Maintain your VVR

Each academic year you must declare that you comply to all conditions of the Dutch Immigration and Naturalisation Service (IND).

Maintain your VVR

You must comply to the following conditions to keep your residence card for study.

  • stay enrolled as a student
  • obtain yearly at least 50% of the nominal study load
  • have sufficient income for your day-to-day living
  • have sufficient income to pay the tuition fee
  • have a health insurance
  • maintain a legal Dutch address
Please be aware if you can not comply with these conditions, IND will revoke your residence permit.
HKU is entitled to ask for documents to prove that you comply to these conditions. You must be able to provide all the documents within two weeks after a request.

You will need to complete the following steps in order to maintain your VVR.
  • (not applicable to preparatory course and pre-master students)

    HKU has to inform the IND about your study progress every year. If you obtained less than 30 ECTS (study credits) HKU is obliged to inform the IND. The IND will then cancel your residence permit for the next academic year(s).

    The academic year runs from September 1 until August 31. Please be aware of the fact that you will have to obtain at least 30 ECTS every academic year before August 31. Your ECTS can only been taken into consideration if they are registered in OSIRIS.
    Students who will graduate and obtain a bachelor's or master's degree will get exemption of the 50% study load in the graduation year.

    (Please note that first year bachelor students must obtain a minimum number of credits by the end of the first study year, apart from the IND study progress requirement. This minimum varies per study and can be checked in the relevant Academic Examination Regulations. Students who do not meet the standard amount of ECTS are, in the opinion of the school, unsuitable and must leave the course. The board of examiners issues a binding recommendation in such cases.)

    Exceptional circumstances

    Only in case of exceptional circumstances it is possible to be exempted from the IND study progress regulation. You will have to inform the student counsellor about these circumstances as soon as possible. Exceptional circumstances are for example illness, pregnancy, family matters etc. Any exceptional circumstance can be taken into consideration only once. No rights may be derived from this information.

  • Within this statement you will also have to declare that you have the required income. You can state you have an income via a grant, monthly contribution, sufficient amount on your bank account or other, like work. Don't forget to check a box in section 2.

    Required income
    You need to have a sufficient income to cover for day-to-day living expenses and to pay your tuition fee 2024-2025.
    The monthly required amount for living expenses set by the IND for 2024 is € 1,217,96.
    The 2024-2025 tuition fee which applies to you, can be found here.

    Declaration Maintain VVR 2024 (pdf) (will be available as of June)

    You will receive an email with upload instructions around 1 June. Via the upload tool you can submit the signed declaration. Make sure we have received the declaration Maintain VVR before 1 July.
  • Please complete your re-enrolment in Studielink, including your digital payment authorisation regarding your tuition fee. Your re-enrolment in Studielink will only be processed after we have received your signed declaration 'Maintain VVR'. Re-enrolment in Studielink will be possible as of 30 May. You will receive instructions for this by email.