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You have asylum status granted in 2022 or later

You hold an asylum residence permit and your integration obligation started on or after 1 January 2022.

The short answer

It depends on the route your municipality assigned you, and the three routes lead to genuinely different places. One of them has no central language exam at all.

Who runs it

Your municipality arranges and pays for the route. The exams themselves are run by CvTE (the B1 and B2 language exams) and DUO (KNM).

What you actually sit

PartLevelFormat
B1 routeB1The Staatsexamen NT2 Programma I in all four skills, plus KNM, plus the labour market module and the participation statement. This is the most common route.
Education routeB1 or B2A language-and-study programme aimed at entering Dutch education, ending in the Staatsexamen NT2 at B1 or B2, plus KNM. No labour market module.
Self-reliance routeno exam levelAt least 800 hours of language and KNM teaching plus, for asylum status holders, 800 hours of participation. There is no mandatory central exam. It ends with a final interview and an integration certificate from the municipality rather than a diploma.

Why this applies to you

  • The Wet inburgering 2021 defines three learning routes in articles 7, 8 and 9. Your municipality picks one for you after an intake interview and a learnability test, and records it in your personal integration plan.
  • Among asylum status holders with an assigned route, DUO's figures show roughly 57 percent on the B1 route, 34 percent on the self-reliance route and 9 percent on the education route.
  • This matters more than it sounds. The self-reliance route does not lead to the same diploma, and that has consequences later for naturalisation, so it is worth knowing which route you are actually on before you start studying for the wrong thing.

Money, deadlines and booking

  • You cannot take out a DUO loan for this. Your municipality procures the course through a tender and pays for it, which also means you generally do not choose your own school.
  • Your first two attempts at each exam are free, as long as you sit it at the level recorded in your integration plan.
  • If you are not sure which route you are on, your personal integration plan states it. Your municipality's integration contact can tell you.

Practicing with Kora, once you know your route

If your plan puts you on the B1 route or the education route, Kora covers the Staatsexamen NT2 Programma I and KNM, explained in your own language. If you are on the self-reliance route there is no central language exam to practice for, and your municipality's programme is the thing that matters.

Start practicing for B1 →

People in your situation often mix this up with

Where this comes from

Every statement on this page is drawn from official Dutch government sources. We have linked each one so you can check it yourself, and so you can see what we could not verify: where an official source does not publish a figure, we leave it out rather than repeat a number from elsewhere.

Dutch integration rules change. If a source above now says something different from this page, the source is right and we want to know.

Kora is an independent study app. We are not DUO, CvTE or the IND, and we cannot book exams, process applications or make decisions about your case. For anything about your own situation, use the official sources linked above or contact your municipality.