Exemption For International Students

Every person living or working in the Netherlands is required by law to take out standard (international) health insurance. This covers the costs of consulting a general practitioner, hospital treatment, or obtaining prescription medication, among others.

However, you may be able to keep your health insurance from another country under certain conditions and thus be exempt from having Dutch health insurance.

Student Exemption

Foreign Bachelor’s or Master’s students under the age of 30 living temporarily in the Netherlands solely for their studies are exempt from the requirement to have Dutch health insurance. This includes bursary students. These students are advised to take out supplemental private insurance (for example from a company such as AON, Allianz and ISI).

However, international Bachelor’s or Master’s students who study in the Netherlands but also have a part-time job or paid internship (even a zero-hour or a casual contract will count as a job) are NOT exempt and must have Dutch public medical insurance (basisverzekering).

Regular PhD students paid by their university as employees also must have Dutch public medical insurance. PhD Scholarship Program students should check with the SVB to see if they are required to have Dutch public medical insurance.

Here is some additional information and resources:

Nuffic provides information for students to help determine health insurance obligations
Zorgwijzer.nl and Zorgverzekeringslijn have more information for figuring out if you are required to have Dutch medical insurance as a student, as well as information on obtaining proper medical insurance.
A recording from AON’s webinar for non EEA-Students

Avoid being fined for not having Dutch health insurance

To determine if you would be exempt from the mandatory health insurance law or not, please apply for a Wlz assessment through the SVB. By filling in the questionnaire, either online using your DigiD or submitting a printed form. The SVB will judge if one is required to have medical insurance from a Dutch insurance company or not.

Received a letter from the CAK?

If you have received a letter from the CAK stating that you are ‘not insured’, it means that you do not have a Dutch basic health insurance although you could be required to have one. If you think you should not have to take out a Dutch basic health insurance contact the SVB (in Dutch ‘Sociale Verzekeringsbank’) to request a Wlz assessment and check if you are obliged to take out basic Dutch health insurance or not.

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