Vehicle finance and/or lease

Hi and welcome to the Forum.

First thing you will need to on arrival in the Netherlands is to register with the Gemeente (local council), when you have done that, you and your wife will be issued with your BSN number and once you have that, you will be able to, amongst other things, open a bank account.  You need to make your appointment with the Gemeente within 5 working days, it may take 3 to 4 weeks for that to happen and a further couple of weeks to actually get your BSN number.

You may have a problem getting any credit in the Netherlands as you won't have any credit history, so financing things may well be problematic.  My advice is to reach out to some Dutch banks now and see what they advise you to do.

Hope this helps.

Cynic
Expat Team

Cynic wrote:

Hi and welcome to the Forum.

First thing you will need to on arrival in the Netherlands is to register with the Gemeente (local council), when you have done that, you and your wife will be issued with your BSN number and once you have that, you will be able to, amongst other things, open a bank account.  You need to make your appointment with the Gemeente within 5 working days, it may take 3 to 4 weeks for that to happen and a further couple of weeks to actually get your BSN number.

You may have a problem getting any credit in the Netherlands as you won't have any credit history, so financing things may well be problematic.  My advice is to reach out to some Dutch banks now and see what they advise you to do.

Hope this helps.

Cynic
Expat Team

Thank you for the reply, we are utilising a expat service (who have been excellent might I say!), we land on Friday 30th and we hope to have out appointment already scheduled for the following Monday. We're in the final stages of securing an apartment so we will already have an address. As for the banks, again this is provided in the expat service we're paying for so will hopefully have that sorted within the first few days of landing.

It is my understanding we are given a BSN number on the spot at the local council if the appointment is a success (we have all relevant paperwork required, but never assume it's a certainty haha). Once you have the BSN number, the paperwork will follow in the mail. During that time, if I provide a BSN number to any services, they should accept this or am I mistaken? You HAVE to have the paperwork following the meeting?

Lastly, for the financial history, do they take into account the current employment, for example our compensations have been adjusted slightly (-7% for her and -10% for him) of which we can confirm as well as confirm employment. Or is it more along the lines of being paid into a Dutch bank for the history?

Again, thank you!

Hi again.

You will do well to have an appointment so quickly; I'm not saying it's impossible, but local Government has been closed down since March and has only recently re-opened, they have a long queue to get through, but perhaps you will be lucky, or perhaps your agent pays for you to jump the queue.  I'm puzzled as to why you've used an Expat service - you're both EU citizens and those guys earn their corn getting you a visa/work permit, which neither of you needs.

The norm at the interview is you will be given your BSN on a piece of paper to give your employer, but they will then write to you to confirm everything and give you your DigiD number (you use this for all your subsequent contact with Dutch Government - don't lose it and make sure you go online and register as soon as you get it).  You're both EU citizens, so assuming you both have valid passports, you should have no problems registering.  You only really need your BSN when dealing with the Government or other agencies (doctor, dentist, medical insurance, bank, taxman).

As for the rest of it; what you're describing is at best unusual and to be honest, is typical of the sort of thing that scammers promise their victims.  My advice is to be very careful and double-check everything.

With regards to credit history (it's called BKR in the Netherlands); it tends to look at how much you earn, how much you already borrowed and any previous defaults.  Dutch citizens get a BSN at birth and everything a Dutch person does throughout their life is tagged by the BSN, so the banks already know a whole lot about them when they walk in the door.  Not so with us foreigners; they have nothing to look at, and EU Data Protection Laws make it hard work to see stuff from other countries, so the only thing they can consider is the risk, which to them it could be you leave the country without paying.  So, many foreigners are turned away, my advice is to contact the bank and shop around before you open an account.

If you need something short-term, then perhaps rent something for the first month.  One thing to consider is that not all homes in the Netherlands have parking facilities.

Hope this helps.

Cynic
Expat Team

Thanks for the response, the reason behind the expat service is because we both have remarkably demanding jobs at the moment (very fortunate to have one given the current climate) and we just don't have time to manage multiple things leading up to the move. The cost wasn't too high and it's already starting to pay for it's self in time saved sorting things out we would have otherwise had to look into or check on. Further to that, if you're referring to the expat service being a potential scam, I was aware throughout some research I did about this. Thankfully we found a very reputable company and have spoken/video called with our expat services agent multiple times and even done an apartment tour with her. I know we could have just landed and done most of what she is doing, if not all our selves. But again, we are hoping for as little downtime from out jobs/evening time as possible and the services are starting to prove it was a worthy investment.

We do indeed both have valid EU passports which will be good.

Your note on credit history is really insightful and makes a lot more sense when tied to information we've seen thus far. I think we are getting a bit ahead of our selves, as the nirvana state would be simply to arrive and have as little time as possible to get everything sorted. But as I'm sure we all know, that's never the case.

