"Only Americans Need Apply": A Secret Access Route to Europe

"Only Americans Need Apply": A Secret Access Route to Europe
The Dutch American Friendship Treaty can offer an easy path to European residency.|©iStock/JacobH

Every American likes to think they’re Irish. At least that’s the joke in the world of residency visas and second passports.

The point being that many Americans are eager to find any way they can to gain easy access to a life in Europe.

Well, I am not Irish. (Actually, Ancestry.com says I kinda am—Northern Irish genes fertilize many of the branches on my family tree.)

I claim Dutch heritage because my last name is purely Dutch, from somewhere in east-central Netherlands—Gelderland, as it’s known.

None of this is relevant except for the fact that when I was first looking to move to Europe in 2018, I briefly gave thought to Amsterdam. I’d been there on business a year earlier and really loved the place. It feels European in the best possible way, like the kind of place Santa Claus and the missus vacation before the busy Christmas toy-building season.

I even like the sometimes rotten and rainy weather. Plus, if there’s any place on the planet where people are going to pronounce my surname correctly, it’s the Netherlands.

Alas, I didn’t find a way into the Netherlands in 2018. There were no digital nomad visas back then (and still none today).

But it turns out that I missed something—a treaty that the US signed with the Netherlands back in March 1956.

I suspect a lot of people looking for an easy path to a European residency visa miss this treaty opportunity, too…

The World War II Secret that Opens Up Europe for Americans

So, let me tell you about the Dutch American Friendship Treaty (DAFT), part of the post-war Marshall plan designed to foster trade and economic development between the US and war-ravaged Holland.

A component of that treaty gives Americans the opportunity to apply for a Dutch residence permit by means of entrepreneurship.

Basically, start a business in Holland and it comes packaged with a two-year residency permit that’s renewable. (Renewal, by the way, is for five years, after which you can apply for Dutch citizenship and a European Union passport, if you so wish.)

Don’t let the word "entrepreneur" scare you off.

Yes, you have to be an entrepreneur, but that doesn’t mean launching a brick-and-mortar business in Amsterdam or, say, a Philly cheesesteak food truck in Rotterdam. You can be a digital nomad running your online, freelance business from a gorgeous pied-a-terre overlooking the canals.

You just need to prove you have €4,500 (about $4,800) in a Dutch bank to seed the business… and suddenly you’re a stroopwafel-eating Yank ambling Amsterdam, one of Europe’s most beautiful cities. (Or wherever you want to live in the Netherlands, since the cost-of-living in the Dutch capital can be downright usurious.)

Costs aside, DAFT applicants over the years have pretty much seen a 100% success rate, according to numerous visa agencies in the Netherlands that advertise their treaty-application services online.

Thus, for anyone looking for a way into Europe, the Dutch American Friendship Treaty is, by my estimation, one of the best paths available because the cost is so minimal and the benefits so superior.

By benefits, I mean: DAFT visa recipients can bring into the Netherlands their partner (married or unmarried, same or different gender) and their minor children. Moreover, the partner and children (once of age) are allowed to work locally, without a visa. And the treaty allows the recipient and their family full access to Dutch healthcare, some of the very best healthcare on the planet.

You also benefit from the ability to move about the continent easily.

(Although, technically, as an American outside of Holland you’re still bound by the Schengen rule that limits your time in the European Union to 90 days in every 180-day period.)

The Netherlands Is "Real Europe"—Museums, Tulips, Baked Goods

Beyond all of that, I guess the biggest question people have is: Jeff, what’s Holland really like?

In a word: Fantabulous.

I’m not stretching the truth here when I say that the Netherlands is one of my favorite places in Europe. I’ve taken the train and driven through parts of the country, and I’ve spent a good amount of time in Amsterdam.

Top to bottom, it’s a lovely place to build a European life.

Amsterdam is as modern as modern can be, but wrapped in a veil of age that dates back nearly 750 years. Buildings here have that patina of "real Europe" that Americans love. Housing along the treelined canals is very Scandinavian. (Though the Dutch are not Scandinavian or Nordic and have no historic ties to that region.)

On a warm summer’s evening, the trees are green, the bridges lit up, and the lights of canal-side houses and houseboats reflect off the calm water, central Amsterdam is as pretty as it gets for a major Western city.

