Expats coming to the Netherlands, beware!
The city of Amsterdam recently launched a new ‘brand’, called I Amsterdam.
This is a registered trademark of the city, and is supposedly used for companies or other organizations that present the city in a good light. In particular an important part of the marketing efforts are to attract so-called knowledge workers to the city, and help with their relocation by promoting businesses that can assist them with things like housing, banking and the like.
Beware of Racism!
An important part of the history of the Netherlands is after WWII a large number of migrants came here to help with the reconstruction of the country. These migrants kept coming, and in recent times turned into more educated knowledge workers. In fact, in light of the fact there were large numbers of knowledge workers the governments has significantly cut back on educational spending and let immigrants fill the gaps, causing other problems I won’t get into here.
The view has always been maintained that those coming to the country are doing so to serve the native Dutch and their descendants. In other words, knowledge workers come here to create jobs, and these jobs are for ethnic Dutch.
The demographics are now such that about half the city’s population is not ethnic Dutch, and if you move here you will also not be ethnic Dutch.
There’s a long running custom for ethnic Dutch to only hire or offer promotions to other ethnic Dutch. In fact, to hire or promote someone who is not ethnic Dutch is considered to be taking a risk. This might create discontent in the workplace, a clash of cultures or attract complaints from customers — much in the same way it used to be with black workers in America.
There is no such thing as affirmative action or reverse discrimination here, and certainly not in the city government! The vast majority of city workers are ethnic Dutch, and nearly all of those in positions of importance are. Most city contracts go to companies who only hire ethnic Dutch. Certainly for the purposes of this new marketing logo, if you do business with the companies involved, you will see they are almost all exclusively staffed with ethnic Dutch.
If you do business with them, you will be leaving out the half of the city that is not ethnic Dutch.
Housing
This is a good example, and since I am not ethnic Dutch and am offering an apartment for rent, let me explain a little bit how this works.
Largely speaking, there are three kinds of housing in Amsterdam. There’s social housing, where you have to meet certain income, employment and pre-existing residence requirements. There’s free sector housing, which is more expensive and easier to find. Now there’s this new category called Short-Stay housing, especially intended for expats.
There’s lots of grey areas in housing, for example people who have social housing illegally subletting it to expats for a huge profit, or landlords illegally renting out social housing as free sector. Lots of people will warn expats about ‘illegal’ housing, but actually there’s nothing to worry about. There are no penalties for you to rent and live in illegal housing. The risks are almost exclusively for property owners. If you find yourself in the wrong kind of accommodation, you may have to move out eventually or pay a higher than expected rent, you might find yourself swamped with a bit of red tape, but there are no other risks.
The one issue for some is if you are non-EU and living here on a residence permit renewed on an annual basis, you will need to register your residence with the city and be allowed to live wherever that is. This is easy. If you fall into this situation, ask your potential landlord if you’re allowed to register? If the answer is no, you have to look elsewhere. Your landlord will not want you to try to register if you’re not allowed to, and it will create a lot of problems for them if you do. If you aren’t required to register because of a residence permit, it’s no problem to come to an agreement that you won’t register, if this is what you want to do.
There is nothing illegal about renting an apartment from me or any other private party! Most places are okay to register with the city. If you rent from me, you can certainly register if you want, no problem.
Short Stay housing was created because there are a lot of empty apartments in the city now that don’t meet the requirements of free sector rental housing, and can’t be sold because the real estate market is too depressed. Licenses were granted to large housing corporations to use this excess housing as ‘Short Stay’ housing, in limited numbers so the market would not fill up with expat rentals, bringing prices down. These licenses were granted ‘per unit’, with entire apartment blocks considered as a single unit, meaning the cost for someone like me with a single apartment was unrealistic, and only pre-existing housing corporations would qualify.
If you move into an official ‘Short Stay’ rental, you will get housing licensed by a city government dominated by ethnic Dutch, with the intention of keeping it in short supply in an otherwise flooded real estate market with artificially high rents, as well as with the intention of benefiting ethnic Dutch owners running a company who only hires ethnic Dutch workers.
This isn’t the right kind of housing for expats!
Whatever you do, and however you find housing, the best thing to do is avoid official Short Stay housing and official housing companies. If you’re looking for housing, leave a comment on this post and I’ll try to offer the most current advice I have at the moment.
