We did it! (And so can you)

In January of 2026, for a number of reasons our family decided we wanted to leave the US and based on our research the best landing place for us ended up being the Netherlands. This was a hard decision as we were firmly rooted in our SF Bay Area home, and had many things to consider, our home, stuff, furniture, two elementary-age school children, a large-breed dog. We moved into our Dutch home mid March, and picked up our approved residence permits last week (end of May).

We also had a number of advantages. I served six years in the US Navy and visited 25 different countries, including overseas tours. More than anything this experience showed me that as scary as it is, it is possible to move a family to another country and thrive and also showed me some of the pitfalls and traps to navigate. My wife and I have worked hard on treating challenges as adventures and had fostered the attitude with our kids. And financially we were in a stronger position than most confronting a migration.

This post shares the timeline as well as all of the resources in the hopes that it can be helpful for you and your family.

Timeline

While the political situation in the US was not the only reason for our decision to move, it was the primary source of timeline pressure. There is uncertainty around actions the current administration might take leading up to and after the election in November 2026 to maintain power and avoid consequence. Initially we planned to move in June as it would allow our kids to finish up the school year, but after Venezuela, the administration began posturing against the EU (with more claims of 'freeing' Greenland), and we worried that it could make it more difficult to get a visa. Additionally, one of our main concerns was our kids integrating and finding friends in their new home, and we decided to send them to do public Dutch language (Newcomer) school rather than international English schools (where the students and friends change more frequently). And decided that having a few months of making friends and language learning in the school before the summer would be an advantage to their integration. So we moved up the leave date to a fairly aggressive mid-march.

