Dutch-American Friendship Treaty (DAFT): How to apply (outside the Randstad)

In 2018, we (my husband and I) went through the process of applying for a residence permit under the Dutch-American Friendship Treaty (DAFT). It is an entrepreneur visa for people wishing to establish a business in the Netherlands (and not work as an employee for someone else).

Timeline: We started the process mid-late August 2018, initially with my application and then later with a “family reunification” application for my husband (we found out later we could have filed them together). We received our residence cards January 14, 2019 (mine) and February 8, 2019 (his).

Below is a detailed post on what we did, and sometimes what we should have done. We want to share this with you and anyone who may be looking to do something similar. Here is our recap and advice on how to apply. Grab some tea or coffee and prepare to dig in for a while. 🙂

We live in Arnhem, and the closest cities with IND offices are Den Bosch and Zwolle, all of which are well outside the Randstad (an area consisting of the largest Dutch cities of Amsterdam, Rotterdam, the Hague, and Utrecht). If you’re applying from within the Randstad, you may find some of this can be done in a different order, but this is what worked for us out here.

A few things you’ll want to figure out before you get started. You’re going to need an address that you can have IND and your municipality (“gemeente”) send paperwork to. It will also help to have a Dutch phone number, as some appointment forms require you to use a local number when making appointments. (Gemeente Arnhem’s online forms seemed to have problems accepting a Dutch-based Skype number we got as it had a 085 prefix, for example.) If you know where you’re going to be staying for the first few months, that will work for an address. However, if you’re couch surfing or otherwise moving around every few weeks, make sure you note where you told places like IND to send your paperwork!

Now that you (hopefully) have an address and a phone number for forms and government offices, let’s get started. There are two simultaneous goals to achieve in this process: Get a Burgerservicenummer (BSN) from your gemeente , and get a residence permit from IND (Immigration and Naturalisation Service, but in Dutch). A BSN is reasonably similar to an American Social Security Number (SSN). We will use the abbreviations BSN and IND a lot in this article.

Unfortunately, to get a BSN from gemeente they need you to show that IND has given you permission to stay in the Netherlands, and to get a residence permit from IND you need a BSN from gemeente. Notice the circle already? Don’t worry, we’ll show you how to break this cycle below. 🙂

We’ve listed some “Pro-Tips” for ways we think we could have been more efficient in this process. I hope they are useful to you!

Step 0: Get your paperwork in order

Passport

It may go without saying, but you need a valid passport to travel from the United States to the Netherlands. Airlines will almost certainly visibly inspect your passport before letting you board an international flight. Customs and Immigration at your destination airport won’t let you leave the secure area without your passport. Even if you manage to get past both of them, you are then in the Netherlands illegally, which means you can’t submit your residence permit application!

More seriously, make sure your passport is readily at hand, is good for at least a year (preferably for at least 5 years). If it’s not, start the renewal process now. Also, either way, set a calendar reminder now in your favorite calendar program to start the renewal process again a year before the expiration date (writing this article reminded us to do the same). You do not want to do this at the last minute! We always assume it will take at least 8 weeks after applying to renew a passport to get the new one. We’ve never tried doing it from outside the country, but we can’t imagine it speeds up the process.

Put your passport on your packing list.

Other Documents

The Dutch authorities will not take your birth certificate, marriage certificate, etc. at face value until they have been certified with an apostille. This is similar to a notary, but serves to authenticate the document at an international level. If you are married, you’ll want to get your marriage certificate apostilled, and if you were born, you’ll want to get your birth certificate apostilled. Every state is responsible for authenticating its own documents, so if you were born in California, you’ll have to request the apostille from California.

In my case, I asked my dad for help as he lives one state away from where I was born. He contacted the county where I was born and got a birth certificate, which was then sent to the Secretary of State office (in a different city and county) for the apostille stamp/paperwork. It was sent to my dad who then forwarded it to me.

