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Application form for authorisation as a third country investment firm

This service should be used by firms with a registered office in third countries (except Australia, the United States or Switzerland) who wish to offer their investment services in the Netherlands. It is not possible to obtain a European passport on this licence.

Requirements

Firms need to consider the following options:

1. If your only activity in the Netherlands is dealing on own account, you may be exempted due to article 10a Exemption Regulation. We recommend you to consider the full text of the exemption. No further action is required.

2. If your investment firm does not fall under 1. and does not operate an MTF or OTF, only provides services to professional clients and eligible counter parties and has its registered office in Australia, the United States or Switzerland, you can apply for an exemption. We refer you to the Application exemption investment firms art 10.

For more information we recommend you to consider the full text of the exemption.

Cost

The AFM charges a fee of €200 per hour, with a maximum of €100.000 per application. Also a fee is required per person that needs to be assessed by the AFM, of €2.900 per suitability test and €700 per integrity test. If the persons have already been tested before by the AFM in similar function, the AFM charges no fees for the suitability test update and/or for the integrity test update.

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Notification form for third country investment firms from Australia, United States and Switzerland

Investment firms with their registered office in Australia, the United States or Switzerland that only offer services professional clients or eligible counterparties or perform dealing on own account are exempt from the requirement to obtain a license in the Netherlands. They need to be registered with their local supervisor regarding these services or activities.

For investment firms with their registered office in the United Kingdom, it is possible to apply for an exemption conditional to a no deal Brexit.

To offer investment services in the Netherlands a registration is required. To be registered it is required that:

the provision of the investment services is subject to supervision by a supervisory body in the country of the firm's registered office.

a certificate of supervised status from the supervisory body is submitted to the AFM prior to the provision of investment services in the Netherlands.

Investment firms with their registered office in other countries than Australia, the United States, the United Kingdom or Switzerland need to obtain a license in the Netherlands.

Cost

The AFM charges €4,400 for this application.

Deregistration

If an investment firm with its registered office in Australia, the United States, the United Kingdom or Switzerland no longer wants to make use of the exemption from the requirement to obtain a license, a deregistration with the AFM is required. This denotification is free of charge.

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