Reference metadata describe statistical concepts and methodologies used for the collection and generation of data. They provide information on data quality and, since they are strongly content-oriented, assist users in interpreting the data. Reference metadata, unlike structural metadata, can be decoupled from the data.
Data collection on the residence permits (RESPER) statistics contains statistical information based on the principles stated in the Union legislation on migration Regulation (EC) No 862/2007 as amended by the Regulation (EU) 2020/851 and the Commission Regulation (EU) No 216/2010 implementing the categories of reasons for residence permits.
The main RESPER data collection based on Article 6 of the Migration Statistics Regulation
First residence permits,
Residence permits issued on the occasion of changing the immigration status or reason to stay,
Residence permits valid at the end of the year,
Long-term residence permits valid at the end of the year,
Long-term permits issued during the year.
Statistics collected on voluntary basis
Residence permits issued for family reunification with beneficiaries of protection status.
3.2. Classification system
See table 3.2. in annex ‘Quality report tables RESPER’.
3.3. Coverage - sector
Migration and asylum – Residence permits statistics.
3.4. Statistical concepts and definitions
See table 3.4. in annex ‘Quality report tables RESPER’.
3.5. Statistical unit
Number of persons.
Technically, in the administrative systems the number of permits issued are administrated and counted, not the number of persons receiving a permit. However, the difference between number of persons and number of permits is negligible. Only when a person is granted a (first) permit more than once in the same reference period due to administrative issues, this person can be included more than once in the reference dataset and there may arise double counting, however this is less than 1 % of the cases. And in the statistic of all valid permits on 31 December, there may be a slight difference as some people do have multiple permits.
3.6. Statistical population
See table 3.6. in annex ‘Quality report tables RESPER’.
3.7. Reference area
The Netherlands
3.8. Coverage - Time
See table 3.8. in annex ‘Quality report tables RESPER’.
3.9. Base period
Not applicable.
Number of persons.
Calendar year.
6.1. Institutional Mandate - legal acts and other agreements
Until 2021 the residence permits statistics are based on the Regulation (EC) 862/2007. Data delivery for reference year 2021 onwards is based on Regulation (EC) 862/2007 as amended by Regulation (EU) 2020/851.
The Immigration and Naturalization Service (a Service of the Ministry of Justice and Security) is responsible in the Netherlands for the issuance of residence permits and the registration of the administrative data.
The "Wet op het Centraal bureau voor de statistiek, van 2 maart 2022" (the dutch Law on Statistics Netherlands, 2 March 2022) states in article 4 that CBS is responsible for the production of the EU statistics.
This comprises all (mandatory and voluntary) statistics mentioned in the several EU Regulations and Directives.
There exists a formal agreement between IND and CBS regarding the provision of data from IND to CBS for the purpose of EU and other statistics, which also features the residence permits data.
6.2. Institutional Mandate - data sharing
Data sharing is conform the agreement between IND and CBS regarding the provision of data from IND to CBS for the purpose of (EU and other) statistics, and conform the 'CBS law' and other relevant legal acts and agreements.
IND receives and registers all applications for residence permits and the outcome of the decisions on the applications. All relevant data are registered at IND in the database Indigo. IND has moreover the Metis datawarehouse, which contains all the necessary data concerning the flow of permits, the source for the data in Metis is Indigo. Based on METIS, IND compiles the residence permits tables RP1(AS) - RP5(AS). The stock reports (RP6 and RP7) are based upon a query for which the source is Indigo. IND sends all compiled tables to CBS.
CBS has set up a secure and automated data processing system to receive the data from IND, to process the data, and send the statistics via Edamis to Eurostat. This system includes the "database EU Asylum and managed Migration" and several secure and automated procedures for receiving, processing and sending the data. All procedures are in accordance with the CBS standards in the field of data collection and processing.
7.1. Confidentiality - policy
The General Data Protection Regulation applies in The Netherlands, and therefore to CBS and IND.
CBS defines a confidential cell as a cell where the number is lower than 7. Usually this cell is suppressed, however, depending on the statistic, also controlled rounding can be used, for example to the nearest fivefold or tenfold. CBS checks in general for residual disclosure, with methods depending on the statistic. In the publication in Statline based on the residence permit data, the data is treated in the same manner, data are rounded to the nearest fivefold to prevent disclosure. IND sends the aggregated and not-rounded tables via a secure data portal to CBS. As Eurostat itself has confidentiality rules for publications, and because of the secure process of sending data via Edamis to Eurostat, CBS applies no rounding or suppressing in the supplied tables.
