Today, with the help of the Dutch American Friendship treaty, I became the proud owner of a dutch company complete with VAT number so they can get their fair share. Fair share is relative but all in all I am glad to have completed the second to last hurdle in the quest for a residence permit and receive permission to stay in Europe and sell my wares.....

The whole day began much as the rest of this whole process has with me wondering what the hell to do. I had an appointment with someone I thought was a dutch accredited accountant who turned out to be some financial administer instead. They are located around the corner from where I live and have accountancy printed in bold on the door. We had agreed to have him do the certification last week and this morning at 9 I walked in with my business plan, accounts and receipts for equipment that I had purchased for the company. After he had read them over I informed him of the requirements in the treaty that I have either 4500 euros in cash or invested equipment. He had no idea what I was talking about and once I mentioned that the review had to be done by an accountant or a tax advisor who is a member of the Federation of the College of Tax Advisors and that I figured he would know what had to be done, he informed me of his lack of certification but that he could still write something up for me. We had agreed on a fair price for the certification in my opinion of 150 euro for two hours of which I would use the majority to ask questions needed to file taxes on my own here. With him being clearly unable to provide the service I had to do my best not to laugh at his attempt to get the money out of me and asked him to call an accountant that might have some idea. He explained in dutch to whoever was on the other end of the line that I was asking for a certification and was given the answer that they had no idea what I was talking about. Apparently this certification is either very specific to foreigners trying to found a company or just simply unnecessary. Either way I thanked him for his time, jumped on my bike and rode home all the while wondering what the hell to do.

If you have less than the 4500 euro required in the bank to satisfy the DAFT requirement then I would suggest you seek out an accountant that has certification (ask to see the diploma like a doctor) and experience with dealing with the Dutch American Friendship Treaty. The only options I know of would be Expatax as recommended from the Expatica message boards or Mazars a full service international accounting firm. I haven't used either of them so I can't confirm but from their website they should be able to help. Either way I happen to have invested about 4500 euros in equipment but also have enough in the bank to certify the requirement without seeing an accountant so I decided to walk into the Chamber of Commerce with all my materials, ie apostled birth certificate, printouts on ING stationary with my account details, business plan, BSN number printout from the Gemeente, passport, confirmation of health insurance from OOM Verzekeringen, and pin card to pay the 45 euro or so fee for registering. I also filled out the Dutch Eenmanszaak form from the KVK's website with help from a friend. They seemed to have English forms if you do more digging than I did or just walk in and ask for them.

So as you can probably guess from the opening sentence that the accountant certification was unnecessary in my founding the Eenmanszaak or sole proprietorship with the KVK. Oddly enough, the process ended up being quite enjoyable. After having put so much time and effort into this moment, being well prepared and proud of the business plan and the company's various logos and designs, watching the information being entered into the computer and walking out with the printout certifying registration became just the icing on the cake.

Only one more hurdle remains and that is meeting with a the IND. I will hopefully receive a temporary residence permit and then simply waiting till the governments wheels turn to see if what is temporary becomes semi-permanent. That is, subject to renewal each year for 5 years assuming I make money to pay my various bills to the government and put some quality kaas on the table.....

A few things is should add is that this there seems to be different requirements for different professions. I just came up with a business idea and that was it for me. Also check the trade register to see if there are companies with your name already (http://www.kvk.nl/english/traderegister/default.asp). I used my home address to register the company as it will be web based with little inventory stored and no customers to deal directly with on site.

Website: www.kvk.nl
Address in Amsterdam: De Ruyterkade 51013 AA