Immigration service registers slightly fewer students from outside Europe

To be exact, the IND received 17,187 applications for a residence permit from students from outside the European Economic Area. The EEA consists of the European Union plus Norway, Iceland and Liechtenstein. The United Kingdom is not part of it.

Last year, there were 17,870 applicants. According to the IND, those two figures are “fairly similar”. Nearly all applications are approved, as the application goes through the higher education institution, which has already assessed whether the student meets the requirements.

Origin
About a quarter of the international students come from outside Europe. Most of them are students from China, India, the United States, Turkey and Indonesia. Of the EU students, most come from Germany, Italy and Romania.

For the first time, the IND used a "virtual assistant" in processing the residence applications of international students. “It processes the applications quickly, accurately and 24 hours per day”, it says in a press release. “We started to do this in March and have already been able to process over 13,000 applications.” The IND used to hire around fifteen temporary workers to do this job each year.

Student Days
In recent years, the IND has presented the students with their residence documents during national ‘Student Days’ at Jaarbeurs in Utrecht. The first one took place on Saturday, August 24.