Work Ethic
One of the things that happens with the active promotion of ethnic Dutch is one of the most atrocious work ethics I have ever seen. Nothing is a better example than when the city was licensing taxis in a similar way as the new Short Stay housing! By searching on TCA or Taxi Centrale Amsterdam, there are probably lots of stories on the Internet, but basically the city turned all of their taxi drivers into thugs.
The taxi drivers all knew they had a right to drive their taxi, pretty much charge whatever they wanted and could do what they wanted because the city had given them a permanent license and weren’t issuing new licenses to others. This basically meant they were ripping off any tourist who entered their cabs, charging whatever they wanted, and many became involved in organized crime. For a time it was known if you wanted pirated software, you could buy a CD from most taxi drivers. Many would transport drugs on request. It was a real mess, and it took a long time to sort out. Nowadays, the taxis aren’t nearly as bad, certainly nothing to be afraid of, but there are still a few bad drivers floating around and taxis are still best avoided if possible.
Later I’m going to do a post on my recent house renovations, and the story is similar with this.
Any time you do business with a completely ethnic Dutch company, you risk the same sort of work ethic and desire to charge the highest price for the least amount of work. By the way, this is often the case with ethnic Dutch people trying to buy goods and services too. Since employment is harder to come by for non-ethnic Dutch, as a rule they are much more motivated and honest.
I’m not in anyway encouraging anyone to discriminate the other way, and refuse to do business with ethnic Dutch, but rather use common sense.
If you’re an expat coming to Amsterdam, beware half of the city is like you — from somewhere else. Look out for and pay attention to them! Look for colored skin, a funny accent or native English speaker. The day will come where you expect the same from others.
If you come here and work for a foreign company, it may take a long time before you notice it, because you’ll be working in a pretty sheltered environment. It’s also normal when you come here to look on everything with a positive light, and for example justify this kind of discrimination on the basis of a lack of appropriate language skills. The truth is with something like language skills, the expectations are generally just so high, that no non-native speaker is good enough. Almost no one learns to speak Dutch as a second language without an accent. It can take a long time living here before you see just how undeniable the discrimination is, but you’ll see it eventually.
A desire to purchase goods and services from non-ethnic Dutch is really the most important first step to ending the discrimination that goes on here.
Can this nonsense be challenged under EU legislation?
Hi Robert:
I always like it when you leave comments!
I don’t think so. It’s not like I think it’s a particularly rare situation in Europe. Not too long ago there were riots in Paris over what I gather is something similar. This is certainly a problem in Italy.
For some reason I haven’t quite figured out, the UK is one of the few places in Europe where this isn’t an issue. I gather the Swedes have a good relationship with their immigrants too, but I don’t have any first hand information about this. I think what’s a little unusual about the Netherlands is the proportion of immigrants to native Dutch, which is very high and getting higher.
It’s hard to legislate attitudes and unofficial policies. Reverse discrimination or affirmative action is very controversial, and hard to do right.
The central government is a big mess right now, and this is part of the problem. I think over time everything will get better. In the meantime however, I think it’s important as many people as possible are aware of the problem and pay attention to it.
Very interesting and good to know… I’ll keep it in mind next time I’m over there.
This is the problem which i encounter. I’m a EU national and I want to rent a room in a shared flat. The landlord has previously registered people and explained that registering more people will cause a tax cost to him. I need to register with the local council so i can get my BNS number. This left confused as to what methods i can use to get around having no fixed contract to stay in the flat. Do oyu have any ideas to help
Hi Charlie,
I’m not really an expert on this kind of thing.
In general, with free sector housing or when you purchase your home, there is no limit to the number of people who can be registered at the same address.
So, if you have a friend who lives in free sector housing or owns their own home, you could try registering at that address. Then you would need a letter from them saying you are an invited guest, and that would be the same as a fixed contract.
This is what we did for a friend in the same situation several years ago, and it all worked out fine.
Thank you Patrick. I had the same idea myself but with a neighbour and maybe making a small donation for their signature. I knew there would be more than one way to skin this cat.
Hello, thank you for this information. I am currently living in a house where I am registered, however I am moving in a month or so to a house where I can not register.
Should I de-register from my current house or just wait until they eventually figure it out via returned post? If I do de-register will it cause problems if I am not registered anywhere or will no one realise? (I already have my BSN number and bank account opened and my work permit is currently being processed and I am only staying for less than one year).
I am mainly concerned that I will have to stop working if they find out. Have you ever heard of a similar situation with anyone?
