More questions about moving to the Netherlands / Europe

[dutchgirl678]

When you first moved, were you able to open a bank account without an address or did you find a place to live first? We can always live with my parents for a few weeks and open a bank account in their town.

But then wat? How do you transfer a large sum of money from your US bank account to there? Do you just do a wire transfer? We are planning to sell our two cars here and buy one car there, and we want to buy it in cash.

We are not very attached to a lot of our furniture and a lot of it is cheap IKEA stuff. Would you pay to have it shipped or would you just sell and buy used or new IKEA stuff there? It of course depends on the cost of shipping which in our case is paid for so maybe taking it is a good idea.

Do you have any experience getting a residence permit for your spouse? My husband is US and I am Dutch. Do we really need to wait until I am there before we can fill out any paperwork? Are there any resources that we should look at to find more information or someone who can help us or are things pretty self-explanatory?

[mrsukyankee]

When I moved to London, I had to have an address (with proof of living there) plus a letter from my workplace as I didn't have any credit rating nor any bills in the UK as proof that I lived there. The UK is very strict in banking, so not sure what your experience will be in the Netherlands.

I didn't have a huge amount to transfer to the UK, but once I got my bank account, I set up a transfer system with xe.com as I knew I'd send money back to the States quite often to pay off bills/loans there.

If you are going to have shipping paid for, I'd ship things over - that's a huge savings right off the bat.

And I don't know about residence permit - I would go online and see what is required for a spouse visa in the Netherlands. I found all visa info in the UK to be pretty well explained on their sites. You should probably also talk to someone at your place of work as they may have experience with it.

[pittpurple]

1. I think this came from my post about what a stressful situation this was. We had an awful time setting up a bank account and I would do your research on this beforehand for the Netherlands - someone at your workplace should be able to help. It just hadn't occurred to us it would be so difficult.

2. We didn't have much money at all when we moved here (right out of uni) so we just brought cash and (giggle) traveler's cheques we cashed when we got here. We kept our US bank accounts and have always done our transferring on paypal for convenience though that's definitely not the most cost-effective as we learned years later. Since we go back to visit once or twice a year, it's nice to have access to dollars easily.

3. If they will only pay shipping and not that amount in new furniture, it seems to make sense to ship. Just make sure your stuff will fit into your new place - I know nothing we had in the states (including our dishes) would have fit in our flats here, but the UK might have particularly small flats, I know my friends in Leiden have a huge apartment.

4. Is the plan for you to move over and then your DH follow you later? I would think he'd need all his paperwork before coming over and I definitely wouldn't assume it's an easy process or self-explanatory. You'll need to check all the specific sites unless your workplace has access to an immigration lawyer or relocation experts to help.

[Deleted]

Apr 16, 2014 16:24:08 GMT -5 dutchgirl678 said:

When you first moved, were you able to open a bank account without an address or did you find a place to live first? We can always live with my parents for a few weeks and open a bank account in their town.

But then wat? How do you transfer a large sum of money from your US bank account to there? Do you just do a wire transfer? We are planning to sell our two cars here and buy one car there, and we want to buy it in cash.

We are not very attached to a lot of our furniture and a lot of it is cheap IKEA stuff. Would you pay to have it shipped or would you just sell and buy used or new IKEA stuff there? It of course depends on the cost of shipping which in our case is paid for so maybe taking it is a good idea.

Do you have any experience getting a residence permit for your spouse? My husband is US and I am Dutch. Do we really need to wait until I am there before we can fill out any paperwork? Are there any resources that we should look at to find more information or someone who can help us or are things pretty self-explanatory?


my husbands company literally walked us over to abn amro and helped us set up an account.  We used the work address to open the account.  I was not allowed to have my own account and could only be a user on husbands account.

You can transfer money from a US account to an NL account. We did it frequently.  I think it cost like $15- transfer?  It would take a few days so we always left cash in at least one account so we could pull money out of the ATM.

If I was paying myself, I would just buy stuff when I got to the NL.  If company was paying I would bring everything but stuff with a plug.

My husbands company did the work to get me a residents card / work permit and they did not start the process until we got to the NL.  We used the website blueumbrella.nl for our taxes but I think they also help with paperwork.  A friend of mine worked at an ex pat help desk in Amsterdam zuid.  People called in with all sorts of random questions so let me ask her what it was called.
I have said this before but it took me a good 8 months to get my work permit.  No one would even speak to me before I got that thing!

is your company helping with any of this at all?  We had a specific person at husbands office to help us with all this crap.

[Deleted]

That was easy to find

Www.expatcenter.nl

[MauMau]

I would call the local migration office for the city you are moving to about the permit. Things will hopefully move much faster since you are a Dutch citizen. I think being a Dutch/US couple will be a lot different than a US/US couple.

[dutchgirl678]

Apr 18, 2014 18:10:11 GMT -5 totziens said:

Apr 16, 2014 16:24:08 GMT -5 dutchgirl678 said:

When you first moved, were you able to open a bank account without an address or did you find a place to live first? We can always live with my parents for a few weeks and open a bank account in their town.

But then wat? How do you transfer a large sum of money from your US bank account to there? Do you just do a wire transfer? We are planning to sell our two cars here and buy one car there, and we want to buy it in cash.

We are not very attached to a lot of our furniture and a lot of it is cheap IKEA stuff. Would you pay to have it shipped or would you just sell and buy used or new IKEA stuff there? It of course depends on the cost of shipping which in our case is paid for so maybe taking it is a good idea.

Do you have any experience getting a residence permit for your spouse? My husband is US and I am Dutch. Do we really need to wait until I am there before we can fill out any paperwork? Are there any resources that we should look at to find more information or someone who can help us or are things pretty self-explanatory?


my husbands company literally walked us over to abn amro and helped us set up an account.  We used the work address to open the account.  I was not allowed to have my own account and could only be a user on husbands account.

You can transfer money from a US account to an NL account. We did it frequently.  I think it cost like $15- transfer?  It would take a few days so we always left cash in at least one account so we could pull money out of the ATM.

If I was paying myself, I would just buy stuff when I got to the NL.  If company was paying I would bring everything but stuff with a plug.

My husbands company did the work to get me a residents card / work permit and they did not start the process until we got to the NL.  We used the website blueumbrella.nl for our taxes but I think they also help with paperwork.  A friend of mine worked at an ex pat help desk in Amsterdam zuid.  People called in with all sorts of random questions so let me ask her what it was called.
I have said this before but it took me a good 8 months to get my work permit.  No one would even speak to me before I got that thing!

is your company helping with any of this at all?  We had a specific person at husbands office to help us with all this crap.

This is great information, thanks! That is good to know that I could use my work address when I first set up the account. I have also thought about visiting my parents before and using their address.

I know it will take a while to get his permit figured out. As long as he can live with us while we are waiting it is ok. He is going to work on making lots of contacts and hopefully can volunteer with some of these people. I also know that sometimes a company can get a work permit if he is highly skilled, so we can always try to get our foot in the door somewhere. 

[dutchgirl678]

Apr 18, 2014 21:11:15 GMT -5 MauMau said:

I would call the local migration office for the city you are moving to about the permit. Things will hopefully move much faster since you are a Dutch citizen. I think being a Dutch/US couple will be a lot different than a US/US couple.

I hope so! We have been married for 8 years and have 2 kids and both highly educated. Plus I already have a job when we get there.