Looking to move to the Netherlands

1POSTS

7 years ago

Hi guys,

My name is Byron, a friend and I are looking at moving to the Netherlands from South Africa.

We have been doing research but cant seem to find a clear indication of how we can go about this. If anyone has some advice on the following I'd really appreciate it.

1) Do we go through a consultant? If so, please supply a contact name.
2) Finding a job - is it easy enough to find one once there, or advisable to get one first and then go over?
3) Housing...Is there something like a host family that can help us out for a month or two until we find accomodation?

Any comments or help would be appreciated.

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Cynic UK/Netherlands Expert

8186POSTS

7 years ago

Hi and welcome to the Forum.

At the top of the page is a link to our Discover section, if you mouse-over that, you'll get a drop-down menu with our Netherlands guide; I'd recommend you read that first. To answer your specific questions:

1. You can, but you will have to go through the MVV process which involves a Dutch language exam which you will have to do all by yourself. MVV is a joint entry visa and residence permit. The different visas are described on the Dutch Government (IND) website; this link will take you there. You can check out our classified ads, or our Services page links at the top of the page to see if anybody is advertising the services you are looking for.

2. Depends what you do and what your experience and qualifications are; if you have none, then you may not get a visa. Unless you have some unique skill-set and/or experience that is in short supply in Holland, that qualifies you for a highly skilled migrant visa, most agencies will rapidly lose interest in your CV the moment they realise you can't speak Dutch, or attend an interview tomorrow morning to start work the next day, so long-range job searching is problematic at best.

3. I've never heard of one; most people use something like AirBnB for the first month until they can find a place of their own.

If you have any further specific questions, then please come back to us.

Hope this helps.

Cynic
Expat Team