🙂
Hi Natalie,
While I’m happy people are finding this post and using it to discuss this kind of thing, I have to make very clear I am no expert on these things. In particular, I would feel very badly if I gave someone advice and it ended up getting them in trouble. I want to make very clear this is just my opinion, and you should do whatever is necessary to verify it with a more knowledgeable source.
My understanding is you can never ‘de-register’. You can go in and tell them you are moving abroad, and they will note that, but then if you are earning money in the country this will catchup with you eventually. You will however always be in their computer, and if you move and change your registration, it has to be to a ‘permitted’ address.
I have known a lot of people in your situation, but they always had someplace they could stay registered. For example with parents or friends. It’s important to be registered with someone you trust, because you’ll get mail from time to time based on your registration, and you do want it to be forwarded to you. For example your residence permit renewal will be sent to this address, and you don’t want this to be returned marked ‘unknown’. You’ll also get things from the city, and ballots for elections.
There is no limit to the number of people who can be registered at the same address. In the short term, there’s probably no reason you can’t stay registered where you are now. The new occupants probably won’t even realize you are registered there. It is important to sort something out in the long run however.
Assuming you are friends, it’s honestly not much of a problem for you to be registered at someone else’s house. It’s not much of a hassle at all, and I wouldn’t hesitate to do it for a friend. If someone has bad intentions it can cause problems, so don’t make such an arrangement with a stranger.
To be clear, I am not myself offering to make any such arrangements with readers of this post. I’m afraid you have to find another friend somewhere else.
Hi there,
My situation is similar to Natalie’s. i am currently registered and living in den hague and am moving to a social housing apartment in Amsterdam where the owner doesn’t want me to register. I want to register with a friend in amsterdam for the long term who has a 2 bedroom place and only herself and her fiancee living there. – In the worst case scenario and my landlord gets caught or or they somehow decide to investigate my friend’s house and they find out that i am falsely registered what are the circumstances? – i am here on a visa from canada – would it be effected? do they ever randomly investigate housing situations/registrations? what is at risk?
many thanks! – this was the only spot i could find to address this issue!
sorry – above i meant – what could be the consequences for false registration? – not circumstances…
many thanks again
Hi Jenna,
Your question is a little like what are the consequences of speeding in a car? The answer of course is you might get a speeding ticket.
I’m really not a lawyer. I would imagine if they wanted to use it as an excuse to cancel your visa, they could. It probably depends on how you react if you were confronted with being caught, and if you were defiant or what the politics of the moment were.
The risks for your friends in Amsterdam are probably pretty small. For them it’s mostly if you were to suddenly demand the right to live there, which you probably couldn’t do anyway. I doubt it’s seriously illegal to let someone register in your home, and probably not illegal at all.
The one with the most to lose is the person who’s apartment you’re using. If they get caught subletting it, they might lose it. If they are on any other social benefits, they may lose them. It is a form of benefits fraud. You also might have the right to demand to live there permanently, but that really wouldn’t be a nice thing to do and I don’t suggest it.
Honestly, registering more than anything is you stating your place of residence. If you say you live with your friends in Amsterdam, how is anyone going to prove that wrong? You are allowed to have a friend in The Hague, and stay for a short time in their apartment, even if it is social housing. The sticking point might be if there is a written agreement, and if the wrong person could produce it at the wrong time. I don’t think there is any predetermined time which you would be allowed to use the apartment of a friend like this, ‘for free’.
In North America, there’s a sort of culture of calling a hotline and reporting someone. That culture doesn’t really exist here, and in fact there’s the idea of needing to be an interested party, the Dutch word ‘belang’. That basically means if someone calls the city to report you, the chances are pretty good that unless that person can prove a clear interest in the situation, their complaint will probably go unheard or at worst you might get a letter telling you the complaint was made. Calling to report someone ‘just to hurt them’ is not appreciated here.
I think if you keep quiet and don’t upset anyone, the chance of being found out are pretty small.
The fact of the matter too is legal or illegal, it’s your home. You can’t be thrown out without a lot of red tape, and not unless someone finds you another place to live. No matter what happens, you will almost certainly have quite a bit of time to find something else or get things straightened out.
Enforcement of this nature is not normally heavy handed here, and there’s a long history of squatting and otherwise breaking housing laws. You would probably face a fine at worst, and I doubt they would consider it serious enough to cancel your visa. But I’m not a lawyer!
It would be nice if someone out there with some real experience with this kind of thing would tell us about it.
many thanks Patrick!
yours is useful opinion – as you said though it would be great to hear from someone who was “found out” to see if there are address “mis”-registration ramifications…