My main advice for anyone looking to move to the Netherlands or who has just done so

Here is my main advice for anyone looking to move to the Netherlands, learned from harsh personal lessons in the course of my two-year remigration journey.

If you’ve already gotten stuck in any of this, the least I can do is provide moral support.

1. Do not move to the Netherlands without being able to cover at least one year of living expenses and emergencies.
2. Never ever pay a bill late, not even one day. Why? It can bring the thought police to your door, as the result of an Orwellian monstrosity called “vroegsignalering”. How bad it gets depends on which municipality you live in. Expect your privacy rights to be violated as a minimum.
3. Do not apply for “toeslagen” (tax credits). As a foreigner, or as someone with strong foreign ties, this can really get you into trouble. They can be withdrawn retroactively just as easily as they can be awarded and that can land you in a mountain of trouble.
4. Do not apply for basic benefits (“bijstand” or “participatiewet”). Basic benefits used to be wonderful but have become a trap.
   – Staff can for example haphazardly decide to delay benefits payment without telling you in advance; this can create major problems for you.
   – Staff can also pester you relentlessly, invade your privacy in unimaginable ways.
   – You can’t even have a GoFundMe for your dentistry bill. (Unless someone else does it and pays the dentristry bill for you, the donations will end up going to the Dutch state!) As any income gets deducted, it’s very hard to get out of this basic benefits situation without risking homelessness.
5. Do not apply for any tax waivers and exemptions, such as for gemeentebelastingen and waterschap. Why? It can get you blacklisted.

Never never never accept job offers that are tied to accommodation

Many homeless people in the Netherlands did that, only to find themselves in situations of abuse. The accommodation ends as soon as you stop working for the agency that lured you to the Netherlands. Then you will find yourself living in a tent, likely somewhere out of the way between agricultural fields, without income and without rights to support and you will curse the day that you listened to the promises that that agency made you.