Indian passport renewal in the Netherlands (2026): the embassy’s own counters, the new fees, documents, children and lost passports

An Indian passport is valid for ten years for an adult and five years for a child — or until the child turns 18, whichever comes first — and a 15-to-17-year-old may choose a ten-year booklet at the adult fee. The embassy's own passport guide, dated 18 February 2026, says a new passport can be issued one year before final expiry or on expiry, so the window opens twelve months out, and earlier if the pages are full, the particulars have changed or the booklet is damaged. Nothing is gained by waiting: the new passport's ten years run from its own issue date, not from the old expiry.

In the Netherlands the passport sits underneath everything else you hold, which is why renewing early is the rule here:

• The residence card is not a travel document. The IND says it plainly: to travel you need a valid passport and a valid residence permit — the card shows you may live here, the passport shows who you are. A weekend in Paris or a flight to Barcelona is lawful only with both, and within Schengen nobody checks until somebody does.
• An IND extension needs a valid passport. The IND's extension page lists "a valid passport or another travel document" among the requirements, and you collect a new residence card only on a valid passport. For a highly skilled migrant the recognised sponsor files the extension through the IND's Business Portal and will ask for your current passport; a passport with months to run when the permit is due is the commonest reason for a scramble at the embassy.
• Airlines want six months. The embassy's FAQ answers the question itself: the six-month validity rule is a common requirement, and the airline or the immigration authority may stop you. For India-bound flights the check happens at the Schiphol counter, not in Delhi; a UK, US or UAE visa application wants six months too.
• The border has changed. The EU's Entry/Exit System began on 12 October 2025 and has been fully operational since 10 April 2026, registering short-stay visitors' faces and fingerprints instead of stamping their passports. It does not apply to holders of a residence permit issued by a Schengen state — so at Schiphol you show the passport and the residence card. A renewed passport with no stamps in it is normal; a passport shown alone makes you look like a 90-day visitor.
• An expired passport is a longer file. The February 2026 checklist asks anyone whose passport expired one to three years ago for a letter explaining why it was not renewed; over three years, you must email the embassy first for verification or an interview, then apply with the letter and an affidavit that you have not acquired another nationality. Anyone without a valid Dutch residence permit, visa or IND renewal receipt must also write first.

The whole thing is done from the Netherlands, without a trip to India and without the Indian address needing to be current — but a change of address, name or appearance can trigger police verification at the Indian address on the form, which is the one part of the process no fee can hurry. And one thing sets the Netherlands apart from Britain, Australia or the US: since 1 June 2025 there is no outsourcing company in between. You book with the embassy, you hand the file to the embassy, and the embassy posts the passport back. The sections below take the ordinary renewal first, then the special cases, then the Dutch paperwork a new booklet touches; the Netherlands guide has the permits, the BSN, tax and housing around it.

India revised every passport fee on 1 July 2026. The Passports (Amendment) Rules, 2026 — G.S.R. 516(E), signed on 20 June and published in the Gazette of India on 25 June 2026 — replaced Schedule IV of the Passports Rules, the first increase in fourteen years: in India a 36-page booklet went from ₹1,500 to ₹2,500, and at missions abroad it is now US$125. The schedule for missions is fixed in US dollars and each mission converts it; The Hague's chart, headed "Consular services fee chart of Embassy of India, The Hague (01.07.2026)", works out at roughly US$1.17 to the euro. Every service on it carries two small lines on top of the fee: €2 for the Indian Community Welfare Fund and a €1 bank charge.

What sits outside the chart

• No service charge. Until 31 May 2025 VFS Global added a basic service fee of €18.51 to every application, plus optional extras; with VFS gone, that line has gone too, and here the consular fee is close to the whole bill — compare the UK, where VFS's £29.78 sits on top of the £93 fee.
• The return courier is yours. The embassy does not hand passports over the counter; it posts them back in a prepaid DHL Express envelope that you buy from DHL before the appointment, at DHL's price on the day — the embassy publishes no figure.
• Photographs and photocopies are not available at the embassy: bring them made.
• Dutch paperwork: an extract from the BRP (the uittreksel) where the checklist asks for one — The Hague charges €19.80 online or €18.40 at the counter, other gemeenten their own rate — and an apostille from any rechtbank on a Dutch certificate, €27 per document in 2026 (it was €26 in 2025).

