Oct 6, 2021
Are you a European citizen? Do you want to apply for a university in The Netherlands? Or have you already been accepted? That’s great! Here are 5 details you might need to arrange at some point before or after your arrival in The Netherlands.
- Insurance: it is very important to have insurance when moving abroad. You can either get one from your home country such as the European Health Insurance Card or you could get one here in The Netherlands. When you're already insured in your home country, you do not need to take out a Dutch public healthcare insurance. However, if you're a non-EU student, you'll have to get insurance upon your arrival. There are great insurance companies that help students from abroad, such as AON. Important: note that as soon as you have a part-time job next to your studies or do a paid internship, you have to take out a Dutch public healthcare insurance.
- Registration at the town hall: this is something that you will do in the first day of the introduction week. You need your birth certificate and passport, but no worries: representatives of the town hall of Vlissingen will be at HZ on the first day of the introduction week to help you with the registration.
- Dutch bank account: If you are not from a country within the Single Euro Payment Area (SEPA) you can apply for an ING Student Account. Students from these (SEPA) countries can use their current bank account(s) in The Netherlands, but if you are staying at HZ longer than 1 year you also may apply for an ING Student Account. Open an ING Student Account here.
- Student loan: if one of the reasons for having doubts to study abroad is your financial situation: don’t panic. There is one solution for this too. This is the student loan that is offered by the Dutch government. Find out everything you need to know about the loan and how you have to apply for it in the website of DUO. There are quite some steps to take and if you want to make you life more easy: the help of a Dutch person can come in handy!
- Housing: of course when coming here, you will have to stay somewhere. So a room will be something really useful. There are multiple ways of finding a room - you can find more information here.
That might seem like a lot to do, but trust me it's not that bad. From my experience I can say that first, it is better to note down everything that you need to do on a piece of paper and decide the order in which you are going to arrange them. Make sure you give yourself plenty of time for action and if you somehow end up having to do everything in the last moment don't lose hope - if I could do it, so can you!
With that being said, I wish you good luck and I hope to see you all here!
