Hi Friends
I lived in the netherlands for more than 5 years and I even had a Dutch Permanent Residence card which has expired sometime back.
My wife acquired Dutch citizenship 5 years back. Meanwhile we have moved out of the country sometime back. We have been married for more than 12 years.
Now I would like to know if I am eligible for Dutch citizenship?
If yes how can I apply as I am out of Netherlands.
Appreciate any feedback.
freak1 said:
Hi Friends
I lived in the netherlands for more than 5 years and I even had a Dutch Permanent Residence card which has expired sometime back.
My wife acquired Dutch citizenship 5 years back. Meanwhile we have moved out of the country sometime back. We have been married for more than 12 years.
Now I would like to know if I am eligible for Dutch citizenship?
If yes how can I apply as I am out of Netherlands.
Appreciate any feedback.
Quick answer: you are eligible to get naturalized by having been married to a Dutch citizen for more than 3 years (and actually, when your spouse gets naturalized, the time you were married to her before she got naturalized counts toward that as well) as long as you are not currently living in the country of your nationality. If you are currently living in your country of nationality, you just have to move to another country to become eligible again. And then the procedure is to take a naturalization exam at a Dutch embassy or consulate and apply.
Jeremy Bierbach, LLM
www.immigrate.nl
There are various reasons why the legislator chose to not allow spouses of Dutch citizens to apply for naturalization in their home country: chief among them is the 'integrating effect' that is imagined to result from being married to a Dutch citizen when you are not in your home country, i.e. you are both alone together in a foreign country. As to your question about administrative matters of <unknown school> and <unknown gemeente> , I would have no idea. If it was that many years ago, though, the tests have changed, and I doubt that only having partially passed the old naturalization exam would get you any credit now.
freak1 said:
Hi Jeremy Thanks for advice.I infact posted the question to the Dutch consulate and indeed they came back with reply that I am qualified on one count that being married to a Dutch citizen for more than 5 years ( I think they calculated 5 years as my wife got citizenship in2007).But indeed their second point was that they assumed that I am still in the country of my nationality I am not eligible. I have already replied to them that I am now in a different country.Is there any condition as to how long I should be out of my country? Can I give exam now in my country?Apologies for asking too many questions. Thanks once Again
To make sure you have not lost sight of another important criterion: you do not become eligible for being naturalized from 3 years of being married to a Dutch citizen, but 3 years of being married to and continuously living with a Dutch citizen. So your wife does have to live with you in that third country (i.e., the country that is not the Netherlands, and not your country of origin), and she has to have moved there at exactly the same time as you. You have to be able to prove this with your address registrations (in countries that have that), or in the case of common-law countries where there is no address registration as such, rental contracts, plane tickets from the move, utility bills in both your names. There is no minimum requirement for how long you have lived in a country other than your one of nationality-- you can have lived in your home country for 2 years and 51 weeks and in the third country for 1 week, to give a very minimal example, but you do have to show that you are (both) actually living in the third country (and that you have a residence permit to live there!! no Dutch consulate will even speak to you in a country where you do not have a permanent-ish right to stay)-- in other words, you can't just hop on a plane and apply to get naturalized at a Dutch consulate in the third country.
To that end, your question about whether you can take the exam at a Dutch consulate in your home country seems to imply that you want to do just that. If you are really and truly living in the third country, you should not have a problem with taking the exam at a Dutch consulate or embassy there.