The discount, and the anomaly it creates

The schedule gives 10 per cent off fresh applications — not re-issues — for children up to eight and for people over 60. That is why a newborn's first passport (€70) costs less than the same child's renewal five years later (€77). A child of 15 to 17 who takes the ten-year adult booklet pays the adult €107.

What nobody may charge you

Appointments are free; the fee is paid at the embassy against a receipt. The embassy's June 2025 notice warns that it has not outsourced consular services to any private agency, and that misuse of the appointment system by an agency can lead to denial of service for the agency and the applicant. A website, WhatsApp number or "consultant" taking money for a slot, or for "urgent" processing, is selling something the embassy says does not exist.

The renewal is online first, then in person, and both halves now belong to the Government of India: the Ministry of External Affairs' portal for the form and the uploads, the embassy's own system for the appointment, and the embassy's counter for everything else.

1. Register on the Passport Seva portal for missions abroad. Since 28 October 2025 the missions run GPSP 2.0, and the embassy's checklist links the mission portal at mportal.passportindia.gov.in/mission. Choose the Netherlands and the Embassy of India, The Hague, and start a re-issue. Fill in your particulars exactly as the current passport prints them — the place of birth, the parents' names, the full name — and give every reason for the re-issue (validity expiring, pages exhausted, change of particulars), because the checklist asks for all of them.
2. The two addresses. The form has a "passport printable" address and an "other" address, and the checklist's rule is that one of the two must be your Dutch address. The other is normally the Indian one, and that is where any police verification goes; the checklist warns that an incorrect address or police station can get the application rejected, so look up the station for the Indian address before you type it.
3. Upload before you submit. The photograph, the signature and the supporting documents are mandatory uploads; where there is no category for a document, combine two or more into one PDF and upload it under the nearest one. The checklist warns that poor-quality uploads are a reason for rejection.
4. Print and sign. Print the form in portrait, each page on a separate sheet, and sign (or, for a small child, thumb) on the first and last pages. Print the checklist for your case, tick what you are enclosing, sign its declaration and put it on top of the file.
5. Book the appointment on appointment.indianembassynetherland.com — the odd-looking domain is the embassy's own, linked from its .gov.in pages — choosing "Regular Embassy Appointment" and the venue. Slots come out in two batches: the whole next month on the first day of each month at 09:00 CET, and the following week every Sunday at 09:00 CET. Each appointment is for one application and lasts at most 15 minutes, so a family of four books four. The embassy no longer gives appointments by email except in emergencies such as a death.
6. Buy the return envelope. The embassy's instructions: on DHL Express Netherlands' site choose the express service and the A4 Express Envelope, enter your home address as the receiver and the embassy as the sender, pay online and print the waybill. You hand in the label with an A4 self-addressed envelope; without it, the application is not accepted.
7. Attend in person, on time. The applicant must come; late entry is not allowed and nobody gets in without the appointment letter. Bring the originals and self-attested copies in checklist order, the printed form, two photographs and the envelope. Mobile phones are not allowed in the consular waiting area. Pay at the counter.
8. Wait, track, receive. Track on the portal. The embassy's usual time is four to six weeks and it asks you not to enquire during that period; once the status says the passport has been printed and is being forwarded, the FAQ puts delivery about 10–12 working days later. The booklet is printed in India, shipped to The Hague and sent on by DHL.
9. The day it arrives, check every letter against the old booklet, then go to the "after" section.

The authority is the embassy's Passport Checklist 2, "Checklist for renewal of passport", dated 18 February 2026, printed and placed on top of the file. For an adult renewing on expiry with no change of particulars, it comes to five things:

• The online application, filled in and signed on the first and last pages, every page printed separately in portrait, with all reasons for the re-issue given and the photo, signature and documents uploaded.
• Two photographs, 35 × 45 mm (width × height), recent, colour, with a light background, to the Indian specification the embassy links. This is the same size as a Dutch pasfoto, so a photo shop or booth in the Netherlands can produce it — but ask for a plain, light background and a full-face Indian-passport crop, and upload the same image you hand in.
• The original Indian passport and self-attested copies of the first and last pages. The FAQ adds the page carrying a visa, says there is no need to copy the whole booklet, and warns that illegible copies are "summarily rejected".
• Your Dutch residence permit — a self-attested copy of the front and back, and the original for inspection. The checklist also accepts a residence permit from the Dutch Caribbean.
• The prepaid self-addressed DHL Express envelope with the waybill.

