Guest post for the Cup of Coffee newsletter 21 January, 2026: Going Dutch: Moving to the Netherlands with the DAFT Visa

“Isn’t it nice to bike without cars zipping by?” I asked my husband, Manoj, as we pedaled peacefully along the canal on the twenty-mile bike route from Bruges, Belgium to Sluis, Netherlands.

            “I know. I’d love biking if it was like this,” he replied.

            Our little vacation bike adventure in the summer of 2024 was a preview of what our life would be less than a year later, although neither of us knew it at the time.

            In July of 2024, we hadn’t considered living in the Netherlands, nor had we heard of the DAFT visa. After November 5, 2024, the looming specter of fascism pushed us to jump headfirst into what had been a long-term wish of ours – living in Europe.

            The DAFT (Dutch American Friendship Treaty) is a seventy-year-old visa program that allows an American citizen to live and work in the Netherlands as an entrepreneur. The DAFT visa holder can only work for themselves as a freelancer. The spouse of the DAFT visa holder can work freely in the Dutch job market or as a freelancer. The visa is good for two years. After the initial two years, you can apply for an additional five years. And, if like us you want to stay in Europe permanently, after five total years of living in the Netherlands on the DAFT, you can apply for permanent residence or even Dutch citizenship, provided you meet additional requirements.

            I don’t remember exactly how we learned about the DAFT, but I know it was sometime right after the election. After living through the first Trump presidency, neither of us had any desire to repeat the experience with Trump 2.0. We searched every possible avenue for a way out and we read about the DAFT. Even though we didn’t know much about life in the Netherlands (other than the country’s love of bicycles), we figured living in the Netherlands had to be better than living in America under Trump.

            The requirements for the visa are quite simple. Applicants must be an American citizen with at least €4500 to invest in their own business. That business can be anything. People work as freelance writers, IT consultants, artists, and service providers. Without getting into too much detail, there are two types of business structures DAFT applicants can choose from. The simplest is an Eenmanszaak, or ZZP. You are a freelancer, you work for yourself, you have no employees. The other, a BV, is more complex and assumes you are taking your own existing company to the Netherlands. There are income requirements and other criterium for the BV structure.

In our case, my husband is a freelance graphic designer, so a ZZP was ideal for him. He’s the visa holder thus he can only do freelance graphic design work. One of the appealing aspects of the DAFT is that your clients can be anywhere in the world. DAFTers don’t have to have Dutch clients, they just need to run their business in the Netherlands. I have a spouse visa, so I have access to the Dutch job market. I’m a freelance writer so I haven’t utilized this benefit, but it’s nice knowing that I could find a job here if I needed to.

Traditionally, one couldn’t apply for the DAFT visa until they were physically in the Netherlands. Americans are allowed to spend ninety days in the Netherlands visa-free so the idea is someone can arrive, apply, and have the approval before the ninety days are up. Even though the approval rate for the DAFT is close to one hundred percent, you can imagine how stressful it is to uproot your life, come to a foreign county, and wait for that approval letter. However, an expedited process has been piloted for the last two years. It allows individuals to apply and receive approval for the visa while they are still in the United States. There is debate about whether this expedited method will continue after April of this year, but nothing has been decided yet.

            It’s possible to complete the application process yourself, but we hired an immigration lawyer from the Netherlands to help us. It was an additional cost, but we thought it was worth it to ensure we followed all the steps correctly. We secured the required apostilled birth certificates and marriage certificate. Then we sent in the application and paid the visa fees through our attorney in late December 2024. By the end of January 2025, we had our approval letters and permission to enter the Netherlands as residents for the next two years.

            Once you’re approved, there are several steps that must be completed within a relatively short timeframe. You must acquire housing. The you must apply for a BSN (Dutch social security number) from within the Netherlands. Once you have your BSN, you must establish a Dutch bank account, register your business, and sign up for health insurance. It can get a little complicated because it’s difficult to do most administrative things in the Netherlands without a BSN, yet you cannot apply for a BSN until you have a place to live. Bureaucratic difficulties aside, the system works and things get settled eventually.

            After we applied for the DAFT in December, we booked a ten-day trip to the Netherlands in early January 2025 to find a place to live. We worked with a relocation company that helped set up real estate showings for us during our trip. There is a major housing shortage in the Netherlands. Homes are leased or sold within days of listing. Because of this, we focused our search on two smaller cities in the south of the country far outside of the Randstad area of Amsterdam, Rotterdam, and the Hague. This might not be for everyone, but we were pleased to find lower-priced housing and a quieter life in the province of Limburg. We saw eleven properties when we visited, made four offers, and won one bid which is the house we purchased. It was stressful, but also a big relief to have housing secured before we made the final move.

