On 18 October 2000 the Netherlands Supreme Court requested a preliminary ruling from the ECJ on the application of the exemption with progression method to Netherlands residents partly working abroad. The outcome of the case will be of great importance for both Netherlands and other EU member states because, in general, those states use a method comparable to the Netherlands' exemption method. This note gives a brief overview of the case against the background of previous ECJ decisions on the free movement of workers.