• January: Decided to move from US
  • Made a spreadsheet (Always how we begin in our household) :)
  • Worked with immigration advisor and came up with a long list, mostly English speaking majority countries (easier to integrate for the kids), that were LGBT friendly, had inexpensive college (again for the kids), visa programs that allowed us to move as group (I work, Tegan is disabled), and would have a path for us (and our children) to become citizens and home owners: Germany, Canada, Australia, New Zealand, Netherlands, Spain, Finland, Ireland, Portugal, Malta.
  • Ultimately after ranking them all, we settled on the Netherlands for being the easiest and most sure path to a Visa (thanks to the DAFT program), high level of English (making the transition smoother for us and children), and cultural similarity to our home in the Bay Area.
• Mid January: Starting all the time sensitive important stuff with the move
  • Got help: Connected with an immigration lawyer (to help with the process), this was helpful in finding connections and was quite reasonable, but not strictly necessary if you are on a budget. At this stage he mostly just connected us with the makelaar we used.
  • Finding a place to live: This step is important to do early Got in contact with rental Makelaar - a Dutch real estate agent specialized in finding rentals. The rental market in Netherlands is extremely competitive, and while you can look on your own (Funda.nl is the best place I found) it can be difficult as many units don't have all the photos listed, and some listings require a bit of local negotiation to win out.
  • Picking a school: Alongside finding a place to live we needed to find a school for the kids to go to (one of the primary constraints for location was we wanted the school to be within kid leg biking distance). We decided to go the public (Dutch) route rather than international schools (English) so there is a limited number of neighborhoods to help narrow the house search, this tool helped.
  • Let the kids, family and school know. Kids especially was some drama, but we planned some things that helped.
• Early February: Locking in
  • Signed lease in Amstelveen - This was earlier than we liked (as we had to sign an have makelaar take the keys over a month before we moved in) but necessary to get the place we wanted, near a school, accepting of our pets, and with a good location.
  • Signed the girls up for Taal School (Dutch newcomer language school, about 1 year of learning Dutch so that they could then join regular Dutch language public schools)
  • Bought plane tickets, good idea to have a return flight booked even if you aren't going to use you will be entering as a visitor (90 days) and immigration may require you to have a return ticket to show them. Lesson learned here is that you should either book the whole round trip as fully refundable (as many carriers now don't actually let your refund the return flight unless both inbound and outbound legs are refundable !%*^$!) or if you don't need outbound refundable it may be cheaper (and you'll get a better refund) if you do two separate one way tickets with the return flight being fully refundable.
  • Vehicle sale prep: Since we had a loan on one of our vehicles we (should) have paid it off as selling a vehicle private party that has a loan on it is difficult as you don't get the title until it's paid off, an it can take the bank a few weeks, an the DMV a few more weeks. If you can't pay then you'll have to sell to a dealership or 3rd party that is willing to deal with the delays.
  • Got utilities (including internet) established with the help of easynuts.nl, this service was worthwhile, as they handle setting up accounts with the necessary providers. Be aware that there may be contracts (for a year) on some services that are expensive to break early.
  • Setup a BUNQ account (shared checking, savings) as it can be done before you've moved and gives you a European IBAN, and the ability to make payments and setup things before you arrive. Pretty happy with them so far, reach out to me for an invite if you'd like to share the referral bonus 😄
• Early March: Wrap up
  • Facebook Marketplace / Friend gifting / Garage Sale - Getting rid of the stuff that we didn't want to ship.
  • Selling vehicles
  • Getting a local property manager (we own our home and chose to rent it furnished, saving us from dealing with selling or shipping existing furniture)
  • Scheduling pet transport for Freya and the cats with PetTransportPro (while expensive was our only option, and Anthony was very good with our fur babies and reasonably priced for the end to end transport option)
  • Ordered shipping crate, and shipped with expat shipping - who we recommend (follow up with email / phone call as he can get busy, but the shipping rates were much better than anywhere else)
  • Packed and shipped all of our stuff, as well as some additional boxes (probably should have counted on that).
  • Goodwill runs for the stuff that wasn't sold / shipping or gifted.
  • Dump run for the extra stuff that wasn't goodwill worthy (count on it)
  • Going away party (House cooling, helped get rid of extra liquor)
• Mid March: Day of arrival
  • Flight landed in AMS
  • Rented a car at airport (Sixt was inexpensive especially since we booked longer than a week), got a vehicle with decent luggage space for getting our stuff home as well as being able to do IKEA runs. In the Netherlands over 40% of households don't have a car, there is a lot you can do with a box bike, "zip" style car rentals, and public transit, but the rental was nice to have during our settling period.
  • Pets were delivered to our new address, helped them into their new home. Remarkably they all seemed curious and energetic.
  • Visited HEMA (Closest equivalent to Dutch Target) and Albert Heijn (Grocery) for essentials and food
  • Stayed up till about 7p local time before crashing out (trying to go to sleep at regular local time helps with jet lag)
• March: Settling in
  • Rental was furnished, but missing some things, made a few IKEA runs to finish up and make the girls bedrooms feel a little more like home.
  • Purchased bikes for the kids (Cheapassbikes.nl Decent selection of used bicycles in all sizes which was hard to find in person, and door delivery), a "Bakfiet" (electric box bike) for myself (this was pricy and new, but basically my daily driver), and an accessibility scooter for Tegan.
  • Met neighbors, enjoyed park, visited some local sites
  • Switched our cell phones to prepaid Dutch numbers, and moved old US numbers to google voice.
• March: Post initial settle
  • Got the kids into the new language school, showed them how to bike the route
  • Registered with the IND for v-nummer (visitor number), appointment for getting "DigID" which required biometrics
  • Worked with Expatlaw to file initial paperwork for DAFT visa
• April: Getting registered
  • Completed Biometrics Appointment
  • Started process to register for ZZP, business (with help of expatlaw)
  • Registered with the "Gementee" in Amstelveen (City / municipality) for BSN (Needed for a lot of things, including residency permit)
  • End of April: Received BSN
• May:
  • Got DigID, needed for applying for KVK Appointment (In order to complete ZZP business registration)
  • Registered KVK business (need for completion of visa), and sent data to IND
  • End of May, visa approved, picked up residency cards

So can you...

If you are considering a move and would like a little help, schedule a 30 minute consult and we can see if godutch.us can be of service!