An EU mandate made the Blue Card rival the Highly Skilled Migrant permit
For years, the EU Blue Card was a permit Dutch employers rarely considered. Not because it lacked benefits, but because it cost more. The salary threshold sat well above the Highly Skilled Migrant requirement, so unless a candidate specifically needed the Blue Card, most HR teams defaulted straight to HSM without a second look. In practice, the Blue Card accounted for only a small fraction of the residence permits issued to skilled migrants in the Netherlands.
That changed with the transposition of the recast EU Blue Card Directive (2021/1883) into Dutch law in June 2024, later than the original deadline of November 2023. This was not a Dutch policy choice. It was an EU mandate the Netherlands, like every member state, was required to transpose into national law. The Directive was introduced because uptake across the EU had stalled everywhere, including in the Netherlands, and the previous Dutch salary threshold was a large part of the reason. Brussels tied the new threshold to a fixed multiple of the national average wage, and the Netherlands set its factor toward the lower end of what the Directive allows. The intent behind the EU rules was explicit: make the Blue Card a genuine option instead of a technicality nobody chose.
What actually changed
Since 2025, the standard EU Blue Card salary threshold has matched the Highly Skilled Migrant threshold for candidates aged 30 and over. For 2026, that figure is 5,942 euros gross per month, excluding the 8 percent holiday allowance, for both permits. The permit that used to be the expensive fallback is now priced the same as the route most companies already use.
That does not make the two permits interchangeable. It just means the decision is no longer about cost. It is about which permit actually fits the hire.
Highly Skilled Migrant: where it still wins
The Highly Skilled Migrant permit remains the faster route. Once a company holds recognised sponsor status, a decision typically follows in around three weeks. It is also the more forgiving option for recent graduates, with a reduced threshold of 3,122 euros a month against the Blue Card's 4,754 euros. And it is the process most Dutch HR teams already know how to run, which matters more than it sounds when a hire needs to move quickly.
Its limitations are structural. Recognised sponsor status is not optional, a company without it cannot use this route at all. And the permit is valid for the Netherlands only. If the employee's role might involve relocating within the EU later, the Highly Skilled Migrant permit offers no built-in path for that.
EU Blue Card: where it now competes
The Blue Card's biggest practical advantage has nothing to do with salary. An employer does not need recognised sponsor status to apply, which opens the route to companies that are not set up as sponsors and do not want to go through that process for a single hire. After 12 months, Blue Card holders also gain the right to move to another EU member state without starting the process over, a genuine benefit for candidates who may not stay in one country long term.
The trade-offs are real too. Processing typically takes three to six weeks, longer than the Highly Skilled Migrant route. And the reduced threshold for recent graduates is higher than the equivalent HSM criterion, so the Blue Card is still the costlier choice for that specific group.
What this means for employers
The salary alignment removes the easiest reason to skip the Blue Card conversation. It does not remove the need to have that conversation. A company without recognised sponsor status, hiring for a role with EU-wide flexibility, has a genuine case for the Blue Card that did not exist before 2025. A company that already holds sponsor status and needs someone in role within weeks still has good reason to default to HSM.
The mistake worth avoiding is treating either permit as the automatic answer. Now that they cost the same, the choice comes down to sponsor status, timeline, and where the candidate might end up working next, not which one is cheaper.