As for parking, it's our key requirement and the apartment we are hopefully going to secure (should find out tomorrow) has a dedicated underground parking facility.

Either way, we're very excited and looking forward to starting the next chapter of our lives in the Netherlands. No doubt I'll be back on here in a year from now as we start to look at purchasing a house!

Thank you

Hi again.

I will only warn you once about scammers; we do it because we get an increasing amount of people who tell us they have been scammed and they tell a very similar story to yours; anyway, enough said.  You don't need to explain anything to me.

I'd seriously consider the need for a car straight away, particularly in Amsterdam; it has excellent public transport and to be honest, the best way to get around day to day is by bike; the city is very bike and public transport friendly, it is not in anyway car friendly.  It has a really good tram/bus service around the city and it's well-served by the National Dutch Railway.  Electric bikes are the latest thing in the Netherlands and you'll be amazed at what the Dutch have done to make them family-friendly.

You haven't mentioned Health Insurance; it's compulsory from the day you arrive in the Netherlands.  This website (link) is a Q&A (in English) on the matter.  You'll need your BSN to register with your chosen company.  When you register, you'll need to choose which parts of the policy you want to be included; for example, you said previously you would start a family, so you will need maternity cover included (it's not standard) and how much excess you are willing to pay.  You should also be aware that prescriptions medicines have to be paid for, the Dutch Government have a website on the subject; this link will take you straight there.

That's about it; I hope you and your wife have a great time in the Netherlands.

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

Hope this helps.

Cynic
Expat Team

Cynic wrote:

Hi again.

I will only warn you once about scammers; we do it because we get an increasing amount of people who tell us they have been scammed and they tell a very similar story to yours; anyway, enough said.  You don't need to explain anything to me.

I'd seriously consider the need for a car straight away, particularly in Amsterdam; it has excellent public transport and to be honest, the best way to get around day to day is by bike; the city is very bike and public transport friendly, it is not in anyway car friendly.  It has a really good tram/bus service around the city and it's well-served by the National Dutch Railway.  Electric bikes are the latest thing in the Netherlands and you'll be amazed at what the Dutch have done to make them family-friendly.

You haven't mentioned Health Insurance; it's compulsory from the day you arrive in the Netherlands.  This website (link) is a Q&A (in English) on the matter.  You'll need your BSN to register with your chosen company.  When you register, you'll need to choose which parts of the policy you want to be included; for example, you said previously you would start a family, so you will need maternity cover included (it's not standard) and how much excess you are willing to pay.  You should also be aware that prescriptions medicines have to be paid for, the Dutch Government have a website on the subject; this link will take you straight there.

That's about it; I hope you and your wife have a great time in the Netherlands.

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

Hope this helps.

Cynic
Expat Team

Thank you very much, truly. Great points, all of them.

I think you're right regarding the travel, no need to jump on getting a car asap as yes, I've been to Amsterdam multiple times before and the public transport is sublime. As for the health insurance, already on it.

Have a great week and again, thank you from both of us.

Currently you cannot enter the Netherlands, because there is a travelban for people coming from the U.S.
So you will have to wait until the E.U. lifts the travelban.

Except they are both EU citizens, for which there is an exemption available (link); although quite how this will work is anybody's guess.  For example, even if there was no exemption, they could get a flight via UK or Canada and nobody would be any the wiser.

Really? That really makes no sense to me.
So U.S. citizens who haven't lived in the states for years can't come to the E.U, but E.U. citizens who live in the states can come without any problems...
That's just weird to me.

I guess people have when they come in have to isolate themselves for 14 days anyway and a have an registrated adress in the Netherlands.

Nation-states always have the right to interpret/implement EU law/regs as it suits that country; as long as the country is seen to be implementing the spirit, then it's never a problem.  It's the silly clauses like they've put in the regs that cause problems when countries interpret that differently.

We are keeping an eye on that situation as we've now got everything in place and it would be a nightmare to change everything. But we will be self isolation for 14 days (more like 3 weeks to be safe) even if this wasn't required. For not only for our safety but others.

It would be remarkably selfish to act as though nothing has taken place.

We've actually been in isolation (except for dog walks) since March. However the airport and flight is going to be a real test. We've stocked up on masks incase the ones we have on us break or have a fault and we will certainly avoid contact as much as possible.

To that, we even paid extra for the larger more spacious seats just to avoid being packed in a row of people.

Hi again.

The operational arm of the Dutch Government who enforce all Immigration matters on the ground is the Koninklijke Marechaussee; they are actually Military Police but have full policing powers in the Netherlands.  So when you go through passport control in the Netherlands, it's them you are talking to; they have a Twitter feed (link) where they publish the latest travel restrictions, much of it in English.



This image is taken from their current Twitter feed and displays the current rules.  They have been known to respond to useful questions.

If you read that, it says US residents are not permitted, but the small print (link) has the exceptions.

Hope this helps.

Cynic
Expat Team