No change on dual nationality, 10-year residency plan dropped

THE HAGUE--The Netherlands’ incoming government is not planning to rewrite dual nationality rules in a way that would let all foreign nationals keep their original citizenship when they naturalize as Dutch. It is, however, abandoning the proposal to extend the general residency requirement to 10 years.

In the plans released Friday, the coalition says Dutch citizens living abroad will not lose their Dutch passport faster than citizens in countries such as Germany, Belgium, France, and the United Kingdom. For immigrants applying for Dutch citizenship through the naturalization route, the core requirement remains unchanged, applicants will still generally be expected to renounce any other nationality.

How this will work in practice is not fully spelled out, especially since the Netherlands and Austria are the only EU countries that still restrict dual nationality in this way, while Germany has recently passed legislation allowing new citizens to retain their existing nationality.

Legal specialists have long warned that it is hard to justify a system that effectively permits some people who are Dutch by birth to hold multiple passports, while denying that same possibility to people who become Dutch later, an approach they say risks being discriminatory.

Maarten Vink, a professor of citizenship studies at the European University Institute in Florence, described the incoming government’s approach as “ambiguous, morally inconsistent and practically impossible” in a LinkedIn post.

The coalition text also indicates that the outgoing cabinet’s contested plan to raise the standard residency threshold from five years to 10 years has been dropped. Instead, it points to a shorter increase, with refugees expected to face a requirement of six years, described as two temporary residence permits.

Immigration lawyer Jeremy Bierbach said the language in the agreement strongly suggests there will be no major tightening for non-asylum migrants. In an earlier analysis, Bierbach had called the outgoing cabinet’s 10-year proposal “an act of desperation in the run-up to the election.”

On integration requirements, the new document suggests the Dutch language level for naturalization will be raised from A2 to B1. It does not clearly detail how that change would affect applications from non-refugees.

Naturalization is one of two main pathways to Dutch citizenship and in most cases requires applicants to give up their original nationality. The other route, citizenship by option, is more complex, but can allow successful applicants to hold more than one passport if they meet the criteria.

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