Dutch integration · Updated October 2026

The inburgeringsexamen: the Dutch civic integration exam

Most guides describe one exam. There are really three: the A2 inburgeringsexamen, the B1 Staatsexamen NT2 that most people on the 2021 integration law now sit instead, and the A1 exam taken abroad before you move. Here is how to tell which one is yours, what every part involves, how it is marked, and where to practise for free.

Checked against DUO and the CvTE, October 2026Each part passed on its ownSix DUO exam locations

Mocko does not have practice tests for the inburgeringsexamen yet. This is our guide to the exam while we build them. What is live on Mocko today is French, English and Spanish exam prep: TEF, TCF, CELPIP, Versant, DELE A2 and SLE. If you want to practise for the inburgeringsexamen here, say so at the bottom of this page and we will prioritise it.

The inburgeringsexamen at a glance

Inburgering means civic integration, and the inburgeringsexamen is how you show you have done it: Dutch at the level your route requires, and knowledge of how Dutch society works. DUO runs the exams for the Ministry of Social Affairs and Employment. Every figure below comes from inburgeren.nl, the Staatsexamen NT2 site and the official practice exams and rubrics, checked in October 2026.

What it is	The exams that complete the Dutch integration obligation (inburgeringsplicht)Also used, at A2, as the language proof for naturalisation
Who runs it	DUO, for the Ministry of Social Affairs and Employment (SZW)The B1 language exam is the Staatsexamen NT2, written by the CvTE and delivered by DUO
Levels	A2 (inburgeringsexamen), B1 or B2 (Staatsexamen NT2), A1 (exam abroad)Which one you sit depends on your route, not on your choice
Parts at A2	Reading, listening, speaking, writing and KNM (knowledge of Dutch society)Plus ONA or MAP and the participation statement, which are not exams
Format	On a computer at a DUO location, except A2 writing, which is pen and paper
Pass rule	Each part is passed on its own. Marks never average across parts.
Fee	50 euro per part (A2 and KNM); 50 euro per part or 200 euro for all four (NT2)The official pages show no year; confirm in Mijn Inburgering before you book
Where	Six DUO locations: Amsterdam, Eindhoven, Rijswijk, Rotterdam, Utrecht, Zwolle
Results	A2 and KNM within 8 weeks; NT2 in about 5 weeksA2 speaking and writing currently take up to 16 weeks (DUO, 31 July 2026)
How to book	Mijn Inburgering, with DigiD. Waits can exceed six weeks.

Which exam do you need: A2, B1 or A1?

You do not choose your level. It follows from the law that applies to you and the route your municipality placed you on. The Wet inburgering 2021 has covered everyone who became obliged to integrate since 1 January 2022; the older Wet inburgering 2013 still applies to people who were obliged before that. Voluntary integrators, most often people applying to naturalise, follow the A2 rules.

Your situation	The exam	Level	Worth knowing
B1 route (Wet inburgering 2021)	Staatsexamen NT2 programma I, plus KNM	B1	The route most people are placed on since 1 January 2022. B2 (programma II) also counts.
Education route (onderwijsroute)	Staatsexamen NT2 programma I or II, plus KNM	B1 or B2	Mainly younger people heading for MBO, HBO or university.
Self-reliance route (Z-route)	No exam required	Target A1	Lessons, participation hours and a final interview instead. A2 exams are optional.
B1 not achievable after 600 hours of lessons	A2 inburgeringsexamen, per part	A2	Your municipality decides the switch, not you.
Older integration obligation (Wet inburgering 2013)	A2 inburgeringsexamen, KNM, and ONA for most cohorts	A2	About 9,600 people were still in this regime on 1 January 2026.
Naturalisation (Dutch citizenship)	A2 inburgeringsexamen, or Staatsexamen NT2 I or II	A2 or higher	A move to B1 is planned but not in force (see below).
Moving to the Netherlands with an mvv visa	Basisexamen inburgering buitenland	A1	Taken at a Dutch embassy or consulate before you travel.

You do not have to integrate if

You are a national of an EU or EEA country or Switzerland.
You are under 18 or have reached state pension (AOW) age.
You are in the Netherlands for a temporary purpose, such as study.

You may be exempt from some or all exams if

You hold a Dutch diploma, or a Dutch-language diploma from Belgium or Suriname.
You already passed the Staatsexamen NT2 at B1 or B2, which covers the language parts.
A medical or other special reason makes the exams impossible, which DUO decides on request.

Naturalisation is still A2, for now. The government plans to raise the language requirement for Dutch citizenship to B1, but the 2027 budget lists the decree as still in internal preparation, with no start date. If you are close to applying, an A2 certificate meets today’s rule; a Staatsexamen NT2 at B1 would meet both.

The A2 inburgeringsexamen, part by part

Five separate exams, each booked, paid for and passed on its own, in any order you like. Durations come from inburgeren.nl; the question counts and task types come from DUO’s own practice exams, which use the same software as the real thing.

Reading

Lezen

Computer65 minutes25 questions

Short everyday texts: emails, letters, flyers, house rules, web pages, rosters. In DUO’s practice exams there are 9 to 11 texts with one to three questions each.
Multiple choice with three or four options and one right answer. The text sits on one side of the screen and the question on the other.
Every question tells you to read the question first and the text second, and that is the right habit: you are hunting for one piece of information, not reading for pleasure.

What the marking rewards. Finding a specific fact, date, rule or instruction in a practical text. The vocabulary is the vocabulary of letters from the municipality, the school, the GP and the landlord.

Listening

Luisteren

Computer, headphones45 minutes25 questions

A mix of short video clips (conversations, a teacher, a news item, a company film) and audio only (voicemails, announcements).
In DUO’s practice exams there are 9 or 10 fragments, about two thirds of them video, each with two or three questions and three or four options.
The question and every answer option are also read aloud, so you know what to listen for before the clip starts.

What the marking rewards. Picking out the practical detail in ordinary spoken Dutch: a time, a place, what someone has to bring, why an appointment moved. Video helps, because the situation is visible.

Speaking

Spreken

Computer, recorded35 minutes16 questions

There is no examiner in the room. You answer on-screