- Have you read all relevant information pages carefully?
- Have you sought advice from the government or elsewhere?
- Do you still have questions about your specific situation?
- Through the Nationality question form we do not give advice on immigration matters. Where there are related immigration queries we do work together with good Dutch immigration lawyers.
If you feel the need to have your personal situation, or that of your family, assessed then you can make a small contribution and complete our Nationality question form. Read the following first:
Do NOT ask your questions via the regular and general contact form.
Once you made your contribution you will return to the nationality question form on our website.
Contribution?
For our expert advice on the Dutch nationality law you contribute € 10.00 for your first email.
If you do not provide all the necessary information to answer you in one go follow-up e-mails are € 7.50.
Why these contributions? You pay a lot less than when you seek advice from a specialized lawyer but as jurists and legal advisers we spend a lot of time answering your questions. We do this with the aim to help you on your way and give you self-help information and tools to resolve your situation where possible. The contributions also ensure that we can pay for this website and associated expenses. And it ensures that those who are really motivated, and likely in need of our services, receive the necessary attention. As you can see from the amounts it is certainly not our intention to benefit financially from this and our motivation is to help people.
How fast do we reply?
Sometimes you will get an answer the next day, but sometimes it can take a week or two. We cannot guarantee a precise turnaround time as every question and situation is different and the complexity can differ. In the majority of cases you get an answer within three days.
What kind of answers will I get?
It is good that you understand what we can do for you and what we unfortunately cannot do.
What we can do:
- Based on your details and situation, we can in most cases advise whether you, or your family, are Dutch or not.
- Based on your information, we can check whether errors have been made (by the government).
- We can advise you on how to become a Dutch citizen (again).
- We can and will advise you on which articles of the law our opinion is based so that you can take this information to the government and claim your rights.
- We can advise you on how to adopt another nationality without losing your Dutch nationality.
- We can advise you on how to remain a Dutch citizen (see info pages).
- We can possibly refer you to a lawyer or work with them on your behalf.
- We can advise you whether we think if you have a chance of success before you hire a lawyer. (A chance doesn’t always mean 100%). We only work with lawyers who give an initial free consult.
- We always tell you to check our information and advice with appropriate authorities before taking any action.
Not:
- We can NOT officially confirm or recover your nationality for you. We can work with you to accomplish this through separate legal services.
- We CANNOT help you fill in forms or submit applications. We can offer separate legal services for that.
- We do NOT (want to) advise you about illegal practices. But we can discuss alternative ‘legal‘ routes.
- We are not lawyers or attorneys. We can work with our lawyers through separate legal services.
- We have less knowledge of immigration legislation and regulations and will not advise you on specific migration options. We can work with you to accomplish this through separate legal services.
- We limit ourselves to Dutch nationality law and do not give specific advice about the legislation of other countries except for any relevant general knowledge which you will need to verify. We can work on this with you through separate legal services.
- We can NOT guarantee that our information is error-free. Since your situation may be slightly different and we may not have (had) all the necessary information from you.
- We cannot accept liability. You will always have to check the information through the official authorities before taking any action.
Who answers my questions?
Paul Munsell and Kris von Habsburg answer the questions. They are not lawyers or advocates, but are seen as specialist jurists on the Dutch nationality law. Their knowledge is sometimes consulted by politicians and lawyers. At the very bottom you can read again who we are.
Which information do you need from me/us?
This will differ per individual/case. In general we need to know:
- Your date of birth (month and year).
- Your country of birth.
- Your nationality or nationalities at birth.
- The nationalities of your partner(s) (past and present).
- Marriage, divorce and/or death details regarding you, your partner(s), including dates.
- The above details for your parents and children.
- The foreign or Dutch naturalisation details including dates for each person (when and how did you get the other nationality?).
- The dates of official residency in each country you have lived/worked. The Netherlands has a civil register maintained by the municipal offices where every move is recorded. Dutch citizens are required to notify the municipality when moving house. Failure to do so may result in the municipality removing you from the residential address administration with destination unknown. Other countries may not have such municipal residency administration but immigration records are comparable. Where you have/had the other nationality you likely didn’t have a visa and thus can’t avail of immigration records and will need to find other means of proving your official residency. If needed we can discuss this further. We don’t need dates for short periods of travel for pleasure or work.
- The details regarding your potential loss of the Dutch or other nationality, inclusive of dates.
- Etc. etc.
- IMPORTANT – Include any other relevant information that can help us answer your questions.
(note that in order to protect your privacy we do accept just first names or months and years instead of full dates. We don’t share your information, but just in case you want to be extra secure we can work with that)
How can I ask my questions?
As soon as you have made your contribution below, you will be taken to our special nationality questions form on our website.
Make your contribution here via PayPal and then you will return to our special personal questions page.
If something goes wrong, you can report this via the regular contact form. Do not send your questions via the regular contact form.
Who are Paul and Kris?
Kris von Habsburg has lived abroad for more than 25 years (United Kingdom, Thailand, China, Ireland, Australia, US, etc) where he gained expat and migrant experience living and working internationally. Kris is Dutch and has another nationality. He has worked as a Dutch consular officer for a few years and gained knowledge on issues such as issuing passports, nationality law, immigration, consular assistance, etc. Kris advises various organizations (foundations) and politicians in this area. He gives informal advice to the public to ensure that people stay within the law and avoid nationality issues as much as possible. Kris is very concerned with the problems and suffering caused by the current Dutch nationality law. This can, amongst other things, divorce families and force abandonment onto the elderly, as he saw through his work in Australia. He quickly recognized how the nationality law affects (former) Dutch people and their families and that there are better ways.
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Paul Munsell has lived abroad for about 30 years (USA, France, Belgium, Germany, Austria and Switzerland). He studied French and German Language and Literature at Georgetown University in Washington DC and George Mason University, Virginia. He then studied political science and law at the Institut d’Études Politiques de Paris and the Université de Paris (Panthéon-Assas) in Paris. Paul founded the Facebook group “Netherlands / Dutch Nationality Law Changes 2010 & Latent Dutch”. According to the Dutch embassy in Washington, Paul was the first Dutch person in North America to use the Option statement in 2010 as “Latent Dutch”. Because official information from the government often gives rise to confusion or ambiguity, he likes to answer questions about Dutch citizenship, in support of the Dutch in foreign parts.
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DISCLAIMER
All information and advice must be verified by the reader himself before taking any action. Every advice on this website is to help you find the right answers and take you in the right direction. The information and advice here may contain inadvertent errors. The situation can vary from person to person. In addition, the law, as described here, may have just changed or may change in the (near) future.
The content on the website / web page is of a general informative nature. No rights can be derived from the information, you determine the value of the information for your own situation. You remain responsible for the actions you take or fail to take regarding your nationality. We also recommend, regarding your specific situation, to consult a specialist and / or lawyer on nationality and possible immigration legislation and can help you with this .
The owner of this website accepts no liability for any damage that may arise from the use of information or links on this website. The website / web page contains hyperlinks to websites of third parties, over which the owner of this website has no control and therefore cannot guarantee that the content of these websites is correct, complete and up-to-date. The owner of this website is not liable for any damage whatsoever, direct or indirect, that has arisen in any way or results from the use of the website / web page and the content, or the change or the unavailability of the website and the content.
Do you see an error or do you have additional information? Then get in touch with us.