Integrating with asylum status: what the municipality arranges

Short answer: if you have an asylum residence permit, you usually have an integration obligation. The big difference from other newcomers: the municipality arranges and pays for your course. You do not have to apply for a loan or find a language school.

The municipality buys your course

Municipalities buy language courses from schools, or offer them themselves. You are assigned a place. That also means you cannot simply pick a different school yourself: that goes through your contact person at the municipality. Which course you get depends on your learning route, which follows from the broad intake and your PIP.

You do not have to apply for a loan

This is where most confusion arises. Family migrants arrange their own integration and can borrow money from DUO for it, which they repay later. For asylum status holders it works differently: the municipality pays from central government funds. If you are nevertheless offered a loan, first check with your municipality whether that is right for you.

Social guidance

Besides language lessons, in your first period you get help with practical life here. Think of your home, your post, insurance, the doctor and your children's school. That help is called social guidance. Often an organisation such as VluchtelingenWerk carries this out on behalf of the municipality. Make use of it: many people only find out later that they were entitled to help they never asked for.

What the municipality does for you

• A conversation and a test, and after that a personal plan (PIP).
• A language course that suits your learning route.
• MAP, the part about working in the Netherlands.
• The PVT, in which you sign the participation statement.
• Social guidance during your first period.

What stays your own responsibility?

• Attending your lessons and keeping your appointments.
• Passing your exams within your integration deadline.
• Reporting changes: moving house, work, illness, pregnancy.
• Raising the alarm if it is not working out, preferably well before your deadline.

And if your family member comes later?

If your partner or child comes to the Netherlands later, they often have their own route and their own deadline. Do not assume their situation is the same as yours. Have the municipality and DUO work out per person what applies.