Pro-Tip: If you can do the apostille paperwork ahead of time (before you get to the Netherlands), it’ll make your life easier. Here’s more detailed information on that process:

Apostille Convention Process

1. Get a recent certified copy of the document. Do you still have your original birth certificate from 1983? Nice, but you probably won’t be able to use it here. (Double check with your state’s apostille authority, usually the Secretary of State.)
2. Get an apostille for the recent certified copy of the document. This may involve going to an actual office, or you might be able to mail it in.
3. Leave plenty of time for all of this to happen! If you need to order a certified copy of a birth certificate (2-4 weeks), then turn around and send it in for apostille (2-4 weeks), you’re looking at a long lead-time before you’ll have the final document in hand.
4. Repeat for each document you’ll need.
   1. Birth Certificate
   2. Married? Marriage Certificate
   3. Divorced? If you don’t have children, or they’re all grown up, you could skip this. Otherwise, better get it done too.
   4. Bringing a partner? All of this for them too.
   5. Bringing children? Do it for them too.
5. Put all of these in a folder labelled “Important Papers“. Put the Important Papers folder on your packing list.

Step 1: Get to the Netherlands

The DAFT application is made using the “Application for the purpose of residence of ‘to work on a self-employed basis’ (foreign national)” form (Form 7524) (
https://ind.nl/en/work/Pages/Self-employed-person.aspx ), which must be submitted by someone staying in the Netherlands who wants to acquire a residence permit. If you have a conveniently accessible Dutch Embassy or Consulate in your country of origin, you may be able to do some of this from there, but lacking that we went ahead and dove right in!

Pack your Important Papers folder and some clothes into a suitcase. Put your passport, wallet, and phone in your pocket, and get yourself to your local airport! You’ll almost certainly fly into Schiphol airport. (See more about that experience here!)

The housing market for affordable places near the city center in the Netherlands is currently quite crowded and competitive. (We wanted to live in or near downtown Arnhem, for instance.) Hopefully you have (a) plans for where you’ll live already worked out, (b) on-the-ground contacts who can help you navigate the rental market, (c) a lot of luck, (d) willingness to live far away from the center of town, or (e) a flexible enough budget to live where you want (and maybe eat out less often). (We went with a combination of b, c, and e.)

When you get to Step 5 (below), you’ll need an address that you can register at with gemeente. Not every address is usable here. If you’re crashing on a friend’s couch, you shouldn’t use their address for your gemeente registration unless they understand what it means and say it’s OK. Assume that if you don’t have a signed lease document, you don’t have an address that you can use.

Once you have your signed lease, put it in your Important Papers folder.

Step 2: The IND Application

As mentioned above, you are submitting the “Application for the purpose of residence of ‘to work on a self-employed basis’ (foreign national)” form. (As of writing, this is form 7524, a 22-page PDF.)

(An important prerequisite is listed under General Conditions – “You state that you have not stayed in the Netherlands illegally.” Currently, an American can only visit the Schengen Area for 90 days out of every 180. If you overstay, you can no longer apply for residency! If you need more time during this application process you can get a temporary extension while your paperwork is being processed – more on that later.)

1. Download the application. There’s a link in the Application forms and costs section, just below “Steps in the application procedure”.
2. Read the whole thing! Page 1 has some very useful sections: Read through “For whom is this form intended?”, and “How do you fill out this form?” and you’ll see (as mentioned above) that you must already be in the Netherlands to submit the form.
3. Start filling out pages that apply to you!
   1. page 2 – “What is your situation“: You’ll want to check box 2, “You are in the Netherlands and you want a residence permit. You are a national of one of the following countries: Australia, Canada, Japan, New Zealand, the United States of America, South Korea, Monaco, Vatican City, the EU/EEA countries or Switzerland.”
   2. page 2 – “Tuberculosis“: Fortunately, coming from the United States means you get to check the third entry, “You do not need to undergo a TB test because you are a national of one of the countries listed in the appendix ‘Exemption from the obligation to undergo a tuberculosis (TB) test’.”
   3. page 3 – “Choose the purpose of residence“: Check the Dutch-American Friendship Treaty box!
   4. page 4 – “Your personal details“: Fill out your basic details.
      1. The address you list for 5.8 Home address is the Dutch address where you will receive your responses. Make sure you’ll have access to mail delivered there for at least four weeks!
      2. A note on section 7: The standard Dutch date format is Day Month Year (e.g. 21-07-2019 for the 21st of July, 2019). It’s also customary in the Netherlands that when you sign a document you list both the place you signed it and the date you signed it. Next to 7.2 Place and Date, you might put “Arnhem [2][1][0][7][2][0][1][9]”.
4. That’s the basic application! The rest of the 22 pages are different appendices. Some of them are for reference only, and the rest of them should only be filled in if they apply to you. In this case, that’s Appendix 1 and 6, in bold below:
   1. Antecedents Certificate – Mandatory for adults. Whatever you do, complete it truthfully and completely! Hopefully you can check the box certifying all of those stipulations are true, but if you can’t, explain it truthfully in the free-form text below.
   2. Fingerprints, passport photo and signature – Reference only. Once your application has been received, you’ll be able to make an appointment to get these taken care of. (See below)
   3. Declaration of intent to undergo a TB test – Does not apply to Americans
   4. TB test referral form – Does not apply to Americans
   5. Exemption from the obligation to apply for a regular provisional residence permit and special situations – Reference only.
   6. Declaration on income of self-employed person – This one is tricky. They want a Dutch accountant to sign a statement of your opening balance of at least €4500 in a Dutch bank account. You’re not going to have a Dutch bank account until after step 8 below (you need a BSN to get a bank account), so you’ll need to leave this at least partially blank. We left it completely blank and they came back later and told us what they were missing:
      • an extract from the trade register of the Chamber of Commerce for your newly registered business (Step 7);
      • a statement of a bank account with at least €4500 (Step 8);
      • an opening balance sheet prepared by a an authorized expert (e.g. accountant) (Step 9);
   7. Submitting and paying for the application by the foreign national – Reference only. Note that until you get a Dutch bank account you’ll probably be paying the application fee by international wire transfer from your American bank account. Details on how to do this vary. Don’t send payment until IND asks for it. The appendix with payment information also lists the address you will send your now-filled-out application to.
   8. Exemption from the obligation to undergo a tuberculosis (TB) test – Reference only.

Fill out the application, find your local post office (it might be nested inside another store, like the way our local PostNL branch is inside a Primera convenience store: https://goo.gl/maps/yEB4kaUPSHy), and send it to the address listed in appendix 7. Make sure to follow the instructions, such as “Do not use any staples or paperclips.” For us, we were instructed to send the DAFT application to:

Immigratie- en Naturalisatiedienst
Postbus 5
9560 AA Ter Apel

Note that every other step has to wait until you hear back from the IND regarding your application, so don’t delay! If you are ambitious (and know what your Dutch address will be ahead of time), fill out these forms and print them out while you’re still in America, and put them in your Important Papers folder. Sign and date them when you land and mail them at the PostNL location at Schiphol airport! (https://www.schiphol.nl/en/at-schiphol/shop/service-point)

Pro-Tip: If you are planning on submitting additional applications, like family reunification, you can do them at the same time.

Pro-Tip: The IND twitter account is very responsive to questions, and they’re super nice. 🙂

Step 3: Paying for the IND Application

Some time after your application is received, IND will mail you a confirmation that they received the application, and a request for payment. (Ours came in two separate envelopes after about a week.)

All written correspondence from IND and your local gemeente will be in Dutch. You might not read Dutch yet, but fortunately Google Translate does a good enough job with form letters like these!

Your confirmation letter will tell you when the IND decision period starts, when they must respond by, and tells you about their online inbox which can be accessed with a system called DigiD. (More on this later.) You’ll also get a V-nummer (V-number) and a Zaaknummer (case number). Make note of these. (We recommend keeping every letter they send you for the foreseeable future.)

Your payment request letter should tell you how much the DAFT application fee is (currently €1325), and the bank account to send it to. Without a Dutch bank account, you can either do an international wire transfer from an American bank or give a Dutch friend that much in cash so they can send it. (We did the wire transfer.) For an international transfer you’ll need two pieces of information – the IBAN and the BIC. The letter will state both of these. The letter will also request that you reference your case number and a claim number (stated in the text in the letter that you just received) in the transfer notes. (Your bank should ask for all of these details during the transfer process.) You will also be given a deadline for receipt of payment (probably two weeks). They will finally tell you that it’ll take them a week to process your payment once they receive it.

Step 4: Biometrics and Residence endorsement sticker appointments

A week or two after IND receives your payment, you should receive another letter confirming receipt of the fees. Hurray! You can move on to getting your in-person appointments. IND has offices in Amsterdam, Den Bosch, Den Haag, Eindhoven, Rotterdam, Utrecht, and Zwolle. If you’re not settling in or near one of these towns, have a plan for how you’ll get there during office hours. Are you taking a break from work? Will you use the rail to get there? (Conveniently, all of the IND offices are within walking distance of rail stations or bus stops.)

You shouldn’t need it for these appointments, but bring your Important Papers folder with, just in case.

Biometrics

As mentioned in Appendix 2 of the application, you are required to make an appointment so IND can collect your photo, fingerprints, and signature. You can make an appointment online for any IND location by going to https://ind.nl/en/Pages/Making-an-appointment-online.aspx .

Pro-Tip: It can be weeks before an appointment is available at the facility of your choice, and the only thing you need to make an appointment is your V-number. You can cancel appointments very easily. My husband’s recommendation is to make your appointment for when you think you’ll need it. Submitted payment today? Schedule an appointment for 10 days from now, instead of waiting for the confirmation letter before trying to schedule it. Best case, you’ll get much faster turnaround time. Worst case, you click a link in an email to cancel and make a new appointment.

Pro-Tip: Sometimes new appointments open up at the last minute (when someone cancels their appointment, for example). If you didn’t get the appointment that suited you best, try refreshing the appointment page in the evenings as it might get you the specific location and date/time combination you’re looking for as people cancel their own appointments. (There are even browser plugins that can refresh the page automatically for you.)

Residence Endorsement Sticker

While you wait for IND to make their decision on your residence permit, you can make progress on getting your BSN. The first step is to get a cool-looking sticker in your passport from IND that tells gemeente that they are allowed to issue you a BSN. Gemeente is happy to register you as living in the area (and you are supposed to register with your local gemeente whenever you move), but they won’t register you without “permission” or something in writing from IND. The residence sticker makes gemeente happy.

Pro-Tip: If you can, try to make your appointments for Biometrics and Residence Endorsement Sticker at the same location and near each other in time. Note that different staff handle each request, so seeing lots of available time slots for Biometrics doesn’t mean you’ll see any for Stickers, and vice versa. (Just in case they want to see your biometrics in the system, schedule your biometrics appointment just before your sticker appointment, instead of just after.)

We did not schedule these appointments near each other. We waited to hear from IND on various things, and in one phone call to find out an update, they said, “Oh yes, you can get a residence sticker, just make an appointment.” This was about a month after the biometrics appointment, so I have a theory that you need biometrics in the system before you can get a sticker. My husband got his done about a week apart (biometrics appointment and then sticker appointment).

Step 5: Register with your Gemeente

At this point you have proof that you’re allowed to be here from IND, so you can go to your Gemeente to register. (We first tried going with just a lease agreement and that wasn’t good enough for them.)

We’re guessing each Gemeente’s website is unique, but Arnhem has a page to make appointments online (https://afspraak.arnhem.nl/services). (Note: afspraak means appointment.) You want to make an appointment for “Eerste inschrijving in NL, niet EU burger/Immigration non-EU citizen”, or “First registration in NL, non-EU citizen / Immigration non-EU citizen”. Arnhem also asks how many people will be processed in the appointment, which is a nice convenience if you are bringing a partner.

Bring your Important Papers folder with you, as gemeente will want your apostilled documents. They’ll enter all the details they want, including your place of birth, details about a legal partner (if any), etc.

Expect to receive your BSN within 4 weeks of your appointment. One of ours was received in just over two weeks. You now have the keys to the castle!

Pro-Tip: Your gemeente may also have a long wait (several weeks) to get in for this type of appointment. Once again, you can take advantage of easy scheduling and cancelling and make an appointment for a few days after you schedule your Residence Endorsement Sticker appointment. If something goes wrong, you can cancel and reschedule.

Step 6: Signing up for DigiD

The long wait is over, and you get an envelope from your gemeente with your BSN! Unlike in the US, you won’t get a physical card, just a Verkorte persoonslijst (short list of personal data) summarizing what they know about you. This will include your details (name, date of birth, place of birth, and your BSN), and your place of residence. (Remember: If you move, you must update your address at the gemeente for the place you’re moving to.) If you’re married or have children, their will be information there too. They will even include information about your parents from your birth certificate!

Copy down your BSN. Treat it like your SSN. You’ll probably want to memorize it in the long run, but for now you’ll need it a lot. Put it some place you can easily find it.

You can use your BSN is to sign up for a DigiD account at https://digid.nl/aanvragen . DigiD is a central way to log on to websites that use your BSN (IND, health insurance, etc.) You can also use DigiD to access MijnOverheid (My Government), a central inbox for digital messages from government organizations –
https://mijn.overheid.nl . When you log in to MijnOverheid, it will give you a list of organizations to consent receiving digital messages from, instead of paper. (National organizations like IND, Provinces, Municipalities, Parnerships, Water Boards, and Pension funds.) We recommend saying yes to all of them, because saving trees is neat. (And getting communications faster than PostNL can get them to us is pretty cool, too.) It’s been handy to look for communication in our DigiD inboxes when we’re not at home.

Step 7: Signing up with KvK

Now that you have your BSN, you can make an appointment with the Kamer van Koophandel (KvK), or Chamber of Commerce. You’re applying under the DAFT because you want to be an entrepreneur in the Netherlands, right? Well, here’s where you’ll register your business! Make an appointment at https://www.kvk.nl/service-en-contact/afspraak-maken-met-de-kvk/ . This is a two step process: Fill in the registration form, which tells them all about your new company, and make an appointment to finalize the details in person. (You’ll need your BSN for the in-personal interview, but not to make the appointment)

When you go in for the in-person interview, they’ll make sure they have all your details correct, assign you a KvK number, and charge you the registration fee. Bring your Important Papers folder with, just in case.

Step 7 and Step 8 kind of go back and forth. We got our personal bank account right after we got our BSNs, used that for paying the KvK registration fee, and then used the KvK information to open the business bank account. We’ve tried to split out the two accounts below in Step 8.

Don’t forget! IND needs a KvK document to verify that you are registered, and KvK doesn’t give this to you by default. Make sure to show them the this in Dutch so they give you the right thing: “Een uittreksel uit het handelsregister van de Kamer van Koophandel, niet ouder dan drie maanden.” (An extract from the trade register of the Chamber of Commerce, not older than three months.)

Expect to pay around €65 for the registration and the extract.

Pro-Tip: It can take a while to fill in the form, and you might have to wait for an available appointment time with your local KvK. Don’t wait until you have your BSN to make the appointment. After you register with your gemeente, fill out the KvK form and make an appointment for a month later. You can always change/cancel this later, but in the meantime you won’t be slowed down by a backlog in the system.

Step 8a: Getting a personal bank account

A lot of (most? all?) online shops in the Netherlands use iDEAL, a bank-to-bank payment system supported by a large list of banks. (https://www.ideal.nl/en/partners/issuers/) We chose ING for our bank, which has name recognition, a branch within walking distance, and a pretty good English version of their website for personal banking. (Their business website seems stuck in Dutch for us, but we think it’s good incentive to keep learning Dutch!)

Choose a bank, stop in, and get an account. They’ll need your BSN and your passport. Bring your Important Papers folder; they may want to see some IND paperwork.

Step 8b: Getting a business bank account

Once you are registered with the KvK you can open a business bank account with the bank of your choice. Again, they’ll probably need your BSN, your passport (since you don’t have your residence card yet), and your KvK information. Expect to pay some amount of annual fee for your account. Bring your Important Papers folder with, just in case.

For accounting purposes, we recommend having a separate account for business and personal income and expenses. We recall reading that you DAFT account bank balance cannot drop below €4,500 or you risk not being allowed to extend your residence permit, however we can’t find that reference at the moment. Either way, better safe than sorry (you want to make sure that a splurged weekend in Amsterdam doesn’t threaten your ability to stay! and it makes accounting easier) so we have a separate business account.

It should come automatically with your account, but make sure to get a PIN card for each bank account.

Once it’s set up, get your starting balance of €4,500 into the business account and however much you want in your personal account. There are multiple ways to do this. Our bank charges hefty fees for international bank transfers, so we’ve been using transferwise.com to transfer money from our American bank account to our Dutch bank account. A friend recently recommend veem.com but we haven’t tried it out yet. One way or another, get that €4,500 in that business account so you can get a bank balance statement for the next step.

Step 9: Find an accountant, get an opening balance statement

Get a recommendation from a friend or find someone on the Internet. You’re looking for “Een (openings) balans waarop het geïnvesteerde geldbedrag staat vermeld achter de rekening ‘Eigen vermogen’, opgesteld of gecontroleerd door een daartoe bevoegde externe deskundige (een College Belastingadviseur, een Federatie Belastingadviseur, een Accountant- Administratieconsulent, een registeraccountant, een NOAB-adviseur of een administrateur met een BECON- nummer van de Belastingdienst)” [An (opening) balance sheet on which the amount of money invested is stated behind the ‘Equity’ account, prepared or checked by an authorized external expert (a Tax Adviser College, a Tax Adviser Federation, an Accountant-Administration Consultant, a chartered accountant, a NOAB adviser) or an administrator with a BECON number from the Tax Authorities)].

Your accountant will need a bank statement, but since you just opened the account you may be able to just use a screenshot of your balance. Check with your accountant to be sure. Either way, this should cost less than $100. (We paid a bit under €60.)

Step 10: Submit outstanding information to IND

We had three pieces of outstanding information to send to IND and you probably do too.

• a statement of a bank account with at least €4500;
• an opening balance sheet prepared by a an authorized expert (e.g. accountant);
• an extract from the trade register of the Chamber of Commerce for your newly registered business;

If you followed Step 6, you have a DigiD account. You can go to ind.nl and click “Aanvraag indienen” (Google Translate turns this into “Apply a request”), and select “Ik wil een aanvullend document uploaden” (“I want to upload an additional document”). The next few screens will walk you through registering with DigiD if you haven’t already, and eventually you’ll get to log in. Upload your digital versions of the above three documents (scan them or take good quality pictures), and wait!

Step 11: Wait, and possibly get another sticker

If all this took you too long, you might be within a month of when the sticker in your passport expires. To avoid having to leave the country before it expires, make an appointment for before it expires to get another Residence Endorsement Sticker. Make sure to go to this appointment unless you have your residence permit in hand! It’s OK to have more than one of these stickers in your passport. They look cool, and they keep you legal. Remember that the closest appointment is often two weeks away, so if you’re within four weeks of your time expiring, get that appointment scheduled, just in case.

If you get past the date by which IND said they would respond to you, give them a call and ask for an update. The automated phone trees are in Dutch, but once you get to a live person they’ll be able to get you to the right department.

Step 12: Pick up your residence card!

At last, you’ve received word (probably via DigiD) that your residence permit has been approved! It should include the date of approval, the type of permit you were approved for, how long it will be valid for, any restrictions, and a reminder to get your biometrics done if you haven’t. (Of course you have, that was step 4!) There will also be an assertion that “U kunt geen bezwaar maken tegen deze brief.” (You cannot object to this letter.) That is, if you think it isn’t valid for long enough, has too many restrictions, etc., then now is not the right time to lodge a complaint.

The decision letter will be followed by another letter a week or two later informing you which IND office has your residence permit. Over the course of our applications, we went to several different offices (due to one having an available appointment sooner, etc). We both visited Zwolle and Den Bosch, and he also had an appointment in Eindhoven. We were sent to Den Bosch for our Residence Cards. (If you do all of your appointments at one office, we’d be surprised if you have to pick it up at another. Let us know if that happens to you!)

Step 13: Get health insurance!

You’re a resident! That means there’s one more thing you absolutely have to do: get health insurance. There are a lot of different providers out there, and due to regulations, basic health insurance should be priced similarly across all of them. We ended up choosing Ditzo, but haven’t made much use of it yet. Stay tuned for future posts detailing our experiences there.

Summary

Read all that and want the fast version?

1. Arrive in the Netherlands with the intention of establishing residency and find a place to live.
2. Fill out, sign, date, and mail your application to IND.
3. Wait for instructions to pay for the application, then do so.
4. Make Biometrics and Residence sticker appointments at the IND location of your choice for around 10 to 14 days from when you paid. Schedule biometrics for earlier than sticker.
5. Gemeente and BSN: Register at gemeente once you have a Residence sticker. (You can probably make an appointment at your gemeente as early as the day after your Residence endorsement sticker appointment). The appointment will be for “First registration in NL, non-EU citizen / Immigration non-EU citizen”. You’ll be registered as a local resident and they can process your BSN application. Then, receive your BSN within 4 weeks!
6. Sign up for DigiD (once you receive your BSN).
7. Register with KvK. (Note: open the personal bank account first.)
8. Open personal bank account/open business bank account.
9. Get an accountant to provide you with an opening balance statement.
10. Send the (three) outstanding pieces of information to IND; bank balance statement, business opening balance statement, and KvK business information extract.
11. Be prepared for making extension appointments.
12. Pick up your residence card!
13. Get health insurance.

The End?

Whew! Looking back, this has been quite the journey! We made a bunch of mistakes along the way like waiting for letters and confirmations to make appointments and learning about Residence stickers late in the game. If you are looking at the DAFT, our hope is that you’ll be armed with some of our knowledge and have an easier time of it. We would love to hear your stories if you have done this or something similar, and let us know if you have any questions we didn’t answer.

Good luck and success!