Jun 30, 2026
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Americans Moving to Netherlands
Discover how the DAFT route opens doors when retirement visas don’t exist.
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Love Netherlands
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Dear Netherlands,
If you walk through Haarlem early on a weekday morning, you can still feel the rhythm of a 17th-century town that never quite left. Coffee at a canal-side café, a short cycle to the old centre, a pause at a bookshop that’s been in the same family for three generations. The Dutch don’t advertise this. They just live it.
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Photo via Love Netherlands
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In today’s email:
- Moving to the Netherlands as an American: The DAFT Route Explained (2026 Guide)
- At The Café — Café Olivier — The Church That Became Utrecht’s Favourite Bar
- Around The Web — Kinderdijk Windmills: The Complete Visitor Guide, Dutch Surnames of Flevoland: Origins and Meanings, Best Beaches in the Netherlands: A Complete Guide for Visitors + more
- From Love Netherlands — The Hague and Scheveningen: Where Power Meets the Sea
- Dutch Food You Will Love — Pannenkoeken — The Dutch Pancake That Eats Like a Meal
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Moving to the Netherlands as an American: The DAFT Route Explained (2026 Guide)
👉 Read the full story
If you have spent any time dreaming about living in the Netherlands — cycling along lamp-lit canals, watching the seasons shift over tulip fields, or simply enjoying a country where life moves at a more measured pace — you have probably discovered the frustrating truth quite quickly: the Netherlands offers no dedicated retirement visa for Americans . Love the Netherlands? Join our free newsletter for hidden Dutch gems → inlovewithnetherlands.substack.com Unlike Portugal’s D7 visa or Spain’s Non-Lucrative Residency, the Dutch government has not created a passive-income residency route. That leaves most Americans with one realistic long-stay path: the Dutch-American Friendship Treaty, known universally as DAFT . This guide explains honestly what DAFT involves in 2026, what the IND actually expects from applicants, and which other options exist for Americans who want to build a life in the…
👉 Read the full story
Have you been there? Do you have a memory of this corner of the Netherlands? Hit reply and tell us — we’d love to hear your story.
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At The Café
Café Olivier — The Church That Became Utrecht’s Favourite Bar
Café Olivier in Utrecht is a working Belgian bar inside a deconsecrated 19th-century church. The pulpit is still there. The stained glass is still there. The pews have been replaced with long wooden tables where students, workers, and retired professors all somehow end up sharing a Trappist beer. It’s the kind of place that makes you understand why the Dutch are so comfortable with the quiet strangeness of their country — nothing here is trying to impress you, but everything is worth looking at twice.
👉 Visit the café
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Around The Web
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From Love Netherlands
The Hague and Scheveningen: Where Power Meets the Sea The seat of Dutch democracy, home to Vermeer’s most beloved painting, and gateway to a sweeping North Sea shore — The Hague rewards every kind of curious traveller. An introduction to The Hague and Scheveningen There is a particular confidence to The Hague. It does not trumpet itself the way Amsterdam does, nor does it carry Rotterdam’s muscular post-war swagger. Instead, this handsome city…
👉 Read the full story
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Photo: Binnenhof, The Hague 1899 via Wikimedia Commons (CC BY-SA 4.0)
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Dutch Food You Will Love
Pannenkoeken — The Dutch Pancake That Eats Like a Meal
A Dutch pannenkoek is the size of a dinner plate, thinner than an American pancake but thicker than a French crêpe, and it’s served as a full meal — savoury or sweet, never both. The classic order is a pannenkoek met spek (with bacon) drizzled in stroop. Children get them with apple and cinnamon. The pannenkoekenhuis tradition runs in old farmhouses and converted mills across the countryside, where you can sit at long tables and order a pancake the size of your face for the price of a sandwich. It’s the Sunday family lunch you’ll wish your grandmother had known about.
👉 Read the full story
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