Article 6(1)(g) — special status options

This is the option ground for the long-settled spouse or registered partner of a Dutch national. It is for people who have built an entire adult life in the Kingdom alongside a Dutch spouse and never naturalised.

As at 25 July 2026, under article 6(1)(g) of the Rijkswet op het Nederlanderschap (the Kingdom nationality statute, in force in its present form since 1 October 2023), you must have been the spouse or registered partner of one and the same Dutch national for at least three years, and have had lawful admission together with principal residence in the European Netherlands, Aruba, Curaçao, Sint Maarten or the BES islands for at least fifteen uninterrupted years immediately preceding the confirmation. Both conditions are cumulative.

The fifteen-year bar is what defines this ground, and it is worth being blunt about the consequence: option is not the fast route for spouses. Naturalisation removes the residence requirement altogether for someone who has been married to and living with a Dutch national for three years, and also exempts them from giving up their other nationality. It costs more and adds a language examination, but it is available years earlier. Use this ground only if you already satisfy the fifteen years.

Who qualifies. As at 25 July 2026 both conditions must be satisfied together (article 6(1)(g) of the Rijkswet op het Nederlanderschap, in force since 1 October 2023). First, you must have been the spouse or registered partner of one and the same Dutch national for at least three years; time in an earlier marriage does not aggregate with time in a later one. Your spouse must hold Dutch nationality at the moment of confirmation, but need not have held it throughout the three years, so a partner who naturalised part-way through the marriage still counts. Second, you must have held toelating (lawful admission) together with hoofdverblijf (principal residence) in the European Netherlands, Aruba, Curaçao, Sint Maarten or the public bodies Bonaire, Sint Eustatius and Saba for at least fifteen uninterrupted years immediately preceding confirmation — the period recorded for this ground in the policy manual's table of qualifying periods, in force since 1 July 2026. Residence aggregates across the Kingdom; a gap in lawful residence does not pause the fifteen years, it resets them to zero.

Why naturalisation is usually the better route for a spouse. Article 8(2) disapplies the naturalisation residence condition altogether for someone who has for at least three years been the spouse of, and lives with, a Dutch national; and article 9(3)(c) exempts a person married to a Dutch national from the naturalisation duty to give up another nationality. What naturalisation adds is the civic-integration condition in article 8(1)(d), whose level is fixed at CEFR A2 across reading, listening, speaking and writing by the Besluit naturalisatietoets, in force since 26 May 2022, and a higher fee. Use this option ground only if you already satisfy the fifteen years.

What can block it. The authority must refuse where your conduct gives rise to serious suspicions that you are a danger to public order, good morals or the security of the Kingdom (article 6(4)); this ground is not exempt from that check, and the rehabilitation window is five years, raised from four with effect from 1 May 2018. Anyone who has already become Dutch by option once is barred (article 6(9)). You must also be willing to make the verklaring van verbondenheid, the fixed declaration of solidarity, in Dutch (articles 6(2) and 23(2)). No language or civic-integration examination applies to any option ground, and no duty to give up another nationality applies here.

• Three years as the spouse or registered partner of one and the same Dutch national. The three years must be with the same person throughout — a second marriage does not aggregate with a first. The spouse must hold Dutch nationality at the moment of confirmation, but need not have held it for the whole three years, so a partner who naturalised part-way through the marriage still counts (Rijkswet op het Nederlanderschap art 6(1)(g), in force since 1 October 2023).
• Fifteen uninterrupted years of admission and principal residence. Lawful admission (toelating) and factual principal residence (hoofdverblijf) in the European Netherlands, Aruba, Curaçao, Sint Maarten or the public bodies Bonaire, Sint Eustatius and Saba, running without a break immediately before the confirmation. The policy manual's table of qualifying periods records fifteen years for this ground. A gap in lawful residence does not pause the period — it resets it to zero.
• Good character. The authority must refuse where your conduct gives rise to serious suspicions that you are a danger to public order, good morals or the security of the Kingdom (art 6(4)). This is imperative — the deciding authority has no policy freedom. This ground is not among the two exempt from that investigation.
• Declaration of solidarity. You must be willing to make the verklaring van verbondenheid, a fixed oath or affirmation of respect for the constitutional order of the Kingdom, in Dutch (arts 6(2) and 23(2)).
• No previous acquisition by option. Anyone who has already become Dutch by option once may afterwards use only the ground for former Dutch nationals and the restoration ground for disproportionate automatic loss (art 6(9)).

There is no language or civic-integration examination on any option ground — that condition sits in article 8(1)(d) and governs naturalisation only — and no renunciation duty, which article 6a(1) confines to one different option ground.

You must supply a defined set of personal data — names; date, place and country of birth; address; sex; nationalities; present and earlier residence status; length of admitted stay; marriage or partnership and spouse's details; minor children; and anything further the authority considers necessary — and sign a written statement that they are truthful and that nothing relevant has been concealed (Besluit verkrijging en verlies Nederlanderschap, in force since 1 March 2017). The authority may require documentary proof, legalised and where necessary verified as to content.

For this ground the load-bearing documents are:

• your marriage certificate or the deed registering the partnership, establishing the start date and the identity of the spouse;
• proof that your spouse holds Dutch nationality — a Dutch passport, a certificate of Dutch nationality, or a population-register extract;
• your residence document and a population-register history covering the full fifteen years;
• your birth certificate and current foreign passport;
• where you were previously married, the divorce or repudiation deed, and a family record book where the country of origin uses one. These are examined for bigamy: a marriage to another spouse must have been ended before Dutch nationality is acquired.

There is no Verklaring Omtrent het Gedrag in this procedure: you sign a verklaring verblijf en gedrag (declaration of residence and conduct), and the authority itself obtains a judicial-records extract and a police-systems check. Foreign convictions must be disclosed in full, with translated copies of the judgments.

Translation. In the European Netherlands anything not in Dutch, English, German or French must be translated by a beëdigd vertaler (sworn translator), preferably into Dutch, and attached to the original or certified copy, at your cost. On Bonaire, Sint Eustatius and Saba only Dutch and English pass untranslated.

Legalisation. Foreign public documents need an apostille where the issuing state is party to the Apostille Convention; in the Netherlands an apostille is a court-issued sticker, and the Netherlands accepts foreign digital apostilles but issues paper ones only. Legalisation proves only formal authenticity — signature, capacity, seal — never that the content is correct, so a document may still be checked substantively. Nothing is required from states the Netherlands does not recognise: Abkhazia, Northern Cyprus, South Ossetia and Taiwan. Documents already legalised and absorbed into the population register or a Dutch civil-status record need not be produced again absent well-founded doubt. As at 25 July 2026 the policy manual still points to "the legalisation circular currently in force", but the most recent located version was withdrawn with effect from 1 January 2024 and no successor was identified — confirm the route before paying for legalisation.

You lodge the declaration in person with the authority for the place where you live: the burgemeester of your municipality in the European Netherlands; the Minister of Justice and Security, in practice through the IND unit Caribbean Netherlands, on Bonaire, Sint Eustatius or Saba; the Governor of Aruba, Curaçao or Sint Maarten in those countries (Besluit verkrijging en verlies Nederlanderschap, in force since 1 March 2017). Because the ground requires fifteen years of residence in the Kingdom, filing at a Dutch post abroad is not in practice available on it. Each authority handles only its own catchment; a proxy is allowed only for compelling reasons. In Curaçao personal appearance is mandatory.

The declaration is date-stamped on receipt and you get a copy. The authority that receives it also decides it: for option cases the IND is not the decision-maker and there is no Royal Decree. It checks the fee obligation before taking the file into treatment, then completeness, then tests your data against the population register — asking another Dutch municipality to verify within four weeks, or a Caribbean authority or the Ministry of Foreign Affairs within ten weeks, where needed — then investigates residence status and, unless the ground is exempt, public order.

If the conditions are met the authority must confirm; article 6(3) leaves it no discretion on the merits. It then writes to you setting out how the confirmation will be made known and who is covered, and states at the same time in respect of whom it is refused, with the objection deadline.

Nationality vests on handover, which must take place within nine weeks of the finding that you qualify (Besluit verkrijging en verlies Nederlanderschap art 60a(7)). You must first make the declaration of solidarity, in principle orally and in person at a ceremony; the confirmation may not be made known before you have made it. The confirmation takes effect on handover and backdates to the date it bears. If it is not handed over within a year of that date it lapses by operation of law and you must begin again (art 60a(11)).

The legal deadline. The receiving authority must decide within thirteen weeks of receiving the declaration, extendable once by at most a further thirteen weeks — an absolute ceiling of twenty-six weeks (Rijkswet op het Nederlanderschap art 6(5), in force since 1 October 2023).

When the clock starts. Not on filing: only once the fee has been received or fully waived and any requested supplementary documents supplied. An incomplete declaration suspends it again (Handleiding Rijkswet op het Nederlanderschap, version in force since 1 July 2026).

When it ends. On a positive outcome, at the moment you take receipt of the decision — in principle at a ceremony. Since handover may follow up to nine weeks after the authority finds you qualify, the policy manual advises invoking the thirteen-week extension immediately wherever a ceremony is involved. Twenty-six weeks is the realistic ceiling.

Timing risk specific to this ground. Both conditions are tested again at the moment of confirmation, up to twenty-six weeks after filing. A marriage that ends by divorce in that window destroys the ground. A death in that window does not: the policy manual states that a break in the three years caused by the spouse's death between the declaration and the decision is not held against the optant. Your spouse must, however, still hold Dutch nationality at the moment of confirmation, so a spouse who is themselves at risk of losing Dutch nationality is a live risk to your declaration.

If the authority is late. There is no silent approval. Serve a written notice of default; two weeks later a penalty payment runs automatically — €23 a day for fourteen days, then €35, then €45, capped at forty-two days (Algemene wet bestuursrecht arts 4:17–4:20) — and you may appeal for failure to decide at the same time. Do not assume this regime reaches the Governors' Cabinets in Aruba, Curaçao or Sint Maarten, or the BES islands; those constituencies have their own administrative-procedure law and the point was not established.

Real-world duration. No national processing-time series exists for option cases: the IND records only confirmations and plays no part in handling them (IND, Monitor Naturalisatie en Optie 2018-2024, June 2025). Aruba's and Curaçao's Governor's Cabinets each report an average of six to nine months — observed practice, not a lawful period.

Amounts are fixed separately in each currency — do not convert between them.

In the European Netherlands the 2026 tariffs are €241 for a single declaration, €412 where spouses or registered partners declare at the same time, and €27 for each minor child included in a parent's declaration (2026 schedule; WBN 2025/3, Stcrt. 2025, 31825, in force 1 January 2026). In force on the same date elsewhere: Aruba Afl. 501 / 857 / 56; Curaçao Cg 502 / 858 / 56; Sint Maarten Cg 502 / 858 / 56; Bonaire, Sint Eustatius and Saba USD 282 / 481 / 32.

The joint tariff is only worth considering here if both partners are themselves foreign nationals qualifying on their own grounds; where one partner is already Dutch, the single tariff applies.

The cost comparison that matters on this ground. Standard single naturalisation in the European Netherlands is €1,139 on the same 2026 schedule, and the joint rate is €1,454. Option is roughly a fifth of that — but for a spouse the cheaper route is also the one that becomes available twelve years later. Weigh the fee difference against fifteen years of waiting, not against nothing.

A warning specific to Sint Maarten: the Cabinet of the Governor publishes Cg 481 / 823 / 52 for 2026, which does not match the governing instrument. The instrument governs, and underpaying has the same effect as not paying — confirm before transferring.

Payment is made in one instalment to the authority that received the declaration, which keeps the whole amount (Besluit optie- en naturalisatiegelden 2002, arts 5 and 7). If it is not paid within six weeks of receipt of the declaration, the declaration is set aside without being examined (art 6); those six weeks are suspended while a request for exemption is pending. No fee at all is due from a person treated as a Netherlander under the Wet betreffende de positie van Molukkers (art 4(1)).

This pathway rests on article 6(1)(g) of the Rijkswet op het Nederlanderschap, the Kingdom nationality statute, whose consolidated text has been in force since 1 October 2023 with no amendment in force since (checked 25 July 2026). Its two cumulative elements are: being the spouse or registered partner of one and the same Dutch national for at least three years, and holding toelating (lawful admission) together with hoofdverblijf (principal residence) in the European Netherlands, Aruba, Curaçao, Sint Maarten or the public bodies Bonaire, Sint Eustatius and Saba for at least fifteen uninterrupted years immediately preceding the confirmation. The policy manual's table of qualifying periods records the fifteen-year figure for this ground and for one other.

Article 6(1) provides that nationality is acquired through a confirmation following a written declaration, and article 6(3) obliges the receiving authority to assess the ground on the documents put before it and to confirm where the conditions are met. The confirmation is therefore a bound administrative decision — not a discretionary grant — and it is constitutive of acquisition on its own date rather than declaratory of a status already held.

The rest of the machinery is the general article 6 machinery: article 6(2) (declaration of solidarity from adults and those aged 16 or over, and the bar on making the confirmation known before it has been made); article 6(4) (the public-order refusal); article 6(5) (the thirteen-week decision period, extendable once by thirteen weeks); article 6(6) (fixing of names, with no name change available on option); and article 6(9) (no second acquisition by option). Article 14(1) permits withdrawal afterwards only for a false statement, fraud or the concealment of a relevant fact.

