Guide to Moving from the US to Amsterdam
Potentially moving from the US to Amsterdam? You’ve come to the right place! Charlie and I moved from Charlotte, NC to Amsterdam, Netherlands in March 2022 and we took notes along the way to help folks like yourself who are looking to do the same thing.
I found myself going from blog to blog to see what everyone was saying about their move and then when we went through the process I realized….. our experience was slightly different! So I encourage you to read through a few people’s experiences to prepare you for your move as it might differ from person to person. I hope that our guide to moving from the US to Amsterdam is helpful on your journey!
There are many things that go into packing up your life and moving across the world, so take a look at our list below and comment if you end up going through the move or have additional advice to give!
3 Ps: Pick, Plan and Prepare
So first things first – you have to pick where you want to live in the Netherlands in general. Obviously we picked Amsterdam, but there are a lot of amazing cities in the Netherlands that you will want to research and see what fits what you are looking for. We were torn between Amsterdam and Rotterdam, knowing that Rotterdam was more modern and our money went a little further in that city, but ultimately chose Amsterdam because… well… it’s Amsterdam.
Once you pick the city you want to live in, next starts the planning. I assume that is where you are right now, hence why you are reading this blog! It’s nice to get all your ducks in a row so that you can have an idea of what you are truly getting yourself into. I was under the impression Charlie’s job was pretty much going to do everything for us (which they did a lot) but there were more elements to this move that I underestimated.
As you are planning, you will need to prepare yourself, your family, your friends and last but certainly not least…. your documents. There are many documents that you will need to have for this move, so make sure you are prepared for the wait time for that!
Immigration/Visa Process
This is the most time consuming process and was the most stressful (for me) with moving from the US to Amsterdam. There are a handful of documents that you will need to get a certified copy of within the last 6 months (that is KEY) and then you’ll need to have them apostilled. Never heard of “apostilling” a document? Me neither, until this international move! Essentially, getting a document apostilled is like getting a document notarized, but harder. An apostille certifies the document(s), so the document can be recognized in certain foreign countries, the Netherlands being one of them.
Because we were applying for a Long-Stay Visa (allowing us to stay longer than 90-days), the documents that we needed to have: 1) certified within the 6-months we were moving and 2) apostilled were:
- Birth Certificates
- Marriage License
You might be thinking, okay that’s easy! I’ll stop you right there. it was easy for Charlie as he was born and raised in North Carolina, where we were living. He drove himself to Winston Salem, picked up the certified birth certificate and then drove to Raleigh to get it apostilled. Spoiler alert: only the Secretary of State of WHERE YOU WERE BORN can apostille your birth certificate!). I was born in California which meant I had to order my certified birth certificate online, wait for it to come in the mail (took ~1 week), then send it right back to the Secretary of State in CA to get it apostilled. Then yet another waiting game until it came back through the mail with the apostille. It was stressful because we were only told about this ~30-35 days before our official move date! We had to push our move date out 2 weeks due to waiting on my birth certificate from CA, but overall, the process took approximately 3 weeks.
Once we had our documents and passports, the last thing we needed was documentation for Charlie’s employment contract. Charlie’s company helped us out with this as they had to go through setting up a new entity and finding a payroll provider for Charlie in the Netherlands. If you’re planning to move for work, this is something you employer should manage for you so this part wasn’t as stressful.
Once you have all of these documents, you will need to schedule an appointment in the city in which you are moving to (I.e. Amsterdam, The Hague, etc.). Before our flight out to Amsterdam, Charlie’s employer set up a meeting for us at THIC (The Hague International Center). The meeting was scheduled 7 days after our arrival to Amsterdam and the purpose of the meeting is receive your BSN (similar to a US Social Security number) and a stamp on your passport that acts as a temporary residents permit, which typically takes 2-3 weeks to arrive. The meeting was actually very easy and pretty straight forward, they also did biometric scanning as well.
One thing to note, it is very hard to set up utilities in the Netherlands without a bank account. You also can’t set up a bank account unless you have a BSN… so for 7 days we were relying on our US Credit cards. Thankfully our new landlord kept the utilities on for us until we could switch them into our name! We found out shortly after that there is a mobile bank called Bunq that will allow you to set up an account without a BSN. Definitely check them out if you find yourself in a similar situation! 🙂
Finding a Place to Live
Now this was the fun part for us! 🙂 I have heard from others that this part was stressful as there aren’t a lot of housing options in Amsterdam and they are a little bit pricey, if you are looking to have some space. If you are moving from NYC or an expensive city where you were paying an arm and a leg to live in a closet, then you might find yourself pleasantly surprised with the renting options in the Netherlands!
Charlie’s company ended up allowing him to travel to Amsterdam before we moved so that he could visit a few places for us to live. This worked out nicely since he ended up finding our apartment ~2 months before we moved! We did have some overlap in rent between Amsterdam and Charlotte for ~3 weeks, but when you find the perfect apartment, you do NOT want to let it go!
The websites we used to view apartments up for rent are:
We used CS Housing to help us out while Charlie was in Amsterdam looking for a place to live – they were amazing! We had an “agent” who helped us through the process, recommended some places, was able to do some research that we weren’t able to do (ex: could tell us if places allowed pets or not since a lot of places don’t list that on the website). While you don’t necessarily need to have an agent assist you to find a place, it’s definitely helpful and takes some of the stress off of the process!