8.1. Release calendar
At CBS, all regular statistical outputs are released on Statline.
A new statistical output may be accompanied by a news item. There is a publicly accessible CBS release calendar for these news items: Publicatieplanning | CBS. But often statistical outputs are released on Statline, without accompanying news item. In that case the new data release is not in this release calendar.
However, there is in each of the Statline tables a statement (to be found under the Table Information Icon) when the next data release will be. These Statline tables are publicly accessible.
The residence permit data are (partly) published by CBS in the annual Statline tables:
The moment of publication of the new yearly data is in general in June, this information can be found under "tabelinformatie - tabeltoelichting" (Explanation).
8.3. Release policy - user access
The general release policy of CBS is to publish all regular statistics via Statline and Open Data: StatLine (cbs.nl) This is accessible to the general public via the website of CBS.
In addition, statistics may be presented by dashboards, or other visuals. Moreover, any newly published statistic may be accompanied by a written 'news item' which gives some highlights of the data or a longer analysis. Every part of a publication is available on CBS.
By these methods of publication, CBS provides for the dissemination of statistical data to all users at the same time.
The publicatieplanning on the CBS-website gives an overview of the dates and moments that statistics are made publicly available through an 'news item' . Other statistics (without news item) are made publicly available from 0:00 h (at night) in our databank StatLine.
CBS publishes its release policy on its website : Publicatiebeleid | CBS. This policy provides for the dissemination of statistical data to all users at the same time.
CBS may send new publications under embargo, in advance of the release of the data, to government organisations and agencies, and to the press. For the press, the maximum embargo period is 24 hours before publication. For the governmental organisations, the maximum embargo period is from 12:00 h in the afternoon on the working day before publication.
Yearly
10.1. Dissemination format - News release
Each year the tables 'temporary residence permits; purposes of stay and nationality' and 'verblijfsvergunningen voor bepaalde tijd; verblijfsgrond en nationaliteit' will be published in Statline. These contain (part of the) data from the residence permit tables. The first release of the Statline tables concerned the reference year 2008, and every June data of the new reference year is added.
10.2. Dissemination format - Publications
The publication of statistics based on the residence permit data is mostly in the form of a Statline table. CBS may issue a publication in the form of a 'news item', at the same time as the release of the data of the new reference year, in June.
10.3. Dissemination format - online database
The complete online database of CBS, containing all regular statistics, can be found here: StatLine (cbs.nl).
The English version of this database, containing the statistics considered internationally most relevant, can be found here: StatLine (cbs.nl).
The residence permit data are (partly) published by CBS in the annual Statline tables:
There is no access to the microdata. CBS does not receive the residence permit microdata, IND sends the aggregated tables to CBS.
10.5. Dissemination format - other
Apart from sending the tables to Eurostat and dissemination of the statistics in Statline, there are generally no other means of dissemination.
In some years a news item may be published, at the same time as the dissemination of the new reference year data in Statline.
10.5.1. Metadata - consultations
Not applicable.
10.6. Documentation on methodology
Both IND and CBS work in accordance with the relevant Eurostat guidelines.
10.6.1. Metadata completeness - rate
Not applicable.
10.7. Quality management - documentation
Not applicable.
11.1. Quality assurance
CBS has implemented a.o. the European Statistics Code of Practice (CoP), the ESS Quality Assurance Framework (QAF), ISO-9001, works accordingly the CBS-law, and is regularly audited by external auditors.
IND has a division that is responsible for data quality: they measure on a very regular basis the quality of the data content and of the data-entry in INDIGO (the registration system for a.o. residence permit data), this is performed as well for the residence permit data. On a daily basis a number of cases is randomly selected and checked. When errors are found, they are reported to the staff responsible for the data entry, and they will correct the mistakes immediately. Also quarterly reports are send to the managing board. Moreover, before sets of data are selected to be extracted from INDIGO into METIS (the datawarehouse from which a.o. the tables for Eurostat are extracted), the process of data extraction is checked extensively.
The checks performed are a.o.: checking the data integrity over each processing step, totals consistency, changes over time, using intervals of values for outliers/errors detection, whether double counting cases are excluded, and checking the consistency between statistics by "reason" and statistics by "age" and "sex" categories.
11.2. Quality management - assessment
The quality assurance processes as described in 11.1. lead to qualitatively good data. When in the described registrations and processes errors are found, they are immediately corrected, thereby ensuring qualitatively good data sets. On the ensuing data sets, in this case the residence permit tables, no other quality checks are performed.
12.1. Relevance - User Needs
The statistics collected under Regulation (EC) 862/2007 are used by a wide range of users at national, European and International level to cover various user needs.
