If you intend to spend a period of time abroad when looking for work, you may still be able to receive your unemployment benefit. This depends on whether you meet certain criteria (‘Met een WW-uitkering naar het buitenland’). First, you will need to apply for a PD U2 form. This form entitles you to live in another EU/EEA country or Switzerland and still receive your unemployment benefit for a period of up to 3 months.

Please note: You must register with the relevant benefits organisation in your new EU/EEA country or Switzerland within 7 days of leaving the Netherlands.

To apply for a PD U2 form, you or an authorised person will need to phone the UWV Telefoon Werknemers helpline. This process is the same whether you are applying for a PD U2 form yourself or you have authorised someone else to do this on your behalf.

Make sure you:

• contact us to apply for a PD U2 form in good time and no later than 1 week before you plan to leave the Netherlands. It can take up to 1 week to receive the form
• let your UWV employment adviser know that you are leaving the country

In some situations, you may want to ask someone else to apply for a PD U2 form on your behalf. To do this, you will first need to authorise that person to contact us about your application by following the steps listed below:

• Download the authorisation form.
• Print the form and fill it in.
• Sign the form yourself and then ask the authorised person to do the same.
• Scan the form.
• Upload the signed authorisation form together with a copy of your ID and the ID of the authorised person.

Make sure you keep the following close to hand:

• your citizen service number (‘BSN’)
• your authorised person’s personal details, including their name, address and telephone number
• your ID
• your authorised person’s ID

You will need to log in with your DigiD account to upload the form.

Once you have uploaded the authorisation form, your authorised person can contact the UWV Telefoon Werknemers helpline on your behalf to apply for a PD U2 form.

You should receive the PD U2 form within 1 week of contacting our UWV Telefoon Werknemers helpline.