Should you ever consider Dutch Citizenship? The Good, Bad and the Ugly 🤓

why should anyone even want to become a Dutch citizen okay hey guys welcome back to my channel if you're new here welcome welcome my name is Josephine I'm a YouTuber based in delft Netherlands and if you're Italian subscriber thank you so much for coming back okay thank you so much for all your love and support it means so so so much to me okay okay okay guys so in today's video we will be addressing Dutch citizenship okay this topic is one of my most asked questions on my social media platform so a lot of people come to me accent will I ever consider Dutch citizenship how do I become a Dutch citizen how long will it take me and what not listen so in this video we'll be addressing all these questions okay we'll be diving into the good side the bad side and the ugly side of becoming Dutch okay so get your juice get your wine get everything you need ready and let's get into this video okay so I went straight up to the IND website IND is the Dutch immigration agency so I just went to their website and tried to find everything I could see regarding Dutch citizenship and according to their website you can only become Dutch if you meet three criterias so the first criteria is that you were born Dodge that means as at the time of your birth at least one of your parents was a Dutch citizen in that case you can automatically apply for a Dutch passport and you automatically become a Dutch citizen okay now the second way that you can become Dutch is citizenship by the option now this option procedure covers a whole bunch of scenarios one of them is if you were born in the Kingdom of the Netherlands which includes the Netherlands and other Islands including Curacao Aruba or Saint Martin and you've been living in this country since you were born you can apply for the Dutch citizenship by option now another case where you can apply for Dutch citizenship by option is if you were formerly a Dutch citizen and for some reason maybe you lost it I'll go into details as to how you can actually lose your Dutch citizenship but if for some reason you lost your Dutch citizenship and you want to regain that citizenship then you can apply for citizenship by option another possibility is when you are married to a Dutch a Dutch national and you and that person have lived together for at least three years then you can be qualified to apply for Dutch citizenship by option now the last way of becoming Dutch which is the most common way especially if you were not born Dutch is through naturalization to be able to become Dutch through naturalization you really need to meet specific criterias the first one being that you have lived in the Netherlands for at least five years okay please if you're considering Dutch citizenship by naturalization then you can also check the link in the description I haven't said that I've also had people ask me if you can get Dutch citizenship by investment okay in my opinion there is nothing like Dodge citizenship by investment however you can get a resident permit by investment and to be able to qualify for this residence permit you must invest at least 1.25 million euros into the Dutch economy let's just get into the nitty-gritty of this video okay which is The Good the Bad and the Ugly side of becoming a Dutch citizen now the first thing I'm going to address is the good side okay why should anyone even want to become a Dutch citizen okay first thing that I would say is that becoming a Dutch citizen you become qualified to hold a Dutch passport Dutch passport gives you a legal right to stay in the Netherlands without any restrictions now bear in mind that the Netherlands ranks among the top 10 countries with the best quality of life in the world Listen guys that is not me talking I did not come up with these numbers I'm going to put the link in the description and so we do have like some index that monitors the quality of life in different countries and to be able to do this they consider so many things education system how happy those people are how wealthy the GDP of the country security safety a lot of factors have been considered now the Netherlands is a wealthy country the educational system is quite good the quality of life is quite good even as someone who is not a Dutch citizen and have lived here for three years I can tell once I travel to other countries I definitely can tell the difference in the quality of life in the way things are being run okay another benefit is that the Dutch passport is currently ranked fourth amongst Global passports this ranking is due to the global entry that it guarantees to dodge passport holders at the moment Dodge passport holders May travel visa-free to 191 countries in the world there are only 25 countries in the world that a Dutch passport holder needs a visa to enter that is amazing that is amazing amazing now another benefit of becoming a Dutch citizen is that you no longer need a residence permit to live and work in the Netherlands I think I've mentioned this earlier on at least you can now become an integral part of the society without needing a residence permit so if you're looking for a job you can easily switch jobs even though the job does not sponsor your Visa that's okay because you have your legal right to stay in the Netherlands okay now another benefit of owning a Dutch passport is that you can now vote in Dutch elections okay if you own a residence permit in the Netherlands you need to have stayed in the Netherlands for at least five years before you are qualified to vote in Dutch elections however if you're already a Dutch citizen you do not need to meet that criteria again being a Dutch citizen you are also an EU citizen which means that you have access to other European countries and also you can vote in European elections okay it's also easier for you to move to another country within the EU and settle in there without needing like additional residence permits and stuff like that because you're an EU citizen okay now another benefit that for me is really really important is that with your Dutch citizenship you are now allowed to work in public offices that means you can contest to be the mayor you can become a police officer you can become a soldier or a judge okay now if you're a Dutch citizen do let me know in the comment section if there are some other benefits that I'm missing out in this video or if there's something else that I said here that you said wait a minute that's not quite right or that's not quite complete let me know in the comment section okay now moving on let us go to the bad side of becoming Dutch listen guys everything that has a good side in my opinion most of the times would have the other side okay the first other side of being Dutch is that becoming a Dutch citizen especially through naturalization is a very expensive process okay first of all the cost of even applying for the naturalization process is about 900 euros or even more that is excluding the cost of writing the Dutch integration exam which could cost you somewhere around 250 to 300 Euros or the the cost of learning the Dutch language which is significantly expensive especially if you had no idea how to speak Dutch and you now want to learn this cost can be up to two thousand Euros easily I mean easy easy when it comes to learning Dutch alone then you then