In terms of budgeting for a place to live – it all really depends on how much inside the city of Amsterdam you want to be and how large of a place you are looking for. For example, Charlie and I wanted a 2-bedroom (one with a king bed), 1.5+ bath, a kitchen that has a full fridge, a dishwasher, oven + stove and a washer & dryer. You would be surprised, a lot of places do not have a washer & dryer inside the unit. I would say ~30% did not have them and I assume those folks use laundry mats. Given our non-negotiables, our budget was ~€2500/mo. and you can definitely find great spots in that price range! If you are willing to give up on some luxuries we have in the US (like a big fridge, washer/dryer, etc.) you can likely find a great unit for a little less.
Packing Up Your Life
This was the hardest part for me… even though I have moved constantly over the past few years between buying a condo in Charlotte, selling it and moving to Seattle, then moving back to Charlotte, I somehow still felt like I had so many clothes and “things”. Moving from the US to Amsterdam meant really minimizing my material items. I recommend making an essential packing list, try your best to stick to it & then either sell or donate the rest. In terms of furniture, or larger items that you have that you aren’t sure what to do with, you have a few options.
What to do with larger furniture items:
- Find a friend or family member who can store it for you while you are gone OR use it for a while (we chose this option for our TVs and a couple other things)
- Rent out a storage unit – if you have extra income and don’t want to part ways with some big items, this is an option, but make sure to budget for this monthly when you are abroad.
- Sell! We sold about 75% of our townhome and used this money to pay for the multiple luggages we brought, etc.
This left me with clothes, shoes, toiletries/medications, and a few knick knacks that I couldn’t part with (hello weighed eye blanket!) and my husband’s golf bag. There are a few things we did to try to be as budget conscious as we were packing (checking multiple bags on airlines can really break the bank unfortunately).
How to pack efficiently for a move abroad:
- We bought some vacuum sealed bags so that we could fit more into each suitcase. This is both a blessing and a curse – be careful trying to fit too much because then it makes the suitcase too dense. Too dense = extra costs if you go over the 50 lb limit!
- We decided together the amount of suitcases we wanted to pay for & then worked backwards from there. We decided 6 suitcases to check, ship Charlie’s golf bag, and then we each had a backpack & a personal item to carry on.
- From there we set aside our important items that we wanted to not check and put into our 2 carry on items. These were packed last!
- Originally each of us had 3 suitcases to make do with, it ultimately ended up Charlie got 2 and I got 4….hehehe 🙂
- We weighed our bags after packing them and ensured they were each ~48 pounds max, just in case our scale was off some!
Overall, it was difficult to get everything into 6 luggages and I had to make some difficult choices but if you don’t have a huge wardrobe then you should be fine! We brought nothing from the kitchen, etc. over – strictly just clothes, shoes, golf bag, toiletries/medication, camera, and a couple little things we each couldn’t part with. Don’t forget to bring an outlet converter!
Communication Back Home
You may or may not have an international phone plan – we had a minimal one that allowed a handful of international texts a day, but knew we were going to get a Netherlands phone number and new plan once we got here. Moving from the US to Amsterdam also means a pretty big time change as well, unfortunately.
A few things that we figured out during the process of wanting to save our US-phone number/figuring out what phone plan to go with:
- You can port your US phone number through Google Voice and you can still send/receive texts through the Google Voice app on your mobile phone! This is great because I had a few people who were still trying to contact me through my US-number when they didn’t have my Netherlands number or WhatsApp yet. I receive an email notification that I have a GoogleVoice text and I can open up the app and text them right back – no charge (no international fee charge, but if you are not on wifi, it uses data.)
- We downloaded WhatsApp on our mobile phone and use that mostly to communicate with our friends and family back home. One thing to note – if you start using WhatsApp with your US-based phone number & then switch to a new number in the Netherlands, it will update in WhatsApp and unless people know your new number, they can’t reach you through the app. Once I updated my WhatsApp to have my new Netherlands number, I messaged all the important people so that they would have my new number.
- We kept our original iPhones that we already had and just got a new SIM card put in! Some folks make the decision to just get a new phone outright – that is up to you if you want to spend the money!
- We got a GREAT deal going with Ziggo and Vodafone together. High speed internet, cable (~80 channels, about 20 of them English speaking), and unlimited phone plan for under 100 euros a month! We went physically into a store and spoke with a person about putting a plan together – keep in mind that promotions happen so if you do the same, it could be more or less than the deal we received.
In terms of the time change – it hasn’t hindered us from being able to check in with family members back home. For a few weeks out of the year Amsterdam is 5 hours ahead of the US-east coast and for the rest of the year is 6 hours ahead. I can imagine it would be a little harder to communicate with people on the west coast, being 9 hours ahead, but Charlie has made it work as he has some co-workers based in Seattle.
Furry Companions
As you can see on the front page of our blog, we do have a little fur baby son, Roscoe! Moving a larger dog (50+ pounds) internationally is no small feat and it might not be for all dogs, depending on their size, age, and health. Roscoe is a 5-year old Shepherd mix who is very healthy, weighing in at a solid 55 pounds. He is not a service animal, so he would need to go under the plane which makes me and my husband VERY nervous (even though many dogs have done it before, there are still those horror stories….) Moving from the US to Amsterdam typically also involves a layover which makes skeptical if someone would let him out to potty.
We made the difficult decision to have my parents watch Roscoe for the first ~9 months we are out here so we can scope out the scene, make sure Roscoe would like it here, and also spend time researching different ways to get him over here. If there is another way aside from getting him under the plane – we will find it! So for right now, I don’t have much to add, but will update this post once we have done all of our research on the safest way to bring your furry companion abroad with you! <3
Hopefully the above guide to moving from the US to Amsterdam was helpful for you! If you are about to start your journey or are planning a trip to visit, make sure to check out the Do’s and Dont’s: Living and Visiting Amsterdam!