Address changes, Indian and Dutch

To change the Indian address printed in the passport, add one of: a voter ID card, an Aadhaar card, a passbook from a public-sector bank such as SBI, a passbook from a private bank such as HDFC, Axis or ICICI with a photo ID, a property registration, or a parent's or spouse's passport plus one proof from that list. To print your Dutch address instead, add an uittreksel — the extract from your gemeente's Basisregistratie Personen — in the international or English format and under six months old. The Hague, for instance, issues its international extract in seven languages, English among them, and charges €19.80 online with postage or €18.40 at the counter; most gemeenten let you order it with DigiD.

Copies the embassy may also want

Its "Important — read me" notes ask you to carry the originals of every document relevant to your case for verification, to clarify any situation not covered by email to attcons.thehague@mea.gov.in before the appointment, and to remember that certificates issued outside India must be apostilled by the country that issued them — for the Netherlands, at a rechtbank (see the apostille section). The tenth-standard certificate belongs in the file if your passport still says ECR and you want it removed.

Two kinds of photograph

The passport, surrender, PCC and Emergency Certificate checklists all ask for 35 × 45 mm. The power-of-attorney and NRI-certificate checklists still ask for 5 × 5 cm with a white background. If you are booked for both kinds of service on one trip, bring both sizes.

What is not accepted

The checklist's own list: an incomplete or incorrectly filled application, missing uploads or poor-quality ones, illegible photocopies, a foreign certificate without its apostille, and a file without the prepaid envelope. Add the practical ones: a photograph older than six months or different from the uploaded image, a form corrected in pen, copies made on the day (there is no photocopier at the embassy), and a passport that has been laminated, written on or has pages missing — that is a damaged-passport application, with Annexure L and the higher fee.

A change of particulars is a re-issue with the same fee and a longer document list, and it is the renewal most likely to trigger police verification — so it pays to make every change in one application. The Hague's checklist is unusually detailed here, and every certificate issued outside India needs its apostille.

Adding or deleting a spouse's name

Bring the original marriage certificate, apostilled, with a self-attested copy, and self-attested copies of your spouse's passport and residence card — the originals shown at the counter. For a Dutch wedding that means the huwelijksakte from the gemeente with an apostille from a rechtbank (€27). If the spouse's name on the marriage certificate does not match their passport, the embassy wants a sworn affidavit that the two names are "one and same person", and the checklist says it must be sworn before you apply — the embassy itself swears affidavits for €13 at a separate appointment.

Taking a spouse's surname

The affidavit for a change of name after marriage — a joint affidavit by wife and husband with a joint photograph, on the embassy's forms page — or a deed poll, with the original marriage certificate and the spouse's passport copy. The online form is filled in with the name you want printed.

Divorce, widowhood, remarriage

A divorcee changing name, or deleting a spouse's name, brings the divorce decree authenticated by the court. For a Dutch divorce, the apostille on a court ruling comes from the rechtbank that gave it, not any court. After the death of a spouse, the death certificate. A remarried applicant brings the divorce or death certificate for the first spouse, the new marriage certificate and a copy of the present spouse's passport. The deed poll or sworn affidavit for the name itself goes in too.

A substantial change of name

Anything beyond a spouse's surname — a new first name, a different surname — needs two public documents issued in India in the new name (Aadhaar, voter card, PAN), and newspaper advertisements: one in a prominent newspaper where you live in the Netherlands and one in a prominent daily of your permanent address in India, or the Government of India's Department of Publication. The checklist then makes you wait five weeks after publication before applying, and wants the full page showing the date, the paper's name and the text. Plan it as a two-month project.

A parent's name, an appearance, a signature

A correction to a parent's name needs two Indian public documents — a passport copy, Aadhaar, voter or PAN card, a school-leaving certificate — showing the right name. Any other change to the laminated page — a changed appearance or signature — is a new passport, with the affidavit for a change of appearance where the face has changed.

The Dutch side of a name change

The residence card and the BRP do not follow your Indian passport automatically. The IND's rule for wrong personal details is that the gemeente first checks and, if needed, corrects the BRP, and only then do you ask the IND for a replacement card, for a fee. So: new Indian passport first, then the gemeente with the passport and the marriage certificate, then the IND. Until all three agree, carry the marriage certificate when you deal with banks, HR or a landlord.

The police verification that follows

Any change of name, and most changes of Indian address, send the file to the police station for the Indian address on record. The timelines section explains what that means; the practical advice is to make all the changes in one go, keep the Indian address current with a relative who will answer the door and the phone, and allow months rather than weeks for anything involving advertisements.

A child's application has three rules of its own: both parents consent, the passport lasts five years (or until 18), and since the Citizenship (Amendment) Rules 2026, notified on 30 April 2026, a minor may not hold an Indian passport and another country's passport at the same time — the declaration that the child "cannot at any time hold the passport of any other country" is now printed on the birth-registration form itself.

A baby born here is usually not Dutch

Dutch nationality does not come from being born on Dutch soil. Under the IND's rules a child is Dutch at birth when a parent is Dutch at the time of the birth (or, in a narrow third-generation case, when the family has lived in the Kingdom for two generations already). The baby of two Indian kennismigranten, students or researchers is therefore Indian, not Dutch — and needs an Indian passport. Later the child can become Dutch by joining a parent's naturalisation, or by option at 18 after being born here and living here ever since with a valid permit; the one-passport rule then becomes a choice.

The Dutch steps first

1. Register the birth at the gemeente where the baby was born within three days (the day of birth not counted; free of charge). This produces the Dutch birth certificate and puts the child in the BRP with your address.
2. Order the full birth certificate and the child's uittreksel, and have the birth certificate apostilled at a rechtbank — the embassy wants foreign certificates apostilled.
3. Apply to the IND for the child's residence permit — €85, decided within 90 days. The IND's requirements say you and your child have a valid passport, but also that it will not reject the application merely because the child has no passport yet, provided everything else is met.

The Indian steps

The embassy's Passport Checklist 1, fresh (newborn) passport (18 February 2026) wants, in one appointment:

• the passport form from the mission portal, with the child's thumb print in place of the signature;
• the registration of birth at the mission, filed online on indiancitizenshiponline.nic.in, with the documents that portal asks for — the child's name exactly as on the Dutch birth certificate;
• two 35 × 45 mm photographs of the baby — eyes open, plain light background, nobody's hands in the frame;
• the no-objection declaration signed by both parents — Annexure D, or Annexure C case by case;
• the parents' marriage certificate, apostilled if foreign, and both parents' passports and Dutch residence permits, copies plus originals;
• the full Dutch birth certificate, original and a copy;
• proof of the parents' Indian address (an electricity, gas or telephone bill);
• the child's uittreksel showing the Dutch address;
• the prepaid DHL envelope.

The FAQ confirms you can file the passport alongside the birth registration as long as the registration is complete, with the form signed by both parents. The cost is €40 for the registration and €73 for the passport. If more than a year has passed since the birth, or one parent is Dutch, the checklist adds a letter from the gemeente stating that the child has not acquired Dutch nationality, and your letter explaining the delay. A single parent applying without the other's consent uses Annexure C, and a child born outside marriage needs the joint affidavit of both biological parents (Appendix 12).

If a parent is Dutch

Then the child is Dutch at birth and entitled to a Dutch passport from the gemeente, and the 2026 rule makes the choice binary: an Indian passport only on both parents' acknowledgement that the child will hold no other. Most such families take the Dutch passport and an OCI card.

Renewing a child's passport

The child's current passport, a no-objection letter signed by both parents (Annexure C or D, case by case), copies of both parents' passports and residence cards, the photographs and the envelope — €80. If one parent is abroad, the checklist wants that parent's notarised NOC from the country they are in. Renew in the spring, before the summer trip and before any IND extension for the child, which needs a valid passport.

A trap in the paperwork

The embassy's downloadable forms page uses older letters than the checklists: there, "Annexure-D" is the joint affidavit for a wife's change of name after marriage, and the parents' declaration for a minor is "Annexure-H". Download by the title of the form, not its letter, and ask by email if in doubt.

Two things decide the wait: whether the embassy can re-issue on its own records, and whether the Indian police have to confirm something first. A third, peculiar to The Hague, is that there is no way to pay to jump the queue.

Tatkal is not available at The Hague

The embassy's FAQ answers the question in one line: tatkal service is not available at the Embassy of India, The Hague. Another FAQ answer adds that the embassy "is not in a position to expedite" a passport once it has been printed and is on its way. The MEA schedule's US$250 tatkal fee is therefore irrelevant to a Dutch file, and anyone offering "tatkal" or "priority processing" for a price is selling a service the embassy does not run. The only fast documents are the Emergency Certificate — a one-way travel document to India, issued from a minimum of one day — and, for a visitor or someone in transit whose passport is lost or expired, a short-validity passport (lost-passport section). For everything else the levers are timing and a clean file.

