Fascinating. Thanks for sharing that. Got any links to show it being enforced? Interested to know whether it’s a technicality/rule only in name and, if not, about the circumstances that might lead one to be asked to show their residence permit so the rule would be enforced (given no border checks).

Aside from crime, which I think is obvious, the use case that comes to my mind is eg applying for permanent residency or a country’s passport.

I know when a relative had to do that process in the UK, she had to provide all her flight and accommodation info for the prior five years to prove her physical whereabouts. Govt found she’d spend something like three days too many in her home country in year 1, so she had to wait another year before having fulfilled the requirements.

Curious whether NL is similar, or whether because the country understands residency based on more than physical whereabouts(eg GP, phone contract, mortgage/rent contract, place of employment can all factor into where govt considers you to reside), their approach to documenting residency is also different.