Self-employed artists allowed to continue working during pending residency application

The court of Amsterdam has ruled that three artists should receive a sticker allowing them to continue working during their proceedings. The court finds it plausible that the artists cannot work and have no income for 9 months because it is practically impossible to apply for a work permit for each cultural project. The court ruled that the legislator did not take into account the specific circumstances of self-employed artists and instructed the state secretary to issue a ‘self-employment allowed’ sticker.

This ruling has not yet solved the problems for other artists: in fact, every self-employed person will have to go through this procedure in order to work during a residence application after a search year. The question is how tenable this practice is. To be continued for sure.