Bringing parents to Netherlands

Hi Viswan

I'm also an Indian expat in a situation very similar to yours.

Could you share what was the final result for visa application for your mother?

Regards,

Hi all,

I see this post was last updated in Nov 2018. Has anything significantly changed ? Needless to say I'm in the same situation, so I won't bore you with the details.

My conclusion is that it may be possible, but you will need to provide a substantial of evidence that your parent is wholly dependent on you. Does this sound correct ? In our case my mil is 150% dependent on us and there is plenty of proof.

Thanks to everyone that already shared

Hi everyone.

I was just wondering if there is any development on this post.
I am in the same situation here, need to bring my mother-in-law to live with us. I am moving from Portugal to Eindhoven this month.

Thank you.

cemaciel wrote:

Hi everyone.

I was just wondering if there is any development on this post.
I am in the same situation here, need to bring my mother-in-law to live with us. I am moving from Portugal to Eindhoven this month.

Thank you.

Hi and welcome to the Forum.

The rules haven't changed.  It's doable, but the person must be wholly dependent on you; there is a briefing document available on the IND website; this link will download it to your PC/device.

Hope this helps.

Cynic
Expat Team

Cynic wrote:

cemaciel wrote:

Hi everyone.

I was just wondering if there is any development on this post.
I am in the same situation here, need to bring my mother-in-law to live with us. I am moving from Portugal to Eindhoven this month.

Thank you.

Hi and welcome to the Forum.

The rules haven't changed.  It's doable, but the person must be wholly dependent on you; there is a briefing document available on the IND website; this [link under review] will download it to your PC/device.

Hope this helps.

Cynic
Expat Team

It helps a lot!
Thank you.

Hello All,

I am moving to Netherlands for 2 year work-permit along with my wife & son from India.

My Parent are 64.5 & 71 years age, staying with me for last 4 years. I am also planning to move them to Netherlands for 2 years to stay with me but not sure how can I apply for there long term Visa. I am the single child & no one is there to take care of there health & other needs.

Current knowledge base on this subject in IND website is very limited, can someone please help me to know what all process & documentation I need to arrange to make this possible.

BR/Ritesh

Riteshsharma wrote:

Hello All,

I am moving to Netherlands for 2 year work-permit along with my wife & son from India.

My Parent are 64.5 & 71 years age, staying with me for last 4 years. I am also planning to move them to Netherlands for 2 years to stay with me but not sure how can I apply for there long term Visa. I am the single child & no one is there to take care of there health & other needs.

Current knowledge base on this subject in IND website is very limited, can someone please help me to know what all process & documentation I need to arrange to make this possible.

BR/Ritesh

Hi and welcome to the Forum.

These are not the type of decisions that are made automatically, you are best advised to go and make an appointment with the IND and ask them.  The key points will be how you will take care of them if you're working, why are they absolutely dependant on you, are there no other family members and how will you provide for their medical and social needs as they will not be allowed to become a burden on the Dutch state.  If you prepare yourself before the meeting with information about this, perhaps a letter from their Indian doctor explaining their dependence on you would also help.

Hope this helps.

Cynic
Expat Team

Hello Cynic,

Thanks for your prompt reply.

I have tried to check with IND over email but not got very clear advise how should I proceed with this.

I will be sponsoring there stay, insurance & VISA fee & I have sufficient salary to do so easily.

I am the only child to my parent & thats the reason I wanted them to travel with me to take care of them. Can you guide what all documentation I need to arrange to justify the same.

Will appreciate if someone in this forum can share there experience how & what they did to make this work.

BR/Ritesh

Riteshsharma wrote:

Hello Cynic,

Thanks for your prompt reply.

I have tried to check with IND over email but not got very clear advise how should I proceed with this.

I will be sponsoring there stay, insurance & VISA fee & I have sufficient salary to do so easily.

I am the only child to my parent & thats the reason I wanted them to travel with me to take care of them. Can you guide what all documentation I need to arrange to justify the same.

Will appreciate if someone in this forum can share there experience how & what they did to make this work.

BR/Ritesh

Hi again.

If you want your parents to travel with you, then you will probably need the advice/services of an Immigration adviser/lawyer.  I just did a quick Google search and found some listed there; I can't personally recommend any as I have never had to use their services and none have advertised their services with our Forum.

Documentation requirements will be the usual passports, birth and marriage certificates (legalised), any relevant documentation (so in your case, a doctors letter explaining why they are dependant on you).  If they are dependant on you because you provide for them (i.e. provide a place to live, pay for their cost of living etc), that may not be a good enough reason.

If you are coming to the Netherlands on a highly-skilled migrant visa, then it may be advantageous to use the same process that your new employer is using for your parents as well.  I say this as such visas get priority over others and whereas your visa could be issued in 7 days, it will take months for your parents if you apply separately.

You won't be the first person to have done this, the issue with asking people to share their experiences is that once people have found a resolution, they very rarely share or come back here to tell us or what they did; for this reason, I'd be grateful if you did share your experience so that we can better advise the next person in your situation.

If you have any further specific questions, please come back to us.

I wish both you and your parents a safe journey to the Netherlands.

Hope this helps.

Cynic
Expat Team

Hi,

Read through the post and wanted to see if some people could submit their resolutions.

My situation: I will be a Dutch Citizen hopefully in the near future. I am an only child and mother is non-EU citizen over 65 and also dependent on me. Not sure we have enough ways of proving that up till now, but there will surely be easy proof for the next year or so.

I saw that guestposter said:  My mother-in-law (mother of EU citizen) = no issue.  Just needs to prove her relationship with the EU citizen, have a valid passport, and not "be a threat".

I am just wondering how that worked?

Also, if the only option is article 8, is there someone who has a success story that could elaborate what the process was?

@Cynic, I also saw that you wrote : I must stress up-front that I have no direct experience of this, but in general, my understanding is that under the family re-unification rules, it is possible to bring a single parent who is over 65; but you must earn enough with a proper contracted job (>12 month contract) to fully support him/her (it was >1,400 euros gross)

I also saw that written somewhere, but can no longer find it. Could you guide me to it or send me a link?

Thanks a lot!

Hi and thanks for your contribution.

It's not black and white on the IND website (or if it is I can't find it), but a Dutch Legal Firm has published a summary; this link will take you straight to it.

My advice is to go and speak to the IND and explain your case, then ask them for their help to achieve what you are trying to do.

Hope this helps.

Cynic
Expat Team

Hello,

I moved to netherlands 6 months ago but I need to bring my mom, she is 75 years old and depending financially on me. We are EU citizen. I canot host her at home because my husband is not agree, I need to find a place for her and pay for it also pay for the health insurance. Is there any way that I can find help or she can stay here long term?

Thanks

- @Aishina

@GuestPoster6984

Hi there! I am wondering what sort of proof are these? In my case, I am living here as an expat and would like to bring my parents to live with me permanently. Could you kindly give me some insights? Thank you in advance.

- @ssabz21

Hello All, Was anyone from this thread managed to bring their parent successfully to NL as a dependent?

Looking for more information please. Thanks in advance!

Dependent parent means:

1. He or she is a single parent
2. The parent has been living with you at your residence back in your home country already at least for the past 6 months
3. The parent has no income of own (no pension or retirement benefits, no money at the bank, no rental income, no property)
4. You have been providing care to them and paying all their daily expenses: food, clothing, health etc. for them at least for the past 6 months in your home country (you should provide invoices for those expenses)
5. The parent cannot take care of himself/herself for simple daily living (cannot eat, drink, walk, get dressed, cleaned self, basically this means they are bed-bound)
6. They have no other immediate family member to take care of them (no husband/wife, other child, parent)
7. You should be able to prove all these by "competent authorities".
8. In addition, you should provide sufficient proof that if they are allowed to reside in the Netherlands you are able to cover all their care expenses (they will have their own room in your Dutch residence and continuous proper care - this will be verified after arrival).

Now, when I read the posts above I can tell you that none of them meet these conditions in full.

Thanks for your response. Yes none of them meet right now. The conditions also sound like a totally impossible situation. It's difficult to prove some of them.

Is there any alternative solution that you know of to bring parents permanently somewhere within Europe without these strict conditions?

If they are not dependent on you, you cannot bring them along, simple as that. They can only stay with you up to 90 days with a family visa.

If they choose to apply on their own, following can be considered:

-Golden visa schemes (buying property or investing - usually require more than 500K EUR and is a lengthy procedure)

-Work

-Student

etc...

I know it is not pretty but please ask yourself: if you were a developed country, would you want a resident who will not pay any taxes but will have access to all services including healthcare facilities? Even though you accept to buy a private insurance for the parent, this is not the only burden: Everywhere they go, they will occupy a space which would be otherwise utilized by a tax paying Dutch citizen or resident: at the municipality, in the hospital, pharmacy, housing, traffic... everywhere. Netherlands is a small country with a large number of people with a foreign background. If they allow parents to come, there would be hundreds of thousands of applications. Considering IND is already failing to process other residency applications on time, this could potentially halt the entire immigration system.

Thanks @pinktree6 for the detailed answer. You have all the right points here and no one can deny these.

So I guess then the only way is for us to move back when the need arises.

The best option is placing the parent in a good care home for elderly in your country if there is no one to take care of them and appoint someone you trust (could also be your lawyer) as their formal emergency contact person if you are not close enough to fly there on same day in case of an emergency and someone needs to sign papers etc.

Moving abroad has many consequences for your family and living situation and this is unfortunately one of them.