Both my grandparents were born in Holland. Am I able to apply for an ancestry visa? If so what documents do I need?
1 Answer
There is no ancestry visa in the Netherlands. However, you may be a Dutch national or a former Dutch national. In the former case, you should apply for a Dutch passport. In the latter case, you may qualify for a simplified naturalization procedure, or to regain your Dutch citizenship by "option."
In particular, you should determine whether there is an unbroken chain of Dutch nationality between your grandparents and your birth, and, if so, whether you've lost the Dutch nationality you had at birth. To do so, you'll need to answer these questions:
Did (either of) your grandparents pass their Dutch nationality to your parent when he or she was born?
Did your parent pass his or her Dutch nationality to you when you were born?
Have you lost your Dutch nationality?
Reasons for not passing Dutch nationality to a child include
- (in earlier years) a Dutch mother being married to the child's non-Dutch father
- The Dutch parent losing Dutch nationality before the child's birth, for example by voluntarily acquiring another nationality (i.e., being naturalized)
It should be noted that if a person naturalizes as a minor, independently of his or her parents, there is no loss of Dutch nationality.
In recent years, it is also the case that a Dutch dual national who lives outside the Kingdom of the Netherlands (including the Dutch Caribbean) and outside the EU for a period of ten years loses Dutch nationality. Before that, the rule applied only to a foreign-born dual national who lived for ten years in the country of birth. But in both cases the ten-year period starts on the 18th birthday, so anyone under 28 years old has not fallen afoul of these rules.
