A medical career in the Netherlands, on the EU recognition route

In most cases, no. Qualifications listed in Directive 2005/36/EC benefit from automatic recognition, and the content of your training is not re-assessed. The exceptions are specialties outside the list, unfinished residencies, and diplomas issued before your country joined the EU. Those follow the general system, where compensation measures may apply.

Not automatically. The Directive is primarily addressed to nationals of EU/EEA states, and the diploma alone does not confer a right to simplified recognition. Separate grounds do exist — EU long-term resident status, family member of an EU national, recognition under the general system. Which one applies is determined by your documents, not by your diploma. This is the single most common point at which applicants file on the wrong basis and lose a year.

The BIG register is the Dutch state register of healthcare professionals. Without an entry in it, a doctor, dentist or nurse may not practise independently. It grants the right to work as a basisarts. If you hold a medical specialty, that specialty is registered separately with the RGS — Registratiecommissie Geneeskundig Specialisten. These are two distinct steps, and the order depends on your case.

For BIG registration, CIBG requires Dutch at level B2+, proven with a certificate no older than two years. Working with patients also takes clinical terminology and the ability to take a patient history. Formal requirements are published by CIBG; we always verify against the primary source and cite it in your written assessment.

You should. Legalisation, translations and requests to authorities in your home country take months and run in parallel with language study. Doing them sequentially costs you roughly six months. The one exception is a starting level of A0–A2, where language must come first because everything else will wait on it anyway.

The route audit is €302.50 including 21% Dutch VAT (€250 excl.), or €119.79 (€99 excl.) for nurses: a written assessment, a personal checklist and a call, and it is credited against whatever you buy next. After it, if you are moving to the Netherlands, the Relocation Route is €3,327.50 for an EU/EEA qualification and €5,142.50 for one from outside the EU/EEA — €2,750 and €4,250 excluding VAT, both published in full above. You pay in three instalments, each tied to a stage of your route rather than to a date, so a case sitting with the authority costs you nothing that month. If you already live in the Netherlands, we do not sell you a relocation package: you take the individual services you actually need, priced separately. Language exam fees, translations and government fees are paid directly to the providers and authorities, not to us. We do not work on a percentage of salary and we charge no fees that depend on you being hired. You also have 14 days to withdraw from the contract — see the question below.

Yes. As a consumer buying online you have 14 days to withdraw from the contract without giving a reason, and we will tell you so at checkout. If you ask us to start straight away — most people do, because waiting two weeks helps nobody — you keep the right to withdraw until the service is fully performed, and you pay only for the part already delivered. To withdraw, write to info@mentoramedic.eu.

No, and nobody can — the hiring decision belongs to the clinic. We are accountable for what is within our control: the correct recognition route, a complete list of the documents you need, and language preparation. We do not introduce or place candidates with employers. If someone guarantees you a contract, that is a reason to be careful.

It depends on your route and, above all, on your Dutch — far more than on the paperwork. We work out your own timeline in the audit rather than publish a figure that fits nobody exactly.

Often, yes — but whether and how depends on your nationality and your own right of residence, and it is decided by IND, not by us. Your audit sets out what applies to you; we do not arrange residence permits.

Then the audit is worth most to you — straightforward cases people complete on their own. We decline cases where no route exists, and we say so directly rather than after you have paid for support.