Naturalisation in the Netherlands: the five-year rule, the ten-year proposal, and what applies now

If you are living in the Netherlands on a residence permit and thinking about a Dutch passport, you have probably read that the residence requirement is about to double. That reporting was accurate when written, but it has been overtaken by events. This article sets out what the law requires as at 29 August 2026, what happened to the ten-year proposal, and how the two routes to Dutch nationality — naturalisation and the option procedure — differ in practice.

Where the ten-year proposal stands

The short answer: the five-year rule still applies. Proposals to extend the period to ten years have been discussed, but none has entered into force and no extension is law. Anyone meeting the conditions in art. 8 of the Rijkswet op het Nederlanderschap (RWN) today can apply today.

The longer answer matters, because the proposal has not formally disappeared and could return in another form.

What was proposed

On 26 September 2025 the then cabinet published a draft Rijkswet for internet consultation: Wijziging van de Rijkswet op het Nederlanderschap ter verlenging van de termijnen voor verlening van het Nederlanderschap. Consultation closed in early December 2025. The draft would have:

• extended the general requirement from five to ten years of uninterrupted lawful residence and principal residence in the Kingdom;
• introduced a five-year residence requirement for spouses and registered partners of Dutch nationals, who at present face no separate residence term;
• raised the reduced three-year terms — for unmarried partners in a durable relationship, for stateless persons and for recognised adults — to five years;
• abolished the shortened route for people with ten years of non-consecutive residence.

Ten years is the maximum permitted under the European Convention on Nationality, so the proposal sat at the legal ceiling.

Why it did not proceed

Three things happened in quick succession. On 21 January 2026 the Adviescollege toetsing regeldruk advised against submitting the bill in its existing form, finding that the explanatory memorandum did not adequately demonstrate the link between the measure and its stated objective. The IND then published an implementation assessment warning of substantial consequences, including a surge of applications between announcement and entry into force, and recommending a transitional period of at least one year.

Most importantly, the election of 29 October 2025 produced a different government. The D66, VVD and CDA coalition agreement was published on 30 January 2026 and the new cabinet took office on 23 February 2026. That agreement does not carry the ten-year term forward, and was consistently reported at the time as having dropped it for ordinary migrants. Nothing published since has reinstated it.

One complication deserves flagging. In an answer to parliamentary questions dated 20 February 2026, the outgoing minister still described a bill as being in preparation, with submission targeted for the third quarter of 2026. That answer came from a caretaker administration days before the handover and reflects the previous cabinet’s plans, not the current coalition’s. No such bill has been introduced, and the Afdeling advisering van de Raad van State has published no advisory opinion on it: the draft has not gone past the public consultation opened on 30 September 2025 and the IND implementation assessment that followed it. Whether it has been taken off the legislative calendar or merely left dormant is a question for the wetgevingskalender on rijksoverheid.nl, which should be checked before advising anyone to bring an application forward.

What the current coalition has signalled instead

• Asylum status holders: six years rather than five, reflecting two consecutive temporary permits. This is a line in a coalition agreement, not an instrument. Whether it has been worked up into a draft is visible on internetconsultatie.nl and the wetgevingskalender; until something is in force, article 8 of the Rijkswet op het Nederlanderschap sets five years for everyone.
• Language level: an indication that the requirement may rise from A2 to B1. This is not new — a move to B1 was put out for consultation as far back as 2020 as an amendment to the Besluit naturalisatietoets and has still not been brought into force. A2 remains the operative level.
• Dual nationality: no relaxation; the renunciation rule stays as it is.

History counsels caution in either direction. The last attempt to lengthen the term — bill 33852 (R2023), five years to seven — was introduced in January 2014 and rejected by the Eerste Kamer on 3 October 2017.

What it would mean if it did return

The draft contained a straightforward transitional rule: applications submitted before the new law entered into force would be decided under the rules in place at the date of submission. The date you file is the date that counts. If a comparable proposal is revived, the advice will be the same as in 2025 — if you already qualify, do not sit on the application.

Two routes to Dutch nationality

The RWN provides two separate routes. They are not alternatives you choose between: you either fall within an option category or you do not.