We knew we wanted to buy rather than rent a place as rents are quite high in the Netherlands. We felt that buying a house would be wiser financially as we’ll make that money back if and when we sell this house in the future. It’s also nearly impossible to get a mortgage until you have established a year or more of Dutch income. I know we’re extremely privileged in that we owned our home in America without a mortgage. We used the proceeds from the sale of our American house along with some other assets to fund the purchase of a Dutch house and to provide a financial cushion for the first few years while we established our businesses. We also don’t have children.

            From there, it took two months to sell our house in Milwaukee, Wisconsin. We kept a few boxes of books, our marathon running medals, clothes, and some irreplaceable keepsakes. Everything else was either sold or donated. The items we kept all fit on a single pallet with an eight-hundred-pound weight limit. We flew from Chicago to Amsterdam with our two cats on March 19. 2025. We stayed in a hotel for ten days until we could move into our house. We received our BSNs mid-April and registered both our businesses with the KVK (chamber of commerce) at the beginning of May.

            Nine months later, we feel like we made the right choice. I’m not going to lie – the move was stressful and we certainly miss our friends and family back in the U.S. No country is perfect and there are difficult aspects of moving to and living in the Netherlands.

            Perhaps the most stressful part of the whole adventure was securing the paperwork needed to move our cats with us. Pets need to be up to date on vaccines by EU standards and those vaccines need to have been given within a certain timeframe before travel. You must have your veterinarian examine and approve your pet within thirty days of departure for the EU and the USDA must endorse a physical certificate and mail it back to you no more than ten days before your departure (for cats and dogs). Our vet made a mistake on the cats’ paperwork. Therefore, we didn’t get the endorsed USDA certificate until the day before we departed. Others have said that it is increasingly difficult to get the USDA certificate back in time for their flights due to staff cuts across the agency. Airlines also have different rules about flying with pets, so you might have to do some travel gymnastics to get a flight that works for your situation.

            As I mentioned earlier, housing is hard to come by. You can expect to pay more for a smaller space. If you plan to rent, you might have to pay up to six months in advance to secure an apartment. If you don’t mind being outside of the Randstad, smaller cities often have more options at more affordable prices.

            It also takes time to start making money from your business. We were fortunate to have anticipated this, so we were able to live off our savings until we started earning freelance income. Even though the minimum requirement for your business start-up capital is relatively low at €4500, the costs add up when you factor in paying for the visa(s), flight costs, shipping costs, housing, purchasing new household necessities, and utilities. Furthermore, while there isn’t a published minimum income for the initial DAFT renewal at the two-year mark, there are minimum earnings that must be met to apply for further renewals and permanent residency.

Taxes in the Netherlands are high. This is the cost of functioning infrastructure and access to healthcare. This isn’t a bad thing as I would much rather have my money go toward services that benefit society, but it’s something to be aware of. You also pay taxes on all your worldwide assets. This includes savings, investments, and more.

            The language is also a challenge. Dutch is difficult to learn! Many people here speak English fairly well if not fluently, especially in fields like healthcare, education, and government. But learning Dutch is a must if you want to pass the exams needed to apply for permanent residency in the future. Speaking Dutch will also make it easier to navigate daily life. We’ve used Duolingo, books, and a weekly taalcafé (informal chat led by volunteers at the local library) to get the basics down.

            None of these are cons, per se, just things that present challenges. As for the positives, access to healthcare is a major advantage. Everyone who lives in the Netherlands is required to purchase basic health insurance. The basic health insurance package costs the same for everyone no matter which insurance provider you select. For 2026, it’s around €160 per person per month. You can choose to pay more to add extras to your basic health insurance such as dental, vision, or physiotherapy appointments. The own risk (deductible) is €385 per person per year. You must find a GP in your city which is where you’ll go for your basic needs. If you need a specialist, your GP can refer you.

            We pay less for groceries here than we did in Milwaukee. I’m a vegetarian and I haven’t had any trouble finding vegetarian friendly products in the grocery stores or in restaurants. Most cities also have a weekly market where you can purchase fresh produce, baked goods, cheese, and fish.

            It’s also possible to live here quite comfortably without a car, especially in a city with a train station. Bike lanes are safe, abundant, and connect all the major areas of most municipalities. If you’re going somewhere that is too far to travel by bike, the bus and rail networks are decent (although they’re a little expensive).  

            The Netherlands and Europe are not utopian dreamlands. There are threats from the far right here and throughout the continent. However, the system is set up to better withstand those threats than that of the U.S. There are over twenty political parties here which helps make it difficult for any one party to be too powerful. You can go to a movie theater or grocery store without fearing that someone will burst in with a gun. In our experience, people have been helpful and welcoming. I don’t know what the next few years will bring, but I’m grateful for the opportunity to live them outside of the United States.