📋 THE RECRUITER BRIEF · ISSUE 09 · 14 July 2026
Visa Sponsorship Has Rules Nobody Told You
How to check if a company sponsors visas?
Three EU Countries, three visa sponsorship systems, and only one of them lets you check the list before you apply.
📌 THIS WEEK IN 60 SECONDS
The Netherlands raised its highly skilled migrant threshold to €5,942 gross per month for candidates 30 and over, and €4,357 under 30, effective 1 January 2026, according to IND's official income requirements.
Germany's EU Blue Card salary threshold rose to €50,700 a year for standard roles and €45,934.20 for shortage occupations and recent graduates, effective 1 January 2026.
Ireland's Critical Skills Employment Permit minimum jumped to €40,904 a year, up from €38,000, effective 1 March 2026.
Only one of these three countries, the Netherlands, publishes a public, searchable list of which employers are even allowed to sponsor. Germany and Ireland don't.
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Three messages landed in my inbox this month, asking the exact same broken question in three different accents.
One candidate wanted me to "connect her" with any Dutch company willing to sponsor. She had never heard of a recognised sponsor. Another, eyeing Berlin, assumed the same rules simply carried over. A third, applying in Dublin, asked me to check if his target company was "on the sponsor list," certain Ireland kept one.
None of them were wrong to hope. They were wrong about which system they were standing in front of, and that mistake costs people months.
— THE UNCOMFORTABLE TRUTH —
Netherlands: A public sponsor register, and a new 2026 payment rule
The Netherlands is the outlier, in a good way. IND maintains a public register of recognised sponsors, organisations formally vetted for financial health, continuity, and reliability before they can sponsor a single highly skilled migrant. IND's own background article on the scheme puts the register at around 10,000 organisations.
Since 1 January 2026, recognised sponsors must also keep proof that the migrant was actually paid into their personal bank account, not just issue a payslip, according to Business.gov.nl's current sponsor guidance. That's an ongoing audit obligation layered on top of the whitelist. A candidate can check both the whitelist and the current salary threshold, €5,942 for 30 and over, €4,357 under 30, in about five minutes on ind.nl.
💡KEY INSIGHT
"Out of the three, only the Netherlands lets you check in advance whether a company can sponsor you at all."
— WHERE THE GAP ACTUALLY SHOWS UP —
Germany EU Blue Card Sponsorship: No employer list, but strict two-tier salary gate
Germany doesn't pre-approve employers at all. Any company with a compliant job offer can sponsor an EU Blue Card. The gatekeeping happens elsewhere, at the candidate and role level.
Your degree gets checked against the ANABIN database, and your occupation gets checked against the Bundesagentur für Arbeit's shortage list, which determines which of two salary floors applies.
As of 1 January 2026, standard roles need €50,700 gross a year, while shortage occupations, including engineering, IT, and natural sciences, and recent graduates within three years of their degree, need €45,934.20, according to Tafapolsky & Smith LLP's January 2026 update.
Miss the threshold for your category by even €300, and the application is rejected outright, no discretion involved.
"Germany doesn't ask if the company can sponsor. It asks if your degree and your salary line up with what the state defines as scarce."
— IRELAND'S PERMIT IS TIED TO THE JOB, NOT A COMPANY YOU CAN PRE-CHECK —
Ireland Visa Sponsorship: No public list, permit tied to the job
Ireland runs closer to Germany's model than the Netherlands'. There is no public register of approved sponsors. Employers can hold "Trusted Partner" status with DETE, which speeds up processing, but that status is an internal designation checked at application stage, not something a candidate can browse and check in advance the way you can search IND's register.
What you can verify is the threshold itself. The Critical Skills Employment Permit needs €40,904 a year for a listed occupation with a relevant degree, €36,848 for recent graduates of Irish institutions in a listed role, or €68,911 with no occupation-list restriction at all, all effective 1 March 2026 per Citizens Information. Employers must also keep at least 50% EEA nationals on staff to qualify at all, per DETE's General Employment Permit conditions, a structural filter that has nothing to do with how much a hiring manager likes you.
In Ireland and Germany, the honest answer to "can this company sponsor me" is: ask them directly. There's no list to check instead.
— WHERE ALL THREE STILL AGREE —
Shortage sectors sponsor. Generalist roles say maybe.
Across all three countries, the sectors that sponsor reliably are the ones with a genuine structural shortage: ICT, engineering, semiconductor and hardware roles, healthcare, and natural sciences. Germany's shortage occupation list explicitly names engineering and IT at the lower salary floor. Ireland's Critical Skills Occupations List does the same. The Netherlands doesn't formally rank occupations this way, but UWV's February 2026 employer research found 64% of employers with hard-to-fill roles cited a skills mismatch, concentrated in the same sectors.
Generalist roles in oversupplied fields carry sponsorship language loosely in all three markets, often without the underlying salary, occupation match, or employer capacity to back it up.
🎯 FROM THE RECRUITER'S DESK
"The signal I trust isn't whether a recruiter says yes to sponsorship. It's whether they can name your specific permit category without pausing, ICT Card, shortage occupation route, Highly Skilled Migrant, whichever applies to you. If they say it instantly, someone internally has already mapped this before. If they say they'll 'figure it out once you get an offer,' that's usually where the process quietly stalls for months, not from dishonesty, but because nobody has actually done the paperwork yet."
— Amruta Bhargava · Senior Tech Recruiter · Eindhoven, NL
— HOW TO USE THIS —
What to check before you apply, by country
Netherlands.
Search the exact legal entity name on IND's public register at ind.nl/en/public-register-recognised-sponsors/public-register-regular-labour-and-highly-skilled-migrants. Then confirm your salary clears €5,942 (30 and over) or €4,357 (under 30) as of your offer date.
Germany.
There's no employer list to check, so instead verify your own eligibility first. Confirm your degree's ANABIN rating at anabin.kmk.org, then check whether your occupation sits on the Bundesagentur für Arbeit's current shortage list, since that alone determines whether you need €50,700 or €45,934.20.
Ireland.
Check your target role against the Critical Skills Occupations List published by DETE, then confirm the salary on offer clears €40,904, €36,848 if you're a recent graduate, or €68,911 if the role isn't listed. Since there's no public sponsor registry, ask the recruiter directly whether the company has run this exact permit type before.
In all three, a company that has sponsored the specific permit category before is a safer bet than one merely saying it's "open to relocation."
✅ The FIVE THINGS TO DO BEFORE YOUR NEXT APPLICATION
1. Know which system you're actually applying into. The Netherlands has a public sponsor whitelist. Germany and Ireland don't, so treat "can they sponsor me" as a question you ask directly, not one you can look up.
2. Check the current threshold against your offer date, every time. All three countries reindex annually or mid-year (NL on 1 January, Germany on 1 January, Ireland on 1 March 2026), and a number that qualified last cycle may not qualify now.
3. In the Netherlands, search IND's register before you apply. Five minutes on ind.nl tells you whether the company is even eligible to sponsor at all.
4. In Germany, verify your degree and occupation before your salary. An ANABIN check and a shortage-list match determine which of the two salary floors applies to you.
5. In Ireland, confirm the role sits on the Critical Skills Occupations List. If it doesn't, you need €68,911 with no list restriction, a very different bar than €40,904.
— CLOSING THOUGHT —
Visa Sponsorship isn't one system with three postcodes. It's three separate legal architectures, and applying to all of them with the same checklist is how strong candidates waste months on the wrong details. Learn which gate you're actually walking through before you invest your hope in it.
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