The Netherlands' most international city — on the Maas, with Belgium and Germany minutes away.
Maastricht is the southernmost city in the Netherlands and its most international — wedged against Belgium and Germany at the bottom of the Limburg province, with Aachen and Liège both about half an hour away. Roughly 61% of Maastricht University's students come from abroad, English is very widely spoken (you'll also hear French, German and Italian on the street), and the city has a relaxed, Burgundian café-and-Carnival character. For Indians it appeals most to academics, researchers and health and life-sciences professionals — and to anyone open to living in the Netherlands while working across the border.
Maastricht's economy is anchored by Maastricht University (UM) — the most international university in the country, with around 20,000 students and roughly 4,400 staff — and Maastricht UMC+ (MUMC+), the academic hospital that is the city's single biggest employer with more than 10,000 staff. Around them sit the Brightlands campuses (the Maastricht Health Campus in the city, plus Chemelot and Brightlands Smart Services nearby), which drive health, life-sciences, materials and data roles for companies such as Medtronic, Canon, Accenture, Mosa Meat and PathoFinder. The Mercedes-Benz Customer Assistance Center in the region is a large multilingual employer that actively hires non-Dutch speakers. The local tech scene is real and growing but smaller than Eindhoven's, so many professionals commute — Eindhoven is about an hour away, Aachen and Liège about thirty minutes — and cross-border work is normal here, with more than 26,000 commuters across the Euregio Meuse-Rhine and free 'GIP' border-information desks to help with the tax and social-insurance side.
Maastricht is reasonable to rent — one-bedroom flats run roughly €1,000–1,450 a month — but one of the pricier mid-size cities to buy, with average sale prices around €430,000 and rising. It is compact and bike-friendly, so most residents cycle or walk; the medieval centre, the Jekerkwartier and the leafier Villapark and Wyck areas are the popular places to live. As everywhere in the Netherlands, securing housing before you arrive makes the move far smoother.
Maastricht's Indian community is small but genuinely international, built around Maastricht University, the Brightlands campuses and the region's multilingual employers — low thousands across South Limburg rather than a large established diaspora. Indian grocery shops and delivery services cover the basics in the city itself, and for a bigger run many residents drive across the border to Aachen in Germany, about thirty minutes away. There is no Hindu temple in Maastricht — the large mandirs are in the Randstad, roughly two to two-and-a-half hours by train.
Day-to-day costs are below the Randstad overall, with rents close to Groningen's at the affordable end of the dataset. Dining out runs a touch higher thanks to the tourist and Burgundian food culture. The trade-off versus the big cities is a smaller local professional job market — offset, uniquely among the cities on this list, by easy access to jobs in Germany and Belgium.