Whether a foreign licence swaps straight over or means starting again at the CBR (the Dutch driving-test authority) shapes the whole first year of driving here. The country list is narrower than most arrivals expect, and the residency condition attached to it catches people who assume a valid card is enough on its own.
Anyone with an EU or EEA driving licence can exchange it for a Dutch one at any time, no exams involved, as long as it's still valid. Beyond that, RDW keeps a short list of non-EU countries it trusts enough to skip CBR testing too: the UK and Northern Ireland, Gibraltar, Guernsey, Jersey, Isle of Man, Monaco and Andorra get full or car-category exchange rights, and so do Japan, Singapore, South Korea, Israel, Taiwan, the Canadian provinces of Alberta and Quebec, and the former Netherlands Antilles. The catch on all of these: the licence has to have been obtained while you actually lived in that country, not just while holding its passport. Everyone else — most of the US, India, China, Australia, and so on — starts from zero: CBR theory exam, then the practical, like any new driver. Check the current RDW list before assuming, since countries get added or dropped occasionally.