Conditions for naturalisation

Lawful residence and its duration

You must have had five years of uninterrupted lawful residence in the Kingdom immediately before the application, holding a permit that counts for this purpose — a permanent permit, an EU long-term resident permit, an asylum permit, or a non-temporary permit such as one for family life. Permits granted for a purpose the law treats as temporary, such as study, generally do not count. Time on a temporary permit later converted is a difficult question, and a common reason applications fail at the counter.

Shorter terms apply in several situations under art. 8 RWN:

• Spouses and registered partners of a Dutch national: no separate five-year residence term, provided you have been married or registered for three years and lived together throughout. For married couples the cohabitation may have been abroad.
• Unmarried partners of a Dutch national: three years, in a durable relationship with an unmarried Dutch national.
• Stateless persons: three years.
• People who acquired Dutch nationality through recognition or legitimation: three years.
• Former Dutch nationals: no separate residence term, though the option procedure is often the better fit.
• Long non-consecutive residence: two years, where you have had admission and principal residence in the Kingdom for at least ten years in total.

Integration

You must have passed the civic integration examination, or the naturalisation test, at language level A2 across reading, listening, speaking, writing and knowledge of Dutch society. Certain Dutch secondary and higher education qualifications exempt you. Exemption or dispensation from the integration obligation under the Wet inburgering is not automatically the same as meeting the naturalisation condition, and this trips people up regularly.

Public order

Naturalisation is refused under art. 9 RWN if there are serious suspicions that you present a danger to public order or national security. The IND applies the Handleiding Rijkswet op het Nederlanderschap, which works with a rehabilitation period of four to five years before the decision for offences disposed of by a punishment order (strafbeschikking), a fine or a community service order. The Handleiding excludes naturalisation on a single financial sanction of €900 or more; on several sanctions of €450 or more each totalling €1,350 or more; on a single community service order of 36 hours or more; on several community service orders of 18 hours or more each totalling 54 hours or more; and on any custodial sentence, suspended or unsuspended. Pending criminal proceedings block the application in the same way. The assessment runs to the moment of decision, so a conviction during the procedure can undo an application that was sound when filed.

Identity and other conditions

You must be 18 or over, able to prove identity and nationality with a valid passport and legalised birth certificate (limited exemptions apply, notably for recognised refugees), not married to more than one person, and willing to make the declaration of solidarity at the ceremony.

The option procedure

Option is a declaration, not a request. If you fall within a category in art. 6 RWN and meet its conditions, the municipality confirms your acquisition of Dutch nationality; it does not weigh the merits. There is no integration examination. Categories include:

• people born in the Kingdom with uninterrupted principal residence there since birth;
• people who have had their principal residence in the Kingdom since the age of four;
• former Dutch nationals resident in the Kingdom on a non-temporary basis;
• spouses or registered partners of a Dutch national, and people aged 65 or over, after fifteen years of residence in the Kingdom;
• people born before 1 January 1985 to a Dutch mother;
• minor children recognised by, or under the authority of, a Dutch parent, and certain stateless persons.

Renunciation of your existing nationality is generally not required in the option procedure. The significant exception is the long-residence route for people resident in the Kingdom since the age of four, where it does apply. The public order condition and the ceremony apply to option as they do to naturalisation.

The procedure, fees and the ceremony

Both routes start at the town hall of the municipality where you are registered, not at the IND and not online. You make an appointment, hand over documents and pay the fee. The municipality checks your details against the Basisregistratie Personen, verifies your documents and forwards the file to the IND with its recommendation.

For naturalisation the IND assesses the file and, if granted, Dutch nationality is conferred by royal decree. The decision must be taken within one year of the moment the fee is paid, payment is waived or the documents needed to complete the file are received, and the application may be held over twice for six months (art. 9 RWN); complex files — disputed identity, incomplete civil status documents, an unresolved criminal matter — routinely run longer. For option the municipality itself decides, usually within about three months.

IND fees from 1 January 2026:

• naturalisation, single applicant: €1,139
• naturalisation, with a partner: €1,454
• naturalisation, reduced rate for stateless persons and asylum permit holders: €847 single, €1,163 with a partner
• minor child naturalising with a parent: €168
• option, single declarant: €241
• option, with a partner: €412
• minor child included in an option declaration: €27

These amounts took effect on 1 January 2026, a 4.4 per cent indexation of the 2025 figures, and were published in the Staatscourant as an amendment to the Handleiding Rijkswet op het Nederlanderschap 2003. They are indexed again each 1 January. The fee is not refunded if the application is refused.

A positive decision does not by itself make you Dutch. You must attend the naturalisation ceremony and make the declaration of solidarity in Dutch, in person, within one year of the decision. If you do not, the decision lapses and you must start — and pay — again.

Dual nationality

The Netherlands’ position on dual nationality is asymmetric, which is the source of most of the confusion. Someone naturalising must in principle do everything possible to renounce their existing nationality (art. 9 RWN). A Dutch national by birth faces no such requirement, but faces a different risk, described below.

The exemptions are extensive, and in practice many applicants fall within one. No renunciation is required where, among other cases:

• you are married to or the registered partner of a Dutch national;
• you were born in the Kingdom and live there at the time of application;
• you hold an asylum residence permit or are a recognised refugee;
• your country of origin does not permit renunciation, in law or in practice;
• renunciation would cost a disproportionate amount or cause serious financial loss, for example to inheritance rights;
• renunciation would require you to complete military service first;
• your nationality is lost automatically on acquiring Dutch nationality in any event;
• you are a minor;
• your country is a party to the Second Protocol to the Strasbourg Convention.

Whether an exemption applies turns on your specific nationality and circumstances, and is worth establishing before you file.

Losing Dutch nationality by acquiring another

The mirror-image risk sits in art. 15 RWN: an adult Dutch national who voluntarily acquires another nationality loses Dutch nationality by operation of law, immediately and without any decision being taken. There are exceptions — notably where you were born in the other country and had your principal residence there when you acquired it, where you lived there for at least five years before turning 18, and where you are married to a national of that state. Naturalising abroad without checking this first is an expensive mistake.

Loss of Dutch nationality by long residence abroad

A Dutch national who also holds another nationality loses Dutch nationality by operation of law after thirteen years of uninterrupted principal residence outside the Netherlands and the European Union. The period was ten years until the Rijkswet of 17 November 2021 replaced “ten years” with “thirteen years” in article 15; the change entered into force on 1 April 2022.

The clock is interrupted, and starts afresh, by a period of residence back in the Netherlands or the EU, and by the issue of a valid Dutch passport, a Dutch identity card or an official consular declaration of possession of Dutch nationality (art. 15 RWN). The practical consequence is that renewing a Dutch passport before it expires is not an administrative formality for Dutch nationals abroad; it is what keeps the nationality alive.

Automatic loss is not always the end of the matter. In Tjebbes (Court of Justice of the European Union, 12 March 2019, C-221/17, ECLI:EU:C:2019:189) the Court held that where loss of Dutch nationality also entails loss of EU citizenship, the consequences must be assessed for proportionality in the individual case. The RWN was amended in response, and art. 6 RWN now provides an option route allowing some people who lost Dutch nationality by operation of law to recover it.

Children

Minor children can be included in a parent’s naturalisation request or option declaration and acquire Dutch nationality with that parent, at the reduced fee. They do not sit the integration examination.

Ceremony rules differ by age. Children under 16 need not attend, but only become Dutch if the parent attends and makes the declaration. Children aged 16 and 17 must attend in person, make the declaration themselves and consent. Children between 12 and 15 are asked for their views.

Children can also lose it: under art. 16 RWN a minor generally follows a parent who loses Dutch nationality, subject to exceptions — notably where the other parent remains Dutch, or where the child was born in, or has lived at least five years in, the country whose nationality is acquired.

What this means in practice

If you meet the five-year condition now, the case for applying now is straightforward. Not because a ten-year rule is imminent — on the current state of play it is not — but because the direction of travel on nationality has been restrictive for over a decade, transitional rules here are keyed to the date of submission, and processing already takes about a year. If your circumstances are complicated — an unclear permit history, a criminal matter, an uncertain renunciation position, documents from a country whose civil registration is not accepted — resolve those questions before you go to the town hall, not after a refusal.