Applying for a visa to enter the Netherlands can be quite an adventure. The average European tourist doesn’t need one. Nor do Americans or Australians. But if you want to visit the Netherlands from an African or Arab country, it’s a very different story. All of a sudden there are all kinds of administrative hoops to jump through and extra barriers to contend with.

The Dutch Foreign Ministry provides general guidelines for visa applications but in practice, all kinds of additional requirements are made. These vary from country to country, person to person and application to application. Some tourists find the process so daunting that they opt for another destination where the formalities are not as off-putting.

Call from the embassy
Patrick Amon from Ivory Coast is continuing his efforts to visit friends in the Netherlands, despite repeated setbacks.

“Last time I came close. I received a call from the Dutch Embassy, for an extra interview, but I had to answer many questions I was not really prepared for and as I could not provide proof of a ‘healthy’ bank account I was denied the visa!”

After the arrest of Ivorian President Laurent Gbagbo, the Dutch consulate was one of only a handful of diplomatic posts still open. But Patrick recalls “When I asked which documents I needed to apply for a visa, they told me to go to the consulate website and they hung up on me.”

Irritation
People applying for a Dutch visa are most annoyed by the expense and the additional requirements. A visa usually costs €60 but if you need it in a hurry, you may end up paying twice or even three times that amount. Requests to provide extra documents in addition to those stated in the general visa regulations are another source of irritation. This is confirmed by the experiences of travellers at Amsterdam’s Schiphol Airport.

In the experience of Esmilin de la Cruz from the Dominican Republic, obtaining a visa is no easy matter.

“It all depends which documents you show. The consul decides whether or not you are allowed to come to Holland. I tried to arrange for my mum and dad to come over for my wedding but my mum wasn’t allowed because she wasn’t able provide proof of work and income.”

Refusal
The Netherlands is not the only country to make tourists’ lives difficult. Before submitting a visa request, it may be worthwhile consulting the list that shows which European countries have the highest refusal rates. Some countries require less documentation but are more likely to turn you down.

Jio Xi Chang from China applied for a Swiss visa and because Switzerland is part of the Schengen Area, it was easy for her to travel on to other Schengen countries like the Netherlands. However, she did have to go through all kinds of visa formalities to gain entry to Switzerland in the first place.

Insulting
Imad Meniari from Morocco is a prosperous professional and could easily travel to Europe. But he is put off by the visa procedures and would much rather spend his holidays in Morocco. He sees the European procedures as complicated and in some cases even insulting.

“The last time I went to the Netherlands, after I had followed all the procedures and shown all the necessary documents to the embassy, I was ordered to report to the police on my arrival in the Netherlands. That’s bizarre: to go somewhere on holiday and have to announce myself to the police, as if I were a wanted criminal.”

He believes the process is designed to discourage people from coming to Europe. He says he is not the only one who would rather go on holiday in his own country than endure the insults of European embassies.

No uniformity
Since the visa covers all Schengen countries, you would expect requirements to be uniform. But strangely enough, different embassies require different documents and even the charges vary. An Israeli mother with three children had no trouble at all getting into the country:

“We didn’t need a visa. When we come to the Netherlands, they stamp our passport automatically. No questions, nothing. We were able to give the address where we would be staying, so it was no problem.”

For Americans, entering the Netherlands is seldom a problem. Maggie and Andrew, newly arrived at Schiphol, confirm. “All we needed was our passport. It’s very easy as long as you don’t want to stay for longer than 90 days. You report to passport control at Schiphol and that’s it.”

But as a US merchant seaman explains, that needn’t always be the case. “This time they asked more questions. Normally you just show your merchant mariner’s document and you can proceed. This time they checked it thoroughly to make sure it met the right criteria. It took longer than normal, about five minutes.”

Hello and see you later
A Japanese couple who entered the country via Iran were greeted with a more laid-back approach: “We didn’t need a visa to enter the Netherlands and they didn’t ask us any questions. They barely even looked at our passport photos. They gave us a stamp and that was that. They only asked us how to say ‘hello’ and ‘see you later’ in Japanese. They were very nice.”

A spokesman for the Foreign Ministry confirms that visa requirements can vary from person to person. He explains that issuing a visa involves determining whether someone is trying to migrate illegally or whether they may pose a threat to public order or national security. Additional documents may be requested for this purpose. These can vary depending on the person’s country and even from region to region within a country.

“It’s important to remember that in some countries, documents and personal details can be very unreliable.”
 

External links:

• The Netherlands’ Ministry of Foreign Affairs 
• Brochures on visa applications published by the Netherlands’ Immigration and Naturalisation Service
• Visa information provided by Dutch airline KLM
• Information from the European Commission about visa applications for Schengen countries