Non-EU citizen married to EU citizen moving to the Netherlands

Hi and welcome to the Forum.

This kind of stuff would normally be sorted out by your wife's new employer as it greatly simplifies things for her work visa to be submitted together with your visa; at this stage, my advice is to get your wife to speak to her new HR department and see where they are in the process.

Once your wife has spoken to her HR department, If you have any further specific questions, please come back to us.

Hope this helps.

Cynic
Expat Team

The HR department doesn't seem to be too clued up on the procedure so they weren't of much help.  From what I can gather online is that upon entry into the country i will just need a Schengen visa (which i have) and a return ticket.  Then my wife will need to register us in the gemeente and then I will need to apply for something at an IND desk to be able to work. This application can take up to 6 months to process and could also be declined as I understand it. What I don't know is whether I will be allowed to work while I wait for this process.

Does this sound about right?  I am going to phone the Dutch consulate in Cape Town today to see if I can get a bit more clarity.

Hi and welcome back.

Apologies - I misread something you wrote in your opening post; the information I provided was not applicable to your circumstances.

Your wife (as an EU citizen with a current EU passport?) has the right to live and work anywhere in the EU; you will need to apply for a "spouse visa"; the process you have to go through is described on the IND website; this link will take you there; at the bottom of that page is a step by step process that you need to follow.

You may have to go through the MVV process (basically Dutch Integration); I say "may" because some people are exempt - those people are described in the link I've given you.

As for work; you will need a BSN number to enable you to work and open a bank account; this will be issued when you register at the Town Hall (Gemeente) on arrival, which you should do within 5 days of arrival in Holland.  Once you have the BSN, your employer can take you on.  BSN can take up to a couple of days to be issued, but I've known people to walk out of the Gemeentehuis with it in their pocket; depends where you live and how busy they are.

Hope this helps.

Cynic
Expat Team