To integrate, you follow integration courses. Most of the time you finish the courses with an exam. The courses and the exam cost money. When you need to integrate you can use a DUO-loan to pay for this.
DUO-loan
Do you have a temporary residence permit? Then you probably get a letter from DUO. The letter tells you when you have to integrate. From that moment you have 3 years to pass your integration exam. The letter will also tell you that you can take a loan of 10.000 euro. You can use this loan to pay for integration courses, for your books and exams. You can choose your own school to do the courses (in Dutch).
How do I apply for a loan?
The letter you get from DUO will explain how to apply for a loan. You can easily do this online. You can do this through the ‘Mijn Inburgering’-link (My Integration) with your DigiD (in Dutch).
Costs
⇒ The costs and courses of the integration training are different for each school. Different language schools and instances offer courses to integrate. That is why the prices are different.
⇒ The price of the course depends on the amount of hours you take to finish the courses. You pay for the courses per hour. So: the more lessons you take, the more expensive it will be.
⇒ Click here to see an overview of the different language schools in Nijmegen
⇒ The obligatory courses about the Dutch values and norms that you need to take for the declaration of participation (participatieverklaring) are for free when you are an asylum migrant.
⇒ When you do pass all the tests in three years, you do not have to pay back the loan later.
Paying the integration course
Do you borrow money from DUO for the integration courses?
⇒ Most of the time the language schools send the bills for the courses to DUO.
⇒ You get a message that you got a bill through ‘Mijn Inburgering’, the page where you have applied for the DUO-loan.
⇒ Sign in on ‘Mijn Inburgering’ with your DigiD to see the bill.
⇒ Check the bill before DUO pays this bill to your language school. Check if the total amount of hours for courses on the bill is correct.
⇒ Is the bill correct? Then click on ‘accepteren’. DUO will pay the bill to your language school.
⇒ Are the prices or the hours on the bill not correct? Click on ‘weigeren’ (not okay). Tell them why the bill is not correct. For example because you had less hours of courses. DUO will not pay the bill to your school. The school will have to send a new bill.
Note!
⇒ You do not get the money for the integration courses on your own bank account
⇒ Write down the amount of lessons you had every month and check the bills.
⇒ You get your bills for the integration course online. So you have to make sure that you filled in your e-mailadress on the DUO-website. Only then you get e-mails in your mailbox from ‘Mijn Inburgering’ that tell you that have to check the bill.
⇒ Check regularly if you have a notification on ‘Mijn Inburgering’ and accept or reject the bill. If you do not do this DUO will not pay the money for your courses and the school can stop your integration courses.
Do you receive bills on paper from DUO?
1. Make a copy of the bill for your own administration.
2. Write your signature and BSN-number on the original bill.
3. Send the original bill (not the copy) with your signature and your BSN-number to DUO
4. DUO pays the bill to your school.