Buying a US home from the Netherlands

Your route into the United States

With a Dutch passport you can travel to the United States under the Visa Waiver Program, which makes house-hunting trips simple. It is a visitor arrangement and gives no right to live or work there. For a US mortgage on normal terms a lender needs to see that you are lawfully resident, so the status you will hold comes first: a green card, an employer-sponsored visa, or for entrepreneurs the E-1 or E-2 category that the 1957 treaty opens to Dutch nationals.

If you are buying a second home and staying resident in the Netherlands, mainstream US loans are generally not available and lenders offer foreign national loans instead, with a larger down payment and a higher rate. Our guide to visa status and US loans explains each route.

What a US lender sees of your Dutch finances

Very little, unless you show it. Your BKR record does not produce a US credit score. You can view and download your own BKR overview free of charge, and it is worth having alongside bank statements and your employer's statement when you first speak to a lender, even though how much weight it carries is the lender's decision.

Income paid in euros by a Dutch employer is another point. Under Fannie Mae's rules, income from a foreign employer paid in foreign currency has to be supported by two years of US federal tax returns, and assets held abroad must be exchanged into dollars and held in a US-regulated institution before closing. In practice that means a newcomer is assessed mainly on the US job and on money that is already in a US account.

Your Dutch home when you leave

Many Dutch movers plan to fund the US down payment from the sale of their home, and the timing has tax consequences. If you move out before it sells, the Belastingdienst lets you keep treating the empty home as your own home, with mortgage interest deduction, for at most three years after the calendar year in which you left. If you let it in the meantime, the deduction stops for that period. Once the three years run out, the home and the mortgage both move to box 3.

Dutch buyers are also used to a purchase with three days of statutory cooling-off and a financing condition with a date. A US contract has neither in that form, and usually has to complete in 30 to 45 days. See how the US timeline compares.

If you stay in the Netherlands and buy a US second home

The Belastingdienst treats a second home, in the Netherlands or abroad, as a box 3 asset. It has to be declared, and you can claim relief from double taxation for foreign real estate. The United States taxes the property and any rent at source: rental income of a non-resident owner is taxed at 30% of the gross amount unless you elect to be taxed on net income, which requires filing a US return each year. How the two systems fit together in your case is a question for a cross-border tax adviser.

Pension, shares and the protective assessment

Emigration triggers a protective assessment for Dutch pension rights, for annuities with deducted premiums and for a substantial interest in a company, where the shares are treated as sold. For a move within the EU deferral is automatic. For the United States you have to ask for it and usually provide security. For pensions and annuities the assessment normally runs for ten years. If you own 5% or more of a company, take advice well before you deregister.

Estate tax: one of the few countries with a treaty

The United States taxes the US assets of people who are neither citizens nor residents on a much lower threshold than it applies to its own: an estate tax return is required once US assets, which include real estate, exceed $60,000. The Netherlands is one of nine EU countries with a US estate tax treaty, which can change that outcome. It is a reason to ask a specialist how to hold the property before you buy, not after.

Questions people moving from Europe ask

Continue your research

• Getting a US mortgage after moving from Europe: visa status and loans
• Funding a US home with European savings or home equity
• How long a US home purchase takes, compared with Europe
• Where in the United States? Destinations for Europeans
• Start a personal US mortgage scan