talk about the cost of applying for the Dutch passport if you are granted citizenship by naturalization then you then talk about the cost of renouncing your citizenship I'm going to go into details about renunciation which is another side okay but the cost of becoming Dodge can range easily between two thousand to five thousand Euros or even more depending on your personal situation so yeah if you are ever considering becoming Dutch make sure you have your money ready okay now another side of being Dutch is obviously the time it takes so the process the procedure of you know applying for naturalization and then also renunciation it could easily take from 6 months to two years depending on your own personal situation on the average I think it takes about 18 months but yeah that is also another side of becoming Dutch now let's talk about the ugly side of becoming Dutch especially true naturalization okay one major requirement of taking up the Dutch citizenship by naturalization is that you have to give up the citizenship that you already own for instance I'm Nigerian and if I ever want to obtain Dutch citizenship by naturalization I have to give up my Nigerian citizenship to be able to do that yeah even though I absolutely love this country once it comes to having to trade Nigeria Nigerian passport for the Dutch passport it becomes a difficult decision because obviously I was born and raised in Nigeria I spent the first 25 years of my life in Nigeria so giving up the Nigerian passport is just such a difficult it's like giving up a part of my identity so yeah that is an ugly side in my opinion in considering the fact that so many countries in the world allow you to hold dual citizenship especially if it's the nationality that you got by birth bear in mind that there are a few few exceptions okay that's exception that I know about is if your country do not allow you to renounce your citizenship now there are a few countries in the world that do not allow you to renounce your citizenship especially if you obtained it by birth if you are from such country then you can you are allowed to hold to our citizenship so you are not you know you're not requested to renounce your citizenship now another scenario where you can hold dual citizenship is if renouncing the citizenship you already have is going to cost you a significant amount of money or is going to make you lose something of a significant value most in most cases it's a case of maybe if you have an inheritance or a title or something of inestimable value that you would lose if you ever renounce the citizenship that you hold and you are able to prove this during your application then maybe you'll be given a chance to hold dual citizenship okay another exception for this is if you are married to a Dutch citizen if you're married to a Dutch citizen or you are a registered partner to a Dutch citizen then you do not need to renounce your citizenship okay guys so the second ugly is that you can still lose your Dutch citizenship so just because you obtained your citizenship through naturalization doesn't mean that you have the right to become Dutch for the rest of your life okay there are a few few situations where you can lose your Dutch citizenship the first one is if you ever committed a hideous crime which was what I saw on the website and I'm like okay what do you mean by hideous crime I don't know then you could lose your Dutch citizenship okay now another scenario is if you were fraudulent during the application process so for some reason if you submitted maybe documents that were falsified or you lied about something during the application and maybe they find out in the future then you can lose that Dutch citizenship which is understandable in my opinion because you obtained the citizenship falsely so now the last reason why you can lose your Dutch citizenship is if you ever obtain citizenship for another country through naturalization you automatically lose your Dutch citizenship and it doesn't matter whether you are still resident in the Netherlands or your resident in another country to me this is the easiest way to lose the citizenship another ugly side is something that you know different people could have different opinions about one thing to have in mind is that just because you own the Dutch passport doesn't automatically mean that you will feel Dutch or feel like you are absolutely welcomed to the society you guys know that I absolutely love dutchies I've had really really good experiences with dutches but also bear in mind that just because you're a citizen doesn't mean that you'll be welcomed you can hear situations like oh where are you from and I say oh I am Dutch be like um yeah but where are you originally from stuff like that and I don't see that as a bad question I I do feel that a lot of people are curious and they ask this question out of curiosity but what I'm trying to say is by virtue of the way I look which is not tippish Netherlands which is not typical Dutch I would say someone could question like where am I originally from so it brings this feeling of okay I have a Dutch passport I am naturalized and I am part of the Dutch community on paper but in reality am I really Dutch I don't know if that makes sense but that is also an ugly side and it's not just about the Netherlands is an ugly side of obtaining a citizenship of another country through naturalization in so many cases you will always be seen as a foreigner so this is another side I in my opinion I wish it wasn't completely that way I wish that once you get your passport you can completely immense in a culture especially in a case where you have to renounce the citizenship that you already have so it's like you have to give up whatever culture that you already have to be able to be part of this culture so it's going to be you know weird and awkward if you've given up that culture just to be in the Netherlands and still feel for the rest of your life like a foreigner is like where do you belong anyway this brings us back to the question is Dutch citizenship what it okay now this question is the definitely an open question and I would like to know in the comment section having mentioned all these benefits and also the other side of being a Dutch citizen let me know in the comment section if you think it is worth it in my humble opinion I think it really depends on who is accent now if you are from a country where you do not share so much ties to that country or you feel like what you have to gain from the Netherlands especially if you're looking at the good side is much more beneficial to you than the bad or the ugly side then for sure then the Dutch citizenship is definitely worth it for you if you are from a country that is equally wealthy or if you're from a country that you really do not want to give up this citizenship then maybe the Dutch citizenship is not worth it in your own case so in my opinion is a case by case situation okay so guys yeah this is the end of this video thank you guys once again for watching don't forget to give me a thumbs up and please consider subscribing it will mean so much to me thank you guys once again and I'll see you in my next one bye [Music]

Channel: Josphine Ogugua

Views: 22,356

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Id: QsAdkmPPymc

Length: 16min 42sec (1002 seconds)

Published: Fri Nov 18 2022