The comparison that governs practical advice on this ground is with article 8. Article 8(2) disapplies the naturalisation residence condition entirely for a person who has for at least three years been the spouse of, and cohabits with, a Dutch national; and article 9(3)(c) exempts a person married to a Dutch national from the naturalisation renunciation duty in article 9(1)(b). What naturalisation retains is the integration condition in article 8(1)(d), whose level is fixed at CEFR A2 by the Besluit naturalisatietoets (in force since 26 May 2022). For a spouse, therefore, naturalisation is available far earlier than this option ground.

Below the statute: the Besluit verkrijging en verlies Nederlanderschap (in force since 1 March 2017) governs filing, verification and handover; the Besluit optie- en naturalisatiegelden 2002 governs fees; and the Handleiding Rijkswet op het Nederlanderschap 2003 (version in force since 1 July 2026) is the binding policy manual.

Case law. The Afdeling bestuursrechtspraak van de Raad van State held on 20 June 2018 (ECLI:NL:RVS:2018:2056) that refusal on public-order grounds is imperative and leaves no policy freedom, that a suspended sentence counts as much as an unsuspended one, and that departure from published policy demands very great restraint.

Nationality is Kingdom law under the Rijkswet op het Nederlanderschap, unchanged since 1 October 2023, but administered constituency by constituency. On an option ground the body that receives your declaration also decides it, by written confirmation: no Royal Decree, and the IND does not decide.

The fifteen years of residence this ground requires mean a Dutch post abroad is not an available forum. You deal with the burgemeester of your municipality in the European Netherlands, the Minister of Justice and Security through IND-Caribisch Nederland on Bonaire, Sint Eustatius and Saba, or the Cabinet of the Governor in Aruba, Curaçao or Sint Maarten (Besluit verkrijging en verlies Nederlanderschap, in force since 1 March 2017).

The admission it rests on comes from a different body again: DIMAS in Aruba, the Toelatingsorganisatie in Curaçao, the responsible minister in Sint Maarten, IND-Caribisch Nederland on the BES islands.

Objection goes to that same body within six weeks, then the rechtbank and the Afdeling bestuursrechtspraak van de Raad van State in the European Netherlands, or the Gerecht in eerste aanleg and then the Gemeenschappelijk Hof van Justitie in the Caribbean.

A refusal to confirm is an ordinary administrative decision, and the refusal letter must state the deadline for objecting.

In the European Netherlands you first lodge a bezwaar (administrative objection) with the authority that refused, within six weeks of notification, running from the day after the decision was properly made known (Algemene wet bestuursrecht arts 6:7 and 6:8). There is no fee (art 7:15), you have the right to be heard (art 7:2), and the review is a full reconsideration on the merits rather than a legality check (art 7:11). The authority must decide within six weeks, or twelve where an advisory committee is involved, extendable once by six weeks (art 7:10).

If that fails, beroep lies to the rechtbank within six weeks at a 2026 court fee of €200 for a natural person, payable within four weeks of the registrar's notice; non-payment makes the appeal inadmissible unless you were not at fault or prove you cannot pay. Hoger beroep then lies to the Afdeling bestuursrechtspraak van de Raad van State within six weeks at €297 (2026 tariffs; Stcrt. 2025, 39855, in force 1 January 2026). Worst case in court fees, excluding lawyers: €497.

Outside the European Netherlands the courts, fees and currencies differ. Curaçao and Sint Maarten apply their Landsverordening administratieve rechtspraak: objection and appeal both six weeks, NAf 150 at first instance, NAf 300 before the Gemeenschappelijk Hof van Justitie. For Aruba the Court's own guidance gives six weeks, AWG 25 and AWG 75. The BES islands apply the Wet administratieve rechtspraak BES: six weeks to the Gerecht in eerste aanleg at USD 84; the objection deadline there is not established.

Standard of review. Refusal on public-order grounds is imperative. As the Afdeling bestuursrechtspraak put it on 20 June 2018, departing from the published policy requires very great restraint — though departure is required where only that yields a correct application of the law. Whether that formulation has since been restated is not established.

A practical alternative to objecting. Where the refusal turns on a shortfall in the fifteen-year residence period, an objection cannot cure it; the condition is factual. Depending on your circumstances, naturalisation may be available immediately and is often the better answer than a contested objection.

Two things you cannot appeal. The automatic lapse of a confirmation not handed over within a year of its date, and a refusal to hand over because the declaration of solidarity was not made. Neither is a decision in the administrative-law sense.