The lifestyle here is uber-urban, but with easy access to all the Old World treats that make Europe such a wonderful place for Americans to live. Last year I was in Amsterdam for the better part of a week to attend a crypto conference, and I spent my free time wandering through farmers’ markets and high-end, street-side food courts. For foodies, it’s hard to beat Amsterdam because the place has become one of Europe’s melting pots, reflected in diverse menu options. On that last trip, I ate everything from top-of-the-line sushi, to surprisingly good barbecue, to Holland’s famous pannenkoeken, an overgrown love-child of American pancakes and French crepes.

The canal-side garden centers and tulip stalls I strolled through are packed with more tulip varieties than I ever would have imagined. The museums—particularly the modern-art Stedelijk Museum—are among the best in Europe, which you’d likely expect, given that Vermeer, Rembrandt, Mondrian, Van Gogh, and de Kooning, among others, were all Dutch.

Lifestyle here is very much centered around the outdoors, despite the weather, which can be quite cold and rainy—think Seattle, but in a snowy corner of Canada. Bikes are everywhere. Literally everywhere. And people are forever pedaling to and from work or the market or just for exercise, even in a downpour.

Subways will take you anywhere you need to go in Amsterdam or Rotterdam (the second-largest city after Amsterdam), and the train network across the country is expansive. Not much need for a car, really, unless you want to live outside of a city.

And, frankly, that’s not a bad choice.

The Dutch countryside is as bucolic a place as I have ever seen. It’s part Shire from Lord of the Rings, part Thomas Kinkade painting. Basically, the kind of place that makes you feel at peace.

Hmmm, I wonder if my wife would agree to move…

(By the way, she cut me off before I finished that sentence when I called her from Leiden, an absolutely gorgeous college town situated on the train line between The Hague and Amsterdam.)

Throughout the Dutch countryside, you regularly come upon the most picturesque canals lined with quaint wooden cottages and the quintessential windmills that Don Quixote would have certainly tilted at. And the rows of expansive tulip fields make you mad that you’re not a better photographer.

Because the country is so compact, living in the countryside doesn’t mean you’re far from the conveniences and entertainment of big-city living. Amsterdam, near the North Sea in the west, to Nijmegen, near the German border in the east, is just 90 minutes.

However…

Europe’s 4th Most Expensive Country

Amsterdam: A city of canals, history, and vibrant outdoor living for expats.
Amsterdam: A city of canals, history, and vibrant outdoor living for expats.|©iStock/a_Taiga

As I alluded to several paragraphs back, Holland isn’t the cheapest place on the planet. Actually, it’s one of the most expensive countries in Europe, relative to the EU average. VisualCapitalist.com ranks the Netherlands as 22% pricier than the continent as a whole, in 4th position behind Luxembourg, Ireland, and Denmark—and that might temper some people’s enthusiasm for access to a quick residence visa and that fantabulous lifestyle.

In the core of Amsterdam, you’re looking at half a million dollars to buy a nice two-bedroom, one-bath apartment along one of the canals. Although, lovely two- and three-bedroom apartments in the heart of the city rent for $900 to about $1,800 per month, which isn’t bad at all.

Off the canals, prices to buy a place drop by a couple tens of thousands, and rents are a few hundred dollars cheaper.

Of course, if you want a stand-alone, single-family house, you’ll spend a million dollars, easily.

Out in the Dutch countryside, prices are cheaper, as you’d expect, but not radically so. A very cute, newly remodeled mid-century modern brick bungalow with two bedrooms and a bath, spread across 600 square feet on a quarter acre surrounded by forestland and lakes, is less than $290,000. Other country properties range from $350,000 to well into the millions.

At this point, I’ve traveled across most of Europe—35 countries—and several stand apart for various reasons. The Netherlands is one of them, and not only because my heritage dates back to 16th-century Holland.

The Netherlands is a very comfortable country. Easy to get around. Easy to blend in like a local. Easy to communicate with everyone because everyone speaks English as a second language. The housing stock is appealing. The lifestyle is appealing (if pricey). And anything you’d want as a consumer is readily available. Plus there’s the superior medical care, which at about €1,400 per year on average ($1,500) is pretty darn affordable relative to the US.

About the only downside is that you have to like cold and rainy weather during long parts of the year. And you’ll probably struggle to convince a doctor you need antibiotics unless you’ve stopped breathing an hour earlier. Kind of a joke… kind of not. (That’s based on my experience trying to get antibiotics anywhere in Europe. I’ve actually resorted to stocking up while in Mexico.)

If you’re looking for an easy path to European residency, and you can find a way to be entrepreneurial as a freelancer/digital nomad, the little-known Dutch American Friendship Treaty might very well be your best way to tilt at your very own windmills in person.

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