adlis

Hi there,

Just looking for a bit of guidance because my question is a slightly complicated one and I'm struggling to find answers online!

As I touched on in the subject title - I'm an Australian with a British Passport (my father is British) and am hoping to move to Amsterdam. From what i've read online it sounds as though that won't be an issue and I won't need a visa. My boyfriend however, (who I have been with for 10+ years) is Australian and I can't work out whether he will be able to apply for a visa, the same way he could if we were moving to the UK.

Is there anyone who has been in a similar situation and can shed advice?

Thanks in advance,

Lisa

hetismij2

Have you looked at IND.nl/EN?

That is the website of the immigration services in the Netherlands.

Will you have a job in the Netherlands? As a British citizen you have the right to stay and work, but can't claim any social assistance. You will need to take out compulsory health insurance too. Homes in Amsterdam are expensive to buy, and also to rent. There is a huge waiting list (years), for affordable social housing.

If your partner has a job waiting for him his employer can help. It is then probably a case of registering will the council and the aliens police, who will issue a residents permit. If he doesn't have work it will be trickier.
Read through the IND site, and contact them for help. They do,in my experience, answer email queries.

welltraveledbrit

Not sure I can help on the specific for Holland but here's what I learnt about this when we went through it ...

I think this hinges on what you mean by "partner"? My husband is an American and we spent some time in France and Portugal a few years ago and had to look into this as our stay went beyond the 90 day standard visa. When he went to apply to the French Consulate for a longer visa they told him it was necessary as he is married to an EU citizen.

As the legal partner of an EU citizen he has the right to live in any of the EU countries, however you must follow the local rules, I'm not sure what these are for Holland but in France it involved registering for a Carte du Sejour.

According to the European Commission they can't turn marital partners of EU citizens down for residency but they can set up a process which you are obliged to follow. Be careful about what people tell you because the rules are different for the legal partners of EU citizens and the legal partners of same country citizens. For example in France it was easier for my husband to apply for the carte du sejour than it would be for the foreign spouse of a French citizen, crazy but true. This is because European Commission laws can define and standardize the requirements for EU citizens across Europe but citizens of their own countries are governed by the local rules.

There is some murkiness around all this but the European Commission is trying ensure that people get the residency rights they are entitled to.

http://europa.eu/youreurope/citizens...s/index_en.htm

So, you are a British citizen with a foreign partner. If your boyfriend is a legal partner or husband he has the right to reside anywhere in the EU as long as he follows their requirements as to registration etc. If you are not legally partners then this whole thing is quite different and it may have to do with employment etc.

Hope this helps!

Alec

If you are unmarried partners, then your Australian partner's status in the Netherlands will depend partly on how NL implements European law. In UK, unmarried partners enjoy the same status as married if they have been cohabiting for 2 years, with documentary evidence such as joint lease, joint bank account etc. I don't know what the rules are for the Netherlands, so you need to investigate. Or just get married, in which case he will enjoy full rights as family member of an EEA citizen. As Australian he doesn't need a visa in advance, and once he enters the country he applies for residence card, preferably after you secure a job and somewhere to live. With residence card, he will be allowed to work.

Tulips

'According to the European Commission they can't turn marital partners of EU citizens down for residency but they can set up a process which you are obliged to follow'

The process is sometimes so difficult that in effect they are turning down the marital partner. I know Dutch people who gave up on trying to get their non-EU partner residency, and settled in Belgium instead. And these are Dutch people, sometimes with Dutch children, but a non-EU spouse.
They may tell your partner to go back to Australia and apply for a permit from there. They may insist that they take an integration course and learn Dutch first.

Take advice from an immigration lawyer on this issue!

flanneruk

All of this, of course, assumes that both:
- Britain remains a member of the EU, AND
- that, in trying to retain access for their goods to the Eurozone's biggest customer, the "other" 27 nations don't offer the UK a compromise allowing Britain not to accept back-door immigration of the sort the poster's trying to create in the Netherlands. Such an offer would work both ways: Britons' boyfriends and girlfriends wouldn't be able to get jobs Dutch people would otherwise be doing.

It's impossible to predict whether the UK leaves, what deals may be offered to keep the UK in - and what effect either a Brexit or Brexit-inhibiting deal would have on Britons taking up residence in the Eurozone between now and the referendum.

welltraveledbrit

" I know Dutch people who gave up on trying to get their non-EU partner residency, and settled in Belgium instead. And these are Dutch people, sometimes with Dutch children, but a non-EU spouse. "

Yes, the irony is that governments can have stricter rules for their own citizens with non EU spouses, than they can have for fellow EU citizens with non EU spouses. For example in France the rules for for French citizen with non-EU spouses are stricter than those for non French citizens with non EU spouses. It's one of the quirks of EU law!