Dutch nationality law

Dutch nationality law is based primarily on the principle of Jus sanguinis and is governed by the Kingdom Act on the Netherlands nationality (Dutch: Rijkswet op het Nederlanderschap). Thus citizenship is conferred primarily by birth to a Dutch parent, irrespective of place of birth. Children born in the Netherlands to two foreign parents do not acquire Dutch citizenship at birth, unless special criteria are met.

Despite the existence of four different countries in the Kingdom of the Netherlands, only one category of citizen is distinguished in Dutch nationality law (Nederlandse / Dutch).

The Kingdom Act on the Netherlands nationality was significantly amended with effect from 1 April 2003.

A person born on or after 1 January 1985 to a Dutch father or mother is automatically a Dutch subject at birth. It is irrelevant where the child is born.

A child born to an unmarried Dutch father and a non-Dutch mother must be acknowledged by the Dutch father before birth, in order for the child to be a Dutch subject at birth. Before 1 April 2003, an acknowledgement could be given after birth. Since then children who were not acknowledged before birth may nonetheless acquire Dutch citizenship through the option procedure, or through obtaining proof of paternity from a court. In the last case, the child gets Dutch nationality retroactively since the child's birth.

From 1 January 1985 the Kingdom Act on the Netherlands nationality (Rijkswet op het Nederlanderschap 19 December 1984, Stb. 628) permits children of either a Dutch father or mother to receive Dutch nationality by descent. Prior to that date Dutch nationality law (Wet op het Nederlanderschap en het ingezetenenschap (commonly abbreviated as WNI, 12 December 1892, Stb. 268) did not permit children to obtain Dutch nationality through descent from a Dutch mother (through matrilineal descent) and a non-Dutch father. Netherlands nationality was only passed through patrilineal (father) descent. Only if the father was not known or acknowledged did a child born to a Dutch mother receive Dutch nationality prior to 1 January 1985.

Between 1 January 1985 and 31 December 1987 children born after 1 January 1964 but before 1 January 1985 of a Dutch mother and non-Dutch father and who had never been married could use the ‘option procedure’ to acquire Dutch nationality. This possibility was not widely known and many in this situation missed the temporary opportunity to register themselves or their children as Dutch subjects.

In 2004, a number of these children of Dutch mothers and non-Dutch fathers (so-called "latent Dutch" or "latente Nederlanders") began to organise themselves in the hope of persuading the Dutch government that Article 27 of Rijkswet op het Nederlanderschap condones the discrimination against women enshrined in the earlier Dutch Nationality Law (before its 1985 revision), and it should therefore be revoked. In 2005, several Dutch lawyers agreed to take on the case and formalised the group into “Stichting Ne(e)derlanderschap Ja!”. The legislative change was discussed by parliament in 2006, but then stalled when the government fell and the bill was withdrawn.

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