Netherlands ends penalty payments for late immigration decisions
Skilled migrants and students lose compensation when IND misses six-month deadline, asylum ministry cites close to 100 million euros already paid out
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Minister Bart van den Brink during the discussions on Tuesday. Photo: Jeroen Jumelet/ANP
Jeroen Jumelet/ANP
The Dutch senate on Tuesday passed a law abolishing the right to penalty payments when the immigration service IND misses its deadlines. The asylum ministry presented the change as an asylum measure; the law itself covers applications for regular residence permits — highly skilled migrants, students and family members.
Under the rules now being retired, the IND was supposed to decide on a residence application within six months. When it missed that deadline, applicants could go to court and demand a payment for every day the decision remained outstanding. Asylum minister Bart van den Brink told MPs in September that the IND had paid out close to €100 million in penalties, and that some asylum applicants had collected more than €100,000 each.
The IND's own view of the mechanism is unsentimental: a spokesperson told Dutch News the payments do nothing to speed the service up. Once the new law takes effect, judges will be able to order the IND to reach a decision within a set period — and nothing else.
The government has tried this before. In 2024 it abandoned plans to axe penalty payments for regular residence applicants, saying the move could conflict with EU law. The ministry told Dutch News it could not yet say what has changed since. The figures explain the attraction of the reform: a file that sat still was worth money to the person holding it, and the state was financing the wait.
D66 voted against the government's asylum package in April, when it still contained a provision making it a criminal offence to live in the country without valid papers. That provision is not part of the new law, and the party backed it on Tuesday — while conceding that the IND's failure to meet deadlines 'is not resolved by this amendment'. The penalties, a spokesperson said, 'no longer provide an incentive to work more efficiently and have therefore outlived their purpose'.
The service that missed the deadlines retains the exclusive right to decide them. The IND says it does not currently know how much it pays out in penalties on regular permit applications, and will calculate those figures in the coming weeks.