The Netherlands passport office have announced that their adult passports will soon be valid for 10 years.
Although no date has been officially announced by the Kingdom of The Netherlands Government, this move reinforces that many advanced OECD nations are seeing the benefits of returning to 10 year passports, with Canada for example having moved to from 5 to 10 year passports in July last year.
The official English language passports page of the Kingdom of the Netherlands states;
'Passports are currently valid for five years. The government intends to extend their validity to ten years. It is not yet known when this will be done, but the new period of validity will apply to all newly issued passports.'
This is good news for Dutch / New Zealander dual citizens, and by extension reinforces the view, shared by the opposition government in NZ, that New Zealand should return to 10 year passports.
The official Netherlands announcement can be found at: http://www.government.nl/issues/identification-documents/passports-identity-cards-and-dutch-nationality-certificates
Kyle Lockwood / nzten.com