• Naturalisation is usually the better route for a spouse, and by a wide margin. The residence requirement for naturalisation does not apply at all to someone who has for at least three years been the spouse of, and lives with, a Dutch national. A person married to a Dutch national is also exempt by statute from the duty to give up their other nationality. What naturalisation adds is the civic-integration examination at CEFR level A2 across reading, listening, speaking and writing, and a fee of €1,139 instead of €241 (2026 schedule). Twelve years of waiting is a steep price for the difference.

• The three years must be with the same person. Time in an earlier marriage does not aggregate with time in a later one, even if both spouses were Dutch.

• Your spouse's nationality is tested at the end, not the start. A partner who naturalised part-way through the marriage still counts, because the requirement is that the spouse hold Dutch nationality at the moment of confirmation — but by the same token, a spouse who loses Dutch nationality before confirmation defeats the ground.

• Bereavement between filing and decision does not destroy the ground. The policy manual states that a break in the three years caused by the spouse's death in that window is not held against the optant. Divorce in that window is a different matter.

• A residence gap resets fifteen years to zero. There is no gap where you applied for an extension in time and met the conditions at that moment, or where the IND grants the new permit immediately consecutive to the old one even on a late application. There is a gap whenever the new permit does not directly follow the previous one.

• The absence thresholds. More than six consecutive months abroad is treated as a move abroad unless the overrun was beyond your fault; so is more than four consecutive months for the third year running, unless your centre of activities did not move. Registration in the population register as a niet-ingezetene (non-resident) counts against you, as do tax deregistration for departure, letting out your home and shipping your household effects abroad.

• Bigamy is checked. Divorce deeds and family record books are requested precisely to establish that no earlier marriage subsists. A marriage to another spouse must have been ended before Dutch nationality is granted.

• Criminal record thresholds. Only misdrijven count; petty offences, administrative fines and guilty-without-penalty convictions are disregarded. Refusal follows from a custodial sentence; a taakstraf (community service order) of 36 hours or more, or several of 18 hours or more totalling 54; a fine or confiscation order of €900 or more; a settlement or penalty order of €900 or more, or one carrying a community-service condition; or several settlements of at least €450 each totalling €1,350 or more. Suspended sentences count, and an open criminal case for a misdrijf is by itself enough. The rehabilitation window is five years, raised from four with effect from 1 May 2018.

• Names. Option gives no opportunity to change your name; naturalisation does, with your consent, where a change is relevant to integration.

• Rijkswet op het Nederlanderschap — the Kingdom nationality statute, including article 8(2) (disapplication of the residence condition for spouses seeking naturalisation) and article 9(3) (statutory exemptions from the renunciation duty). Consolidated text in force since 1 October 2023, with no amendment in force since (checked 25 July 2026). https://wetten.overheid.nl/BWBR0003738/2023-10-01
• Besluit verkrijging en verlies Nederlanderschap — the Kingdom decree on filing, verification and handover of the confirmation. In force since 1 March 2017.
• Besluit naturalisatietoets — fixes the naturalisation language level at CEFR A2. Consolidated text in force since 26 May 2022. https://wetten.overheid.nl/BWBR0013604/2022-05-26
• Besluit optie- en naturalisatiegelden 2002 — the fee decree. Consolidated text in force since 1 January 2011; the amounts printed in it are 2011 amounts and are not what you pay. https://wetten.overheid.nl/BWBR0013782
• Besluit van de Staatssecretaris van Justitie en Veiligheid WBN 2025/3, Stcrt. 2025, 31825 of 19 September 2025, in force 1 January 2026 — the 2026 option and naturalisation tariffs for the European Netherlands. https://zoek.officielebekendmakingen.nl/stcrt-2025-31825.html
• Handleiding Rijkswet op het Nederlanderschap 2003 — the binding policy manual, including the fifteen-year qualifying period for this ground, the treatment of a spouse's death between declaration and decision, and the criminal-record criteria. Version in force since 1 July 2026. https://wetten.overheid.nl/BWBW33099
• Algemene wet bestuursrecht — objection, appeal and the penalty-payment regime for late decisions. Consolidated text as consulted on 25 July 2026. https://wetten.overheid.nl/BWBR0005537
• Regeling indexering, Stcrt. 2025, 39855 of 24 November 2025, in force 1 January 2026 — the 2026 court fees. https://zoek.officielebekendmakingen.nl/stcrt-2025-39855.html
• Afdeling bestuursrechtspraak van de Raad van State, 20 June 2018, ECLI:NL:RVS:2018:2056 — refusal of an option confirmation on public-order grounds.