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The passport/ID-card application form for Dutch citizens living abroad asks if I have a residence permit in the country where I live. I'm a Dutch citizen living in Germany, exercising my European Union (EU) treaty rights. Do I answer no, because I don't need a residence permit, or do I answer yes, because my residence permit is implicit in my treaty rights?

I don't believe it matters, but I've lived here with my wife since January 2019 and I'm employed full time.

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    For how long are you living in Germany and with what status? Are you employed in Germany? Self-employed? Or a spouse / other famility member?
    – TorstenS
    Commented Jun 26, 2019 at 10:16
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    @TorstenS As an EU citizen, does any of that matter?
    – gerrit
    Commented Jun 26, 2019 at 10:44
  • To elaborate on my earlier comment on the answer, however, I note that the stated requirements for "bewijs van legaal verblijf" ("proof of legal residence") for Dutch/US dual citizens living in the US are faulty, so the stated requirements for residents of Germany could also be faulty, and maybe a regular Meldeschein is indeed sufficient.
    – phoog
    Commented Jun 26, 2019 at 15:09
  • @phoog I also find it weird that I have to provide evidence that I have not naturalised as a German citizen, considering that there is no such requirement in some other countries (there certainly wasn't when I was renewing in Sweden or Canada). However, I have deleted my comment on your answer because it's independent of the question here.
    – gerrit
    Commented Jun 26, 2019 at 15:15

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First I'll note that the Dutch word used on the form is verblijfsvergunning. It is a bit difficult to answer this question, because depending on the context vergunning may be translated into English as either permit or permission, so verblijfsvergunning could refer either to a tangible document or to the intangible authorization to reside.

Still, I would I would answer "no," on the assumption that the sense the form employs is the sense that denotes a physical document. This seems a safe assumption for three reasons:

  1. It should be common knowledge among Dutch government functionaries that Dutch citizens living in other EU countries do not require a residence document, so a negative answer to that question should be unexceptional in your case.

  2. A Dutch citizen applying for a passport or ID card in Germany is required to show legal residence in Germany by other means than a residence permit. Specifically, you must present "een uittreksel uit het bevolkingsregister van uw woonplaats, een Erweiterte Meldebescheinigung mit Angabe der Staatsangehörigkeit" ("an extract from the population register of your place of residence, an Erweiterte Meldebescheinigung mit Angabe der Staatsangehörigkeit"). (The source of this information is Paspoort of ID-kaart aanvragen als u in Duitsland woont.)

  3. I may be out of my depth here, because I am not a native speaker of Dutch, but I think that if the intended sense of verblijfsvergunning were the intangible sense then the question would be without the indefinite article (Heeft u verblijfsvergunning?).

I suspect that in practice your application will be successful regardless of the choice you make in answering this question.

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