Users of residence permit statistics :
The statistics collected under the Regulation (EU) 851/2020 are widely used in official publications and by a wide range of users at national, European and International level. The statistics produced are regularly used by national administrations, academic researchers and civil society groups working on a wide range of topics including the integration of immigrants, the development and monitoring of national asylum and immigration procedures, and the projection of the future population and labour force.
At National level the Ministry of Justice and Security and CBS are main users of the residence permit statistics.
At European level, the main users of the statistics are Eurostat and DG Migration and Home Affairs. These statistics are used in several publications of the Commission, as well as in the preparation of regular reports, policy proposals and analysis. The statistics also provide an input to the European Migration Network studies and reports that address specific issues of current policy importance.
Unmet user needs (on statistics) and reasons why these needs cannot be satisfied (at national and international level) : There are no unmet needs.
12.2. Relevance - User Satisfaction
No user satisfaction surveys are conducted.
12.3. Completeness
See table 12.3. in annex ‘Quality report tables RESPER’.
12.3.1. Data completeness - rate
Not applicable.
13.1. Accuracy - overall
The accuracy of all residence permit tables is high, which means about 100 % accuracy. The reported statistics measure accurately the target population, as foreseen by Regulation (EC) 862/2007 (as amended by Regulation (EU) 2020/851) and as defined in the Technical Guidelines for residence permit statistics. The target population, i.e the third country nationals applying for a residence permit, is very accurately represented by the applications for residence permits in the registrations of IND, and validated compilations of these data are made to fill the mandatory tables. The bias is zero.
13.2. Sampling error
Not applicable.
13.2.1. Sampling error - indicators
Not applicable.
13.3. Non-sampling error
There are no coverage errors and no nonresponse errors. Processing errors sometimes occur in extracting the table from METIS/INDIGO, sometimes in the method of extracting, but usually in the format of the table. There may be small measurement errors: one person can be included more than once in the reference dataset, however this is usually less than 1 % of the cases.
13.3.1. Coverage error
There is no difference between the frame population and the target population. There is no under-coverage or over-coverage.
13.3.1.1. Over-coverage - rate
Not applicable.
13.3.1.2. Common units - proportion
Not applicable.
13.3.2. Measurement error
There may be small measurement errors: for first permits one person can be included more than once in the reference dataset, this happens when a person is granted a permit more than once in the same reference period due to administrative issues. However this is usually less than 1 % of the cases. Some people do have multiple permits, so in the table ' all valid permits on 31 December they are counted more than once.
Outside of the before mentioned errors, there are no other measurement errors: all individual data records concerning residence permits are registered within a few days in INDIGO (the registration system of IND) . Based on these data all mandatory tables are yearly extracted, checked and validated.
13.3.3. Non response error
Not applicable.
13.3.3.1. Unit non-response - rate
Not applicable.
13.3.3.2. Item non-response - rate
Not applicable.
13.3.4. Processing error
Processing errors sometimes occur in extracting the table from METIS/INDIGO, sometimes in the method of extracting, but mostly in the format of the table. CBS corrects the format errors, and processing errors due to method errors are corrected by IND.
13.3.5. Model assumption error
Not applicable.
14.1. Timeliness
Data supply to Eurostat is in accordance with the Regulation and the Technical Guidelines, also concerning the timeframe of sending data to Eurostat.
Number of days (on average) after the end of the reference period at which the country is able to report the first/preliminary data, at the earliest : 120 days.
Reasons for possible long production of the first/preliminary data and plans to improve the situation : The tables are produced and send to Eurostat within the mandatory deadlines.
14.1.1. Time lag - first result
Not applicable.
14.1.2. Time lag - final result
Not applicable.
14.2. Punctuality
See table 14.2. in annex ‘Quality report tables RESPER’.
14.2.1. Punctuality - delivery and publication
Not applicable.
15.1. Comparability - geographical
The statistics are comparable between all regions of the Netherlands, because there is only one national system of accumulating and processing the data.
15.1.1. Asymmetry for mirror flow statistics - coefficient
Not applicable.
15.2. Comparability - over time
See table 15.2. in annex ‘Quality report tables RESPER’.
15.2.1. Length of comparable time series
Not applicable.
15.3. Coherence - cross domain
There are no coherence issues with other data sets.
15.3.1. Coherence - sub annual and annual statistics
The statistics are comparable over all years.
There are no sub annual statistics, only annual statistics.
15.3.2. Coherence - National Accounts
Not applicable.
15.4. Coherence - internal
All residence permits statistics are extracted from a datawarehouse (METIS) which is based on INDIGO, the registration system of IND in which all administrative individual data records concerning residence permits are registered. All residence permit statistics are coherent with the microdataset in INDIGO and METIS. Checks are performed to ensure coherence.
Not available.
17.1. Data revision - policy
The Netherlands does not have a data revision policy for these statistics: the data produced are final data.
17.2. Data revision - practice
See table 17.2. in annex ‘Quality report tables RESPER’.
17.2.1. Data revision - average size
Not applicable.
18.1. Source data
See table 18.1. in annex ‘Quality report tables RESPER’.
18.2. Frequency of data collection
All source data are collected and processed continuously by IND. In order to submit the data to Eurostat, compilations of the data are made on an annual base.
18.3. Data collection
The sole source for the datasets for year 2012 and onwards is METIS, the IND datawarehouse, based on INDIGO, the IND registration system.
The datasets for the years 2008 through 2011 are based on INDIS, the former registration system of the Netherlands. (There is no break in the time series from 2011 to 2012)
18.4. Data validation
During the process of monitoring to ensure the quality of the resulting tables, a.o. the next checks are performed: an automatic check on integrity of the data within the datawarehouse; checking that the population coverage is accurate according to the definitions of the Technical guidelines; checking retrospectively a sample of the data in the register in order to confirm that they are accurate; comparing yearly the data with data of previous periods; checking for outliers.
18.5. Data compilation
METIS (the IND datawarehouse), which is based on INDIGO (the registration system at IND of a.o. the administrative data records of residence permits), is the sole source for the tables. INDIGO is an integral microdata registration of all permits, therefore there is no imputation, no adjustment to non-response and no weighting of records. Based on METIS/INDIGO, for each table the required records are extracted, aggregated and counted, and tabulated into the table, according to the guidelines.
Data collection on the residence permits (RESPER) statistics contains statistical information based on the principles stated in the Union legislation on migration Regulation (EC) No 862/2007 as amended by the Regulation (EU) 2020/851 and the Commission Regulation (EU) No 216/2010 implementing the categories of reasons for residence permits.
The main RESPER data collection based on Article 6 of the Migration Statistics Regulation
First residence permits,
Residence permits issued on the occasion of changing the immigration status or reason to stay,
Residence permits valid at the end of the year,
Long-term residence permits valid at the end of the year,
Long-term permits issued during the year.
Statistics collected on voluntary basis
Residence permits issued for family reunification with beneficiaries of protection status.
13 May 2025
See table 3.4. in annex ‘Quality report tables RESPER’.
Number of persons.
Technically, in the administrative systems the number of permits issued are administrated and counted, not the number of persons receiving a permit. However, the difference between number of persons and number of permits is negligible. Only when a person is granted a (first) permit more than once in the same reference period due to administrative issues, this person can be included more than once in the reference dataset and there may arise double counting, however this is less than 1 % of the cases. And in the statistic of all valid permits on 31 December, there may be a slight difference as some people do have multiple permits.
See table 3.6. in annex ‘Quality report tables RESPER’.
The Netherlands
Calendar year.
The accuracy of all residence permit tables is high, which means about 100 % accuracy. The reported statistics measure accurately the target population, as foreseen by Regulation (EC) 862/2007 (as amended by Regulation (EU) 2020/851) and as defined in the Technical Guidelines for residence permit statistics. The target population, i.e the third country nationals applying for a residence permit, is very accurately represented by the applications for residence permits in the registrations of IND, and validated compilations of these data are made to fill the mandatory tables. The bias is zero.
Number of persons.
METIS (the IND datawarehouse), which is based on INDIGO (the registration system at IND of a.o. the administrative data records of residence permits), is the sole source for the tables. INDIGO is an integral microdata registration of all permits, therefore there is no imputation, no adjustment to non-response and no weighting of records. Based on METIS/INDIGO, for each table the required records are extracted, aggregated and counted, and tabulated into the table, according to the guidelines.
See table 18.1. in annex ‘Quality report tables RESPER’.
Yearly
Data supply to Eurostat is in accordance with the Regulation and the Technical Guidelines, also concerning the timeframe of sending data to Eurostat.
Number of days (on average) after the end of the reference period at which the country is able to report the first/preliminary data, at the earliest : 120 days.
Reasons for possible long production of the first/preliminary data and plans to improve the situation : The tables are produced and send to Eurostat within the mandatory deadlines.
The statistics are comparable between all regions of the Netherlands, because there is only one national system of accumulating and processing the data.
See table 15.2. in annex ‘Quality report tables RESPER’.