The published timelines

Inside the four to six weeks the embassy decides a clean re-issue fast; the booklet is printed in India and shipped to The Hague; DHL brings it home. The summer and the weeks before Diwali and Christmas are the long end of every range.

What triggers police verification

A re-issue with no change, on a passport the embassy can match on the central system, is granted on file. The file goes for a report from the police station for the Indian address on the form when there is a change of name, Indian address or appearance, when the passport is lost or stolen, when a child gets a first passport, when the passport has been expired for years, when an old passport issued in India before the central database cannot be matched, or when an officer sees a discrepancy between the form and the record. The verification happens in India, at the address, by the local police — increasingly by telephone first. Keep the Indian mobile number on the form live, tell the relative at the address to expect the call and to keep a copy of your passport and the file number, and make sure you named the right police station: the checklist lists a wrong one as a ground for rejection. A long-closed address, a flat the family has sold, a village with nobody home: those are the files that take a quarter.

Applying again after a refusal

An application returned as incomplete is not a queue position kept: you book a new slot in the next monthly or Sunday release and come back with the missing document. That is the real cost of a missing apostille or a wrong photo — not the fee, but a month.

Tracking and asking

The portal shows the status by file number. After the published processing time has passed, the embassy answers by email — consular.thehague@mea.gov.in for passports and surrender, attcons.thehague@mea.gov.in for OCI, visas, Emergency Certificates and checklist questions. Its helpline page says enquiries by telephone are not available, even though the contact page lists a voice line; email is the channel that leaves a record. A file stuck past the published time goes to the embassy's Open House (second and fourth Wednesday of each month, 15:00–16:00, booked by email a week ahead) and, formally, to the MEA's MADAD grievance portal.

A lost Indian passport in the Netherlands is a police appointment, an affidavit and double the fee — not a crisis, unless you are flying on Saturday.

First, the Dutch police

The politie's own guidance for a document issued by a foreign country is specific: check first whether it has been handed in to the gemeente's lost-and-found, and if not, the police are required by international rules to draw up an official report — for which they need the document number, the date of issue and the expiry date. If you have no copy of the passport, the embassy can give you those details; then make an appointment at a police station (the non-emergency line is 0900-8844) and bring them. Ask for the report in English or Dutch. If the residence card went with the passport, the same report serves the IND, which says a card reported lost is no longer valid and must be replaced — a separate application with its own fee.

Then the embassy: a resident's re-issue

For an Indian living here (the FAQ's "NRI"), a lost or stolen passport is replaced through the ordinary renewal route — Checklist 2 — with three additions:

1. The police report, which the embassy keeps — so make your own copy first.
2. Annexure L, the affidavit for a passport in lieu of a lost or damaged one: how and when it was lost, the police station, whether you travelled on it. The embassy's forms say affidavits can be sworn before a notary, a magistrate in India, or a consular officer at the embassy.
3. A copy of the lost passport, or at least its number. Photograph every passport's bio page the day you get it.

Pay the higher fee — €217 for 36 pages, €260 for 60, €187 for a minor — and expect police verification at the Indian address, which puts the file at the long end of the timelines. Tell the embassy the same day by email (consular.thehague@mea.gov.in), so that the old number is flagged.

Damaged

A passport that has been through the washing machine, is torn, has a loose page, or has been written on or laminated is replaced the same way: the damaged booklet handed in, Annexure L explaining what happened, and the lost-or-damaged fee. A legible passport with one scuffed page may be accepted as an ordinary re-issue — let the embassy decide before you pay the higher fee, by emailing a photo of the damage with your question.

Visitors and transit passengers

A parent visiting from India, or someone changing planes at Schiphol, whose passport is lost, damaged or expired has two choices on the embassy's FAQ: an Emergency Certificate home, or a short-validity passport valid for one year, issued in 10–12 working days without an appointment. A copy of the police report is mandatory for a lost passport either way.

Urgent travel: the Emergency Certificate

The Emergency Certificate is a one-way travel document to India for an Indian whose passport is lost, stolen, damaged or expired and who cannot wait for a new one — for residents, genuine emergencies only, approved by the embassy. You fill in the EC form online with the photo, signature and documents uploaded, then walk in without an appointment at Oranjestraat 12 on any working day between 09:30 and 12:30, with:

• the signed printout and a letter requesting the EC;
• the expired or damaged passport and a copy, or a copy of the lost one and the police report;
• a confirmed air ticket to India from the Netherlands — and check first that the airline accepts a handwritten EC;
• proof of your legal stay — the residence card or visa;
• photographs, 35 × 45 mm: the EC page says three, the checklist two — bring three.

