What is the format of Lezen at B1?

110 minutes. Six texts, 35 or 36 multiple-choice questions. The texts arrive as a paper booklet you can write on, and you answer on a computer. Some questions ask you to find one detail inside a long text rather than understand the whole thing. A paper Van Dale NT2 pocket dictionary is allowed.

What is the format of Luisteren at B1?

90 minutes. Around 40 questions across five or more recordings, including video. You get 25 seconds to read each question, the audio starts automatically, and it plays once only. No dictionary.

What is the format of Schrijven at B1?

100 minutes, on a computer. Twelve tasks in three kinds: eight where you write or finish a single sentence, two where you write part of a text, and two short pieces such as a note or a short letter. Dictionary allowed. You choose the order.

What is the format of Spreken at B1?

About 25 minutes. Sixteen spoken tasks: eight short ones with 20 seconds of speaking time and eight longer ones with 30 seconds. You cannot go back to a task once you have passed it. No dictionary.

What is the format of KNM at no CEFR level?

45 minutes on a computer, multiple choice, grouped by theme: work and income, living, education, the rule of law, how the country is governed, and norms and values.

kora.

← Which exam do I have to take?

You came to join family in 2022 or later

You moved to the Netherlands to live with a partner, spouse or family member, and your residence permit was announced on or after 1 January 2022.

The short answer

You almost certainly sit the Staatsexamen NT2 Programma I at B1 level, plus KNM. Not the A2 inburgeringsexamen.

Who runs it

The four language exams are run by CvTE, the state examinations board, and are booked on fixed dates. KNM is run by DUO and booked flexibly. People are often surprised that these are two different organisations with two different booking systems.

What you actually sit

Part	Level	Format
Lezen	B1	110 minutes. Six texts, 35 or 36 multiple-choice questions. The texts arrive as a paper booklet you can write on, and you answer on a computer. Some questions ask you to find one detail inside a long text rather than understand the whole thing. A paper Van Dale NT2 pocket dictionary is allowed.
Luisteren	B1	90 minutes. Around 40 questions across five or more recordings, including video. You get 25 seconds to read each question, the audio starts automatically, and it plays once only. No dictionary.
Schrijven	B1	100 minutes, on a computer. Twelve tasks in three kinds: eight where you write or finish a single sentence, two where you write part of a text, and two short pieces such as a note or a short letter. Dictionary allowed. You choose the order.
Spreken	B1	About 25 minutes. Sixteen spoken tasks: eight short ones with 20 seconds of speaking time and eight longer ones with 30 seconds. You cannot go back to a task once you have passed it. No dictionary.
KNM	no CEFR level	45 minutes on a computer, multiple choice, grouped by theme: work and income, living, education, the rule of law, how the country is governed, and norms and values.

Why this applies to you

Your permit falls under the Wet inburgering 2021, which replaced the old 2013 law for everyone whose residence right was announced from 1 January 2022 onward.
Under that law your municipality sets a personal integration plan after an intake interview and a learnability test, and assigns you one of three learning routes: the B1 route, the education route, or the self-reliance route.
Family and other migrants are placed on the B1 route far more often than asylum status holders are. Counting DUO's own published open data on integration under the 2021 law, about 93 percent of family and other migrants with an assigned route are on the B1 route, against about 57 percent of asylum status holders. Those percentages are our calculation from that dataset, not a figure DUO publishes as a headline.
The B1 route's language exam is not a harder version of the A2 exam. Article 3.5 of the Besluit inburgering 2021 states that it takes place according to the rules of the Staatsexamen NT2. It is a different exam, with a different format and a different marking system.

Money, deadlines and booking

You pay for your own course. You can borrow up to 10,000 euro from DUO, but the loan is paid directly to a school with a Blik op Werk quality mark, never to you, so it cannot be spent on books, apps or private tutoring.
Each part of the Staatsexamen costs 50 euro, so 200 euro for all four language parts.
Each part is marked on its own scale and you need 500 to pass: Lezen runs 200 to 700, Luisteren and Spreken 100 to 800, and Schrijven 250 to 750. Reading and listening are machine marked. Writing and speaking are judged by two trained assessors against a marking scheme.
You can retake individual parts, but you can only register again once you have received the result.
If B1 turns out not to be reachable, there is a way down. See the downscaling page below.

Practicing for Programma I with Kora

Kora covers the Staatsexamen NT2 Programma I: reading and listening practice built to the CvTE format, with every answer explained in your own language rather than in Dutch. KNM is included, because it is the same exam on every route.

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.