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Important amendments proposed in the Dutch Nationality Act (RWN)
There is a new bill that proposes a number of important changes:
- The Dutch Nationality Act stipulates that Dutch nationality is automatically lost if a Dutch national lives outside the Kingdom or the European Union for longer than 13 years. This loss can be avoided if a new passport or other document mentioned in the Dutch nationality act is obtained every 13 years. This rule is changed in the proposal: -> if a passport or another document referred to in the Dutch nationality act is obtained once within those 13 years, Dutch citizenship will no longer be lost.
- It will also be possible to regain Dutch citizenship once and for two years after implementation of this new rule if Dutch citizenship has been lost due to a long-term stay outside the European Union. This only applies to those who lost their Dutch citizenship after 1 April 2003.
- The proposal introduces an obligation to renounce the other nationality for another option category. This concerns former Dutch nationals who have become Dutch citizens through naturalization, have subsequently renounced their Dutch nationality themselves and subsequently submit an option to regain Dutch nationality. Now it is still the case that you can keep your current nationality. This is no longer possible in the new proposal.
It is currently unclear if and when the changes will be implemented.
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