The fee is €16 and the embassy processes it against the date of travel, from a minimum of one day. An EC is only for the journey to India: the FAQ says strictly no to a third country or anywhere in Schengen. You then apply for the new passport at a Passport Seva Kendra in India and return on that, with your Dutch residence card.

After hours

For a death in the family or a serious illness outside office hours, the embassy's emergency number is 0031 6 4374 3800 — and it asks that nobody use it for routine consular questions.

The new booklet is the beginning of a short list, and in the Netherlands it is shorter than in Britain or Australia — because the Dutch system hangs on the residence card and the BSN, not on the passport number.

1. The IND. Your residence card does not print a passport number, and the IND's reporting form for foreign nationals (version 2026/1) lists the changes it wants within four weeks — leaving the Netherlands, a change of sponsor, separation from the sponsor, an unreported change of address — without a new passport among them. Where the passport matters to the IND is the next time you deal with it: an extension requires a valid passport, and so does collecting a new residence card. So: no form to file for a plain renewal, but give a copy of the new bio page to whoever files your next IND application — the recognised sponsor's HR team, for a kennismigrant — and if the name or nationality changed, the IND's route is the gemeente first, then a replacement card.
2. The gemeente and the BRP. The BRP records your name, nationality and address, not your passport number. A renewal that changes none of them changes nothing in the BRP. A changed name does: take the new passport and the certificate behind it to the gemeente, which checks and corrects the record before the IND will issue a card in the new name.
3. DigiD. DigiD is tied to your BSN, not to a passport, and nothing about it changes. The DigiD app's ID check currently works only with a Dutch passport, Dutch identity card or Dutch driving licence — foreign documents are not accepted yet — so an Indian passport was never part of it.
4. The employer. An employer establishes your identity from an original document when you start and keeps the copy in the payroll file; for a non-EU employee that is usually the residence document. HR may still want the new passport copy, and a sponsor certainly will for the next IND filing.
5. Banks. Dutch banks re-check identity from time to time and ask for a valid document when they do; upload the new passport in the app when asked. Indian banks are stricter: the NRE/NRO account, the demat account and the mutual-fund KYC each want the new passport copy, and an expired passport on file is how an account freezes during a visit home.
6. Aadhaar and PAN do not change with the passport; Aadhaar's name can be updated online if the name changed.
7. Keep the cancelled old passport. The embassy's FAQ says the visas in it remain valid on their own terms, and the old booklet carries the entry stamps of your first years here — evidence a naturalisation or permanent-residence application may lean on. The next renewal form asks for its number too.
8. The calendar entry: expiry minus twelve months, "renew Indian passport", and for a child, expiry minus six.

If you became Dutch since

A Dutch passport means the Indian one is surrendered, not renewed: under section 9 of the Citizenship Act, Indian citizenship ends automatically when you acquire Dutch nationality, and the embassy says it is an offence under the Citizenship Act and the Passports Act for a foreign national to hold an Indian passport. The surrender is filed on the same Passport Seva portal, with the original Indian passport, a copy of the Dutch passport — mandatory, so the embassy cannot take the application before the Dutch passport exists — the naturalisation decision (the Bekendmaking), two photographs and the DHL envelope: €38, minimum 12–14 working days, and the passport comes back cancelled with the surrender certificate. The embassy's FAQ says a surrender certificate can be obtained within three years of acquiring foreign citizenship.

The two tiers are worth getting straight, because Indian missions word them differently. Several, Australia's among them, add a renunciation declaration for anyone naturalised after 31 May 2010. The Hague draws the line in another place: the surrender certificate is for those who have become Dutch, while renunciation under section 8 — filed on the Home Ministry's portal, 60–90 days — is for an Indian citizen giving up Indian nationality, and the embassy's page says people who already hold another citizenship are not eligible for it. Follow The Hague's checklist, apply for an e-visa if you must travel to India while the surrender or OCI is pending, and read the OCI card guide for the card that replaces the passport.

The embassy's consular counter does more than passports, and several of these come up at the same time as a renewal. Each needs its own appointment and its own fifteen-minute slot.

