Research Snapshot: Who stays after their studies?
Stay rate and labour market position of international graduates in the Netherlands, 2013‑2022
Publication date: 15 May 2025
Nuffic, the Dutch organisation for the internationalisation of education, has researched the stay rate for over a decade. The stay rate refers to the percentage of international students who remain in the Netherlands a certain number of years after graduating from a Dutch higher education institution. This research explores how these graduates integrate into the Dutch labour market and the sectors in which they work. International graduates are highly skilled individuals with strong potential to contribute to the Dutch economy and society, for instance, by helping address labour market shortages. Understanding how often they stay — and whether this varies by factors such as study field or country of origin — is therefore important. The analysis is based on national register data covering graduation cohorts 2013-2022.
This report shows Dutch stay rates, including variations by cohort and background, while also highlighting how graduates settle into the labour market compared to Dutch counterparts.
About the authors
Ece Arat
Ece Arat is a researcher at Nuffic. Her work primarily focuses on stay rates, international graduates and researchers in the Netherlands, and incoming mobility.
Key findings from the research:
