Hello everyone,

I don't post here often, but I feel that my current experience with the IND can be valuable to others. I applied for a residence permit under the American-Dutch Friendship treaty, allowing me to open a small freelance buisness. I started this process in April and will be recieving my permits in about 3 weeks

Just a precursor:
- don't mind the spelling.
- I registered in Breda, going to the IND in Hertenbosch
- My business is dealing in computer software and gaming
- NO ONE is familiar with the american-dutch friendship treaty with regards to freelance business. You MUST state this purpose if you call anyone for information
- Call the same place at least twice. Even three times. Everyone says something different.

Documents you need to bring with you:
- Birth certificate, from your state capital that has an apostille. Just again for those that don't know, an apostile is a separate piece of paper, signed by a state official, saying your document is legal. Its not just a stamp
- Any college degrees or certificates
- A well designed buisness plan: stating your products, a finacial summary, and how you are to make money for the next year

Step One:
- Go to your local gemeente huis. The City Hall.
- You need to register yourself to live in the city. I needed my passport, apostilled birth certificate, and normally, you would need some type of rent contract. In my case, I am living with my partner and his family. So they came with me and confirmed it was okay that I lived with them
- Once you are registered, you recieve a paper. You need to bring this paper to the IND.
- Once you are registered, the gemeente will call the IND to confirm your registration. That usually takes about two weeks.
- CALL the gemeente to confirm they did this. THEN call again
- Registering is FREE

Step Two:
- Call the IND and make an appointment for your residence permit. They will tell you if the gemeente has notified them yet. If not, call the gemente.
- You will recieve an appointment packet within 3-4 days.
- Cost of the application is $430 euros I think.
- It is possible your appointment is 1-2 months from the day you call. Keep this in mind!!!!!

Step Three:
- Go to your local Kamer van Kophandel. This is where you register your business.
- You need your passport, letter from Gemeente, proof of your american address (I printed out a statement from my american bank account that had my address on it), and a rent contract. Again in the rent thing, I printed a letter hand-signed by the family I am living with as proof.
- It helps if you bring your IND appointment letter. At first, they will tell you it is impossible to start a buisness without a sofie number. But show them the letter, let them ask each other a million questions, and eventually you can register your company.
- Cost is about $25 euros.
- They give you another paper you must bring to the IND. Keep it safe!

Step Four:
- Get your application ready: Fill out the IND application.
- Get a new passport photo under dutch regulations. No smile. Hair behind Ears. White background.
- Create your buisness plan.
- Create a financial plan stating how you intend to make money each month for the course of the next year.
- Make copies of all your degrees, previous products, or anything to support your buisness
- Create an account with YOUR BUSINESS NAME on it. They will NOT accept an account with your personal name.
- The account needs at least $4500 euros in it.
- This account and your financial plan must be checked by a financial advisor. People at the bank can offer this service.

Step Five:
- Go to the IND for your appointment.
- Bring your passport, buisness plan, IND application (with passport photo), letter from gemeente, letter from Kamer van Koophandel
- Pay the $430 fee, and you get a sticker in your passport.
- The sticker says you can stay for an additional 3 months as they decide. You also CANNOT work in EUROPE while they decide.

Step Six:
- After you have successfully registered, the IND stamps the letter from the gemeente.
- Bring the letter back to the gemeente.
- Within 2 weeks, you recieve your tax number, your buisness number, your sofie number
- At this point you start recieving a lot of junk mail, calls from solicters, and special offers from banks. Woo hoo!

Step Seven:
- If you completed correctly, you should recieve a letter within 3 months saying congrats! You have your residence permit!
============================

Whew. I know that was alot, but I hope I didn't forget anything.
I only had one hitch in the process: I recieved a letter on Thursday saying my bank account had my PERSONAL name instead of my BUISNESS name. So now I have 2 weeks to get that signed and sent back. But the magistrate said that if my account is right, I will recieve my residence and buisness permit within three weeks. So thats what I'm waiting on!

And remember:
CALL, CALL, CALL again! Have a dutch person with you to ask questions.
Surprisingly, people at the IND don't speak good english. At least in my area. So always have a dutchie on hand!

I hope this helped other people!

The important thing is to make sure in one years time (and every year up until you can get your permanent residence), you can prove you've earned at least the minimum required netto income (and be careful, they include mandatory "vacation" pay equal to an extra month in there, from what I understand). Getting the permit is straightforward if you fill in the right forms and have the right information, but keeping it is a yearly headache.

For an eenmanzaak, you are (technically) actually allowed to just use your name on the account (according to my accountant), though some banks frown on this and want you to pay for a business account. My friend had a Postbank (now ING) account where his personal account was also allowed to contain his business name without having a business account. Maybe the rules have changed for new permits?

Also, I don't remember when this happened (before or after I got the permit), but someone from the Belastingdienst came to my house to discuss my business plan and see what I planned to do! Don't know if that's a random thing, or happens to everyone.

Anyway, congrats and good luck on your biz!

Hey thanks, if someone had laid it out like that I might have tried it.
Nice job!!!

Yes, they check every year to see you still have the minimum requirement of $4500 euro.


Well the letter I got came straight from the Magistrate of Justice, through the IND. The only way he would permit my account is if it had my business name on it. Not sure if this is because my buisness is freelance?

But thanks for the congrats! It was a stressful process and its almost over!

Interesting - when I did this years ago, the $4500 could be in assets, not necessarily cash. For renewals, I had to show them I had earned enough money through my business over the last year (IB-60s from the Belastingdienst) and give a financial prognosis for the coming year certified by an official accountant.

The business name on the account is probably a new requirement - it's not a bad idea anyway. I actually haven't had my business name on my account for 10 years, which is kind of stupid - I'm actually looking into changing that tomorrow because I'm "re-branding" ;-)

Just out of curiosity what is your business and what do you intend to do? I'm a software developer myself so your business plan got my attention

Yeah they told me the money couldn't be in loans or other assets, but actual money I have earned dedicated to my buisness. Which is dumb >_>
But I did register in Breda, a town not really known for dealing with expats. Perhaps that might be why?



Right now I work on independent video games. So I help design games, write the documentation, create code, and help program if they require it. I have a small team of people, so we can make small games at the moment.

This post has been edited by theOneAwaited: Oct 6 2009, 01:40 PM

Do you have a site where I can view your work? I've done some OpenGL projects in the past and am looking to get my toes wet again, so to speak.

Thanks theOneAwaited for the guide with IND.
I'm also curious about your business. I can do C++/Java/PHP/MySQL

I'm glad the guide helped you and feel free to ask me any more questions. I know there were other things I might have missed.

Thanks to those of you that are interested in my buisness. Check out arcinteractive.webs.com. You can always PM or email me if you have questions.

The IND is a centralized organization, so at least in theory they are fairly consistent all over the country. But the people you get on the phone and deal with at the counters are not always the sharpest crayons in the box, and tend to think in terms of 'this is the way it's usually done' and not 'this is another possibility'. The only people the IND has working for it who actually have law degrees are the ones who respond to appeals filed against the wrong decisions of these first-line civil servants!

You can use receipts for non-liquid assets, such as furniture and equipment, to satisfy the capital requirement, but that's trickier because things like that depreciate, i.e. the value of those assets will be less when they ask you to prove that you still have €4500 worth of capital upon renewal next year. And the general legal consensus is that money from loans can also be used to satisfy the capital requirement if you got the loans in the US and not in the Netherlands. (If all they see is that you transferred money into your business's Dutch bank account from a US bank account, anyways, they don't care what the actual source was.)

And @ratkat: the IND used to ask holders of DAFT permits to prove that they made enough money to support themselves upon renewal, but then somebody won a court case against them on the grounds that the Treaty does not require that. So since 2003 it has been the IND's policy to only check that your business has the €4500 in capital upon renewal, not how much money you made.

Nice job, theOneAwaited!

Jeremy Bierbach, LLM
www.immigrate.nl

And even those aren't the sharpest tool in the shed. Yes, I used tool on purpose.

I know we won our case on its legal merits but I'm pretty sure we got the ruling as fast as we did (in 8 days during summer break in July) because the IND's lawyer was such a douchebag.

That really is the truth. About the FOURTH time I called the IND (after waiting 15 minutes to be transferred to someone else, being hung up on in mid-transfer), I got a man on the phone. I specifically asked "Does my account or buisness plan need to have a legal signature? Does it need to be certified by an official?"
The answer was "No."
Three days before I was supposed to get my permit, I get a letter saying the exact opposite.


This is also true, since some of my funding is coming from a US loan. I opened a Buisness account at Rabobank with no problems and got my pin card within 3 days.


I am so thankful for that information! I was TOLD that was the policy, but now I always have doubts. So it is good to know I can just keep that account with a base amount of 4500 euro, which satisfies the requirement.

And thanks Jeremy Bierbach for responding. Its good to hear your opinions too!

Thanks for the guide. But how do you open a Dutch bank account without a Sofi number?

I know this is a little late, but hey thought I would reply anyway.
You CAN use an american bank account, as long as your Buisness name is on it, and you have the equivalent of 4500 euro in it.

In my particular situation, I submitted my PERSONAL american bank account with my IND registration. Everything seemed fine and I got my stamp at the IND. However, it was weeks later when they said I needed a buisness name on that account. There was a problem between me and my american bank, since I couldn't show up in person to change the account.

So at that point, I already had a sofie number: you get it after your IND appointment.
With the sofie number, I instead opened a business Rabobank account and transferred my money in there.

Then I had to physically write a letter to the magistrate requesting a time extension for my permit: I needed an extra 3 weeks for the money to be transferred AND checked by an accountant (DRV accountants are a great group!). In that letter, I sent my new Rabobank account number and my bank assistant's name as proof: with that, the magistrat granted me an extra 6 weeks to have my account in order.
That was more than enough time and I got my residence permit about 1 week after all the paperwork was fixed

I loved the evil stares from all the other people at the IND when I waltzed in and within 5 minutes picked up my residence card