you still have
the tired tax rates as well as the 30%

And by that time id have moved back to the UK :-)

