How Our Comparisons Are Made

We compare banks, insurers, language schools, transfer services and other providers that expats in the Netherlands have to choose between. That means we put options side by side, put them in an order, and sometimes say which one looks like the sensible choice for a particular situation. Anyone reading that verdict should know how it was built — and whether money is involved.

This page explains both. It also serves as our ranking transparency under Article 27 of the Digital Services Act: the main parameters behind the order of our comparisons are set out below, in plain language.

What determines the order

The order in a comparison follows from the question the article answers. A list for “best bank for a new arrival without a BSN” looks different from a list for “best bank for a freelancer invoicing outside the EU”, because the criteria that carry weight shift.

The parameters we weigh per article:

1. Fit for the situation described. Residence status, whether you have a BSN yet, employed or self-employed, how long you plan to stay, whether you have family with you. This carries the most weight: an option that does not work for the situation described cannot be at the top, whatever else is true about it.
2. Cost, including the costs that sit outside the headline price. Monthly fees, transfer margins, deductibles, cancellation terms, and what happens after an introductory period ends.
3. Eligibility and paperwork. What you must already have in order to apply, and how often that blocks people who have just arrived.
4. Accessibility in English. Whether the application, the contract, the app and the support are genuinely available in English — not only the marketing page.
5. Dutch regulatory context. Whether the provider is registered and supervised for what it sells here, and what the Dutch rules require of you rather than of the provider.
6. Terms and exit. Contract length, notice period, and how hard it is to leave.
7. Public user reports. Recurring complaints and recurring praise on public review platforms and forums — as a pattern, not as a single anecdote.

What does not feed into the order: whether a commercial relationship with the provider exists, whether a provider pays for presentation, and whether we can earn anything from a sign-up.

The sources we use

We build our comparisons on published sources and official Dutch material, not on undocumented personal experience. Our editorial position is that a verdict you can check yourself is worth more than a verdict resting on claims you cannot verify.

• The provider’s own pricing, product and terms pages — the primary source for rates, conditions and eligibility.
• Official Dutch sources for rules, thresholds and deadlines: Belastingdienst, IND, DUO, SVB, the municipalities, AFM and DNB registers, and the KVK.
• Public review platforms and forums, for recurring patterns.
• Information from the provider. Providers may send us facts and report corrections. What we adopt, we check against a public source and publish with the date it was checked.

Where something cannot be verified, we say so. Figures that change every year — salary norms, premiums, thresholds — carry the year and the source they came from. Our methodology and corrections policy describes this in full.

The three kinds of link on this site

There are three kinds of link to a provider on our pages. They do not look the same, and that is deliberate.

1. A plain link. A reference to the provider’s website or to a source. No agreement sits behind it, and it carries no label.

2. A commission link. If you sign up through it, the provider or its affiliate network may pay us a fee, at no extra cost to you. You can recognise it by three things: the link runs through go.expatnetherlandshub.com, it appears as a button in a coloured block, and the article carries a notice that it contains affiliate links.

3. A paid listing. The vendor pays a fixed annual fee for presentation alongside mentions its product already earned on merit: a button, and a block with its logo, an editor-checked fact card and screenshots. The article carries a notice at the top that it contains a paid listing. Nothing is settled per click or per sign-up.

A paid listing changes nothing about the position in a list or about the verdict. What the vendor buys is the presentation of information we have checked — not the conclusion above it.

What a provider cannot buy

Specifically: a place in a list, a higher position in a list, the removal of a drawback, a change to a verdict, or the removal of a competitor. A provider who proposes this gets the same answer as a provider who does not.

What is for sale, and always disclosed: an advertorial (an article an advertiser wants placed, marked Sponsored at the top) and the paid listing described above. The terms are on Partner With Us.

If you find something that looks wrong — an outdated rate, a rule that has changed, a verdict that does not follow from the reasoning — please tell us through contact. Corrections are published with the date.

Read more

• How we earn — the business model in three minutes
• Affiliate disclosure — which commercial relationships we have, and with whom
• Editorial methodology — sources, verification and corrections
• Partner With Us — what providers can buy from us, and what they cannot