ECR and ECNR

Every Indian passport is either ECR (Emigration Check Required — for work in eighteen countries, mostly in the Gulf, where India requires clearance from the Protector of Emigrants) or ECNR. Anyone who has passed the tenth standard, anyone over 50, every income-tax payer and anyone who has lived abroad for more than three years is ECNR; if your passport still says ECR, add the tenth-standard certificate to the renewal and the new booklet comes out without the endorsement at no extra fee. Since the non-ECR stamp was discontinued, ECNR shows as the absence of an ECR line. It matters for nothing in the Netherlands and a great deal if you are ever posted to the Gulf.

The Indian police clearance certificate

A PCC from the embassy — wanted for immigration to Canada or Australia, some jobs and long-term visas elsewhere — is applied for on the same mission portal and costs €38. The embassy's checklist asks for the signed form, one 35 × 45 mm photograph, the original passport and copies of its first and last pages and any page with an India entry or exit stamp, a letter explaining why you need the PCC with the supporting papers, your Dutch residence permit (copy and original), and the DHL envelope. Allow four to six weeks: the certificate turns on police verification at your Indian address, and the original passport stays with the application meanwhile — do not file it a fortnight before a trip. Foreign nationals who once lived in India can apply too, on a separate form. The Dutch certificate of conduct, the VOG from Justis, covers your Dutch record and is a separate thing.

The apostille, and why you will need one

Both the Netherlands and India are parties to the Hague Apostille Convention, and the embassy's checklists say plainly that certificates issued outside India must be apostilled by that country. For a Dutch public document — a birth or marriage certificate from the gemeente, an uittreksel — that means any rechtbank in the Netherlands: the Rechtspraak says you may choose the court regardless of where the document was issued, take the original to the counter without an appointment (or post it), and pay €27 per apostille in 2026, by cash or pin at the counter. A court ruling — a divorce decision, for instance — is the exception: its apostille comes from the court that gave it. The rule inside the EU that many documents no longer need an apostille does not help here, because India is not in the EU.

Attestation, affidavits and powers of attorney

The embassy attests documents (€13; commercial documents €49), swears affidavits (€13) and attests a power of attorney (€22) — the usual one being to sell or manage property in India. The applicant signs every page at the counter in front of the staff, and two witnesses must come along with their passports or residence cards. An OCI holder adds a recent uittreksel apostilled by the rechtbank; a foreign national without OCI has the PoA apostilled first.

Registration of birth, and the birth certificate

A child born here to Indian parents is registered with the embassy — online on the citizenship portal, then at the counter — for €40, ideally alongside the first passport (children's section). The embassy also issues a birth certificate based on the Indian passport (€38) when an Indian authority wants one.

Life certificate, NRI certificate and the rest

A pensioner's life certificate and the attestation of pension papers are free; a life certificate for a non-pensioner is €22; an NRI certificate, a driving-licence authentication and an international driving permit are €13 each; a marriage registration €51. Each has a "how to apply" note and a checklist on the embassy's site, and each needs its own appointment — the surrender of a passport after becoming Dutch included, which the "after" section covers.

There is one Indian mission in the Netherlands, the Embassy of India in The Hague, and since mid-2025 it does its consular work itself. Belgium and Luxembourg are covered by the Embassy of India in Brussels, not by The Hague. There is no Indian consulate in Amsterdam, whatever older blogs say.

Where to go

The embassy's contact page gives its address as Oranjestraat 12, 2514 JB The Hague. That building's consular counters opened on 3 November 2025, alongside the chancery at Buitenrustweg 2, 2517 KD. The embassy's current instructions for passports, OCI, the PCC, surrender and the Emergency Certificate all send you to Oranjestraat 12, and the October 2025 announcement told applicants to choose the venue when booking and to come to the one on the appointment. Its location page still describes Buitenrustweg (bus 24 to Laan van Meerdervoort, tram 16 to Van Speijkstraat). Go where your appointment letter says.

Is it still VFS?

No. The embassy's notice of 2 June 2025 says its outsourcing partner, VFS Global, ceased operation from 1 June 2025, and that the services would be provided directly from the embassy's counter. The tender it had published in February 2025 to outsource consular, passport and visa services was annulled on 16 July 2025, and the June 2025 appointment notice states that the embassy has not outsourced consular services to any private agency. The VFS centres at Parkstraat 99, The Hague and the Travelport Building, Radarweg 501–545, Amsterdam no longer take Indian passports, and VFS's €18.51 service fee went with them. The VFS helpline address still printed at the foot of the contact page is a leftover. OCI applications, too, now go to the embassy.

How the appointments work

The system went live in September 2025: the following month's slots are released on the first of each month at 09:00 CET, and the following week's every Sunday at 09:00 CET. One appointment per application, fifteen minutes each, no entry without the appointment letter, no late entry. Emergencies such as a death are handled by email; nothing else is.

Consular camps

Several times a year the embassy takes the counter on the road with community organisations — "Indian Embassy @ Your Doorstep". In 2026 it held camps in Almere on 24 August (at the gemeente office, Stadhuisplein 1) and in Rotterdam on 28 September (De Nieuwe Gaffel, Gaffelstraat 63A), offering passports, OCI, renunciation and surrender, and powers of attorney and affidavits; earlier camps were in Eindhoven, Groningen and Utrecht. Registration is on the same appointment site under "Consular Camp Appointment". Watch the embassy's news page and the community groups — a camp in your city saves a day off work.

The people around it

The city guides have the rest of Indian life near each of these places: The Hague for the embassy's own neighbourhood and the Gandhi Centre, Amsterdam and Amstelveen for the largest expat community, Rotterdam, Utrecht and Eindhoven, where the camps go. The groups carry last month's experience — how fast the Sunday slots went, what the counter queried — and the Netherlands guide has the national picture.

Mistakes

• Following a 2024 blog. Pages that still send you to VFS at Parkstraat 99 or the Radarweg, quote "€80.51 including VFS", or name a consulate in Amsterdam describe a system that ended on 1 June 2025. The embassy's checklists dated 18 February 2026 and its fee chart of 1 July 2026 are the documents in force.
• The wrong building. Oranjestraat 12 and Buitenrustweg 2 are in different parts of the city; the appointment names one of them, and that is the one that will let you in.
• Missing the release. Next month's slots appear on the 1st at 09:00 CET and next week's on Sunday at 09:00. Book a slot for each person in the family.
• No DHL envelope. No prepaid A4 envelope with its DHL Express waybill, no application. The embassy's DHL instruction sheet still prints Buitenrustweg 2 as the sender's address; use the customised waybill link in the 2026 checklist.
• The photograph. The wrong size for the service (35 × 45 mm for passports, 5 × 5 cm for a power of attorney), a dark or patterned background, a picture older than six months, or a different image uploaded from the one handed in.
• The wrong police station for the Indian address — a stated ground for rejection — or an Indian address where nobody will answer the police.
• A Dutch certificate without its apostille, or a divorce decision apostilled at the wrong court.
• Booking a trip after applying. The old passport is cancelled in the process; there is no tatkal; an Emergency Certificate is for emergencies.
• Undeclared changes. A new Indian address, a beard, a surname taken at marriage — declared, they are a longer process; undeclared, they are a refused file and a second appointment.
• Letting it lapse. One to three years expired means an explanatory letter; over three, an email, possibly an interview, and an affidavit.

Scams

• Appointment sellers. Embassy slots are free. Someone selling one has booked it in your name or not at all, and the embassy warns that misuse of the system can mean denial of service to the applicant as well as the agent.
• "Tatkal" and "priority" offers. The embassy says it does not offer tatkal and cannot expedite. Nobody can sell either.
• Look-alike portals ending in .com or .org that charge to fill in the free form. The form is on passportindia.gov.in's mission portal; the appointment site is the one linked from indianembassynetherlands.gov.in.
• Calls and messages claiming to be from the embassy, the IND or the police and demanding payment to stop a passport or permit being cancelled. Indian missions do not phone for money; hang up and report it to the politie.
• Courier texts asking for a "customs fee" to release your passport. The return envelope was prepaid by you; DHL does not collect by text link.

Things nobody tells you

• The embassy has no photocopier and no photo booth, and phones are not allowed in the consular waiting area — print everything at home.
• Booklets are printed in India, which is why "granted" is followed by about two weeks of silence.
• The embassy keeps the police report for a lost passport — copy it first.
• The forms page and the checklists use different annexure letters; download by title.
• A consular camp near you is the shortest queue in the country.
• The same process from Britain is in the UK guide and from Germany in the Germany guide — the dollar schedule is the same, the counters and charges are not. Every guide for Indians abroad is at /indians-in; the events listings and the Indian businesses directory have the rest of Indian-Dutch life.