Healthcare allowance
Are you from the EU/EEA or Switzerland?
You can use your European Health Insurance Card for medical care if you are from within the EEA, Switzerland or Australia and when you are in the Netherlands only temporarily for study purposes. If you do not possess an EHIC card, you can apply for one with your national health service or insurance company. However, you should check that your home country insurance covers the necessary medical care in the Netherlands and that they can issue an EHIC to you.
Are you from outside Europe?
When you are not from the EU/EEA or Switzerland and if you are planning to study for more than three months in The Netherlands, we recommend to get private or international health insurance. There are several health insurers that offer international healthcare insurances for foreigners that are going to do their bachelor’s or master’s in The Netherlands. A few examples are Allianz, AON and ISI. It is also important to check if you can apply for healthcare allowance. How you do that can be found under the subject ‘Healthcare allowance’.
Healthcare allowance
International students with a Dutch health insurance are usually eligible for a healthcare allowance (called ‘zorgtoeslag’ in Dutch). The allowance is meant to help lower income groups to pay for their healthcare expenses.
There are several requirements to be met in order to be eligible:
– You are 18 years or older
– You have a Dutch health insurance
– You have a Dutch citizen number (BSN)
– Your salary is below 31.138 euro (2021) or 39.979 euro (2021) if you have a fiscal partner
You can apply for the healthcare allowance through the website of the Dutch tax authorities.