Almost every arrival works out within a month that daily life runs fine in English, then hits the letters from the gemeente (the municipality) and the Belastingdienst (the tax office) that do not. Whether that gap matters turns less on the language itself than on how long the stay is meant to last.
Depends how long you're staying. The Netherlands ranks among the most English-proficient non-native countries in the world, so day-to-day life in Amsterdam, Utrecht, Rotterdam, or Eindhoven runs fine in English — ordering food, most retail, plenty of GP visits, a lot of office culture. What doesn't run in English: DigiD letters from the gemeente, Belastingdienst tax correspondence, most insurance polisvoorwaarden, school newsletters, huurcontract fine print, and the informal stuff — the parent WhatsApp group, the vereniging committee meeting, colleagues relaxing into Dutch once the meeting's over. Specialist healthcare and mental-health intake also get noticeably harder without it. On a two- or three-year contract, English genuinely gets you through. Stay past that, want permanent residency or naturalisation, put a kid in Dutch school, or just want to stop feeling like a guest at your own life here, and the gap starts to matter. It's less about survival and more about which version of Dutch life you get: the tourist-adjacent one, or the one where people stop translating for you.