the first 10 what? Years? It's actually not like that: https://www.government.nl/topics/income-tax/shortening-30-pe...
From 1 January 2024, expats who meet the conditions receive the following tax benefits:
- 30% tax free for the first 20 months;
- 20% tax free for the next 20 months;
- 10% tax free for the last 20 months.
So that's a tapered reduction over the first 5 years and the amount of money that you gain after tax is between negligeable and insultingly small.
Basically in its current form "The Dutch 30% ruling" is not really worth it, if you want to move to The Netherlands do it for other reasons, and the advertisment of this mechanism feels borderline disingenious in its current form.
I think it was like that some years ago. Now, as you said, it's really useless. 20 months are just the time to find an apartment, furnish it and get used to the place.
Afterwards you have to pay some of the highest taxes in the world....