The DUO loan

Applying for the DUO loan can be done via the DUO (government) website “inburgeren.nl”, either directly online or with the form which can be downloaded there. On this website, you can log in with your DigiD details. Making use of the DUO loan is possible for many expats, highly skilled migrants, and other newcomers with various backgrounds, among which asylum migrants.
As DiscoverinDutch, we are an accredited institute, so we can serve you if you want to finance the tuition fee with the DUO loan.

If you choose to follow an integration course ‘on a voluntary basis’:
On this basis, it is only possible to use the loan for three years, from the moment at which you were first subscribed in the ‘BRP’ of a Dutch municipality. This is applicable e.g. when you are an EU/EER citizen, or when you fall under the Highly Skilled Migrants arrangement.
Especially for highly skilled migrants:
When you want to apply for the loan, your details might not yet be in DUO’s system. Your first step should now be to log in on www.inburgeren.nl. Through this action of logging in, you will be added to DUO’s system, but: not yet with all the necessary details, which the IND keeps.
The second step is, that you call DUO, and tell them that you want to enter the integration process, and use the loan, and therefore need them to collect your details from the IND. This process takes DUO up to 4 weeks. Apart from this, handling your loan application takes them up to 8 weeks.
At this point, you can already apply for the loan (so it will not be 4 PLUS 8 weeks), but it is at this point only possible with the paper application form, which you send to DUO by conventional mail.
You can download that form when you are logged in on “inburgeren.nl”.

In general, so, also relevant for the ‘hsm’ migrants:
In the application process for the loan, DUO will most likely send a letter, in which they ask you for income statements (of the candidate and his/her partner) related to two (tax) years back. DUO will require you to send the income statements by conventional mail to:
DUO
Service Centrum Inburgering
Postbus 764
9700AT Groningen
If you were to apply for the loan with a paper form, you could already add the income statements in the same envelope. Those statements need to be downloaded from the tax department’s website: “belastingdienst.nl”. Again: it should be the income statements of two years back - even if you did not have any income in The Netherlands at that time, you can/must still download that document(s).
DUO says that they need up to 8 weeks to process your application. If you are lucky, they can do that quite a bit earlier, but that is not in your, and not in our hands. Good luck!