So I went back to the city yesterday morning to pick up my passport from the Dutch consulate.
And finally, after not-quite 5 months, here is my MVV sticker! (Well, I photographed part of it.)
The entire MVV sticker is large enough to pretty much take up the entire passport page. It is a temporary visa which allows me to enter and leave the country as needed (though it’s not in the plans to come and go THAT early on). Within 8 days of arriving, one needs to apply for permanent residency. So oh joy, back to the IND again.
But at least we have a break for a few weeks!
Yayyyyyyy.
Life in the Hague 
Hi i enjoyed your blog and going through mvv process as well now. Do you know if we submit mvv at the embassy in DC is it worth it to just wait til they’re done so they dont have to send it anywhere?
I am not entirely sure what you are asking by stating “waiting until they are done”, but it depends on a few factors. Namely your nationality – if you’re American or from some other select countries, you don’t need to do an MVV at all. As an American I did an MVV because of the family migration measures which were passed on Oct 1 2012, because I wanted to move here before I got married, rather than marrying first. But it is likely that this law will be revoked soon. It looks like it already was actually: http://english.ind.nl/nieuws/2013/planned-reintroduction-of-partner-policy.aspx?cp=111&cs=385
If one of the persons is a Dutch citizen, you will have a lot less hassle if the Dutch citizen does it through the IND in the Netherlands rather than involving a consulate in America. But that brings along the complication of the Dutch citizen needing to request advice first (free) before actually applying for the MVV (not free). This adds a bit of extra time to the waiting, however, if the Dutch citizen receives positive advice from the IND (step 1), the consulate grants your MVV much more quickly (step 2) – usually.
I must stress that since I was an American requesting an MVV I received a lot of strange looks (since it is not required) and a lot of roadblocks along the way. One being that I was told I needed to take the insburgeringsexamen (which is untrue, I did not have to take it).
If you are a non-American living in the US, you can either contact the DC consulate or have your Dutch partner (if they are Dutch) do it through the IND in the Netherlands by starting with the advice process. The latter method (advice) is much more common.
I hope this helps a bit!
Hi Niki, im indonesian and my husband is american, im going to be researcher in leiden and spnsoring him for visa, so we figured easier to get mvv together. The IND through university told us we can go pick up the sticker in DC but when i called the embassy, they said they’ll hold our passport and will send it to us with the sticker in 5 business days. Im just nervous because im never separated from my passport and wondering whether the process could be faster than 5 days so i can just hang around DC to wait for it…
Ah! At least you are almost done with the process. 🙂 I had no problems with them having my passport. At least you are with the DC embassy. I was with the NYC embassy so NYC had to send it to DC and then back in the mail to theml, so that was a bit hard. But it worked out.
I chose to come pick it up myself. It was done in 4 days I think. It might be faster for you since it is all done in DC. it really depends in how comfortable you feel about getting it in the mail, but if you ask for a signature on delivery it’s not too bad.
The advantage to picking it up is you can look it over AT the embassy in case there are mistakes. The form letter I got with it did ask me to look it over and make sure. Everything had to be correct on it.
Nikki, Thank you for the absolutely amazing write-up. It is quite detailed and explains the process. I am in a similar situation submitted my passport in SFO consulate waiting for the MVV sticker. Does the embassy provide any application tracking number to track the application? I was not given one but I have a hunch it is provided.
Thanks for your lovely comment. 🙂 To be honest I don’t remember getting a tracking number. I think we just had to wait for a letter, which came after however many weeks they said it would. I think it came about 10 days before I was scheduled to move to NL.
Although one blog posts I wrote says: “They also actually physically took my passport. Apparently they don’t do MVV stickers at the NYC consulate (although they said it was just a visa sticker – I don’t get the MVV sticker until I get to the Netherlands I was told). So the passport needs to be mailed to the Washington consulate, and then back to New York City… that takes about 5-6 business days. So early next week. Still time – no problem.” https://lifeinthehague.com/2012/11/26/dutch-mvv-or-a-slight-delay/
So maybe once they have your passport its not that long of a wait?
Hello Niki,
I have applied for my MVV/TEV visa with Dutch Embassy in NYC. I live in Boston and I was wondering if you know which way to get the passport is faster, by post or by person since the sticker is issued by DC?
Thank you!
I am not sure if things have changed in the last 7 years. Back then it took 5-6 business days for the consulate to get the passport back from DC. I don’t imagine DC posting it directly to you would save much time (maybe a day). And if I remember correctly you don’t need to make an appointment to pick it up when it’s ready.
On the other hand, you’re traveling from Boston so that is time out of your day to get back into NYC. I lived an hour outside of it, so it wasn’t too bad for me.
The big plus for me was not having to worry about it getting lost in the mail. Just in case.