Dutch-American Friendship Treaty

There's nothing daft about it at all.

There are a lot of different ways to immigrate to Europe. The most common are “golden visas” where you buy property or invest money in exchange for residency, and digital nomad visas that let you stay in a country for usually 12 to 24 months.

The Netherlands has something different for Americans — the Dutch-American Friendship Treaty. Signed in 1956, the treaty lets American entrepreneurs set up a business in The Netherlands and vice versa. I’m not aware of another country in Europe that has a U.S. treaty quite like this.

It’s very affordable — the amount of investment in the business was set at 10,000 Dutch guilders in 1956. That was a lot of money back then but … the Dutch never bothered to update the amount so today it’s equal to just 4,500 Euros. That’s affordable for pretty much any freelancer these days. So I’ve set up The Fussy Librarian BV (besloten vennootschap), a private limited company. It already has a virtual office here.

There’s not a lot of stats about DAFT but, as far as I can tell, a few hundred people apply for it each year and nearly everyone is approved. Our immigration lawyer is very confident we’ll get approved, which is good because we likely won’t get final approval until after we arrive.

The DAFT visa is good for two years and can be renewed for another five years, as long as you prove the business is bringing in revenue and you’re not just living off savings. The 4,500 euros you invested earlier cannot be touched — you must have that amount invested at all times so I’ll likely put it in a business savings account. After five years in the country, you can apply for EU residency which gives you the right to live anywhere in the European Union.

We’re hiring an immigration attorney to help apply for the visa, but a lot of people handle the paperwork themselves. There’s group of 1,300 people on Facebook called DAFTHub where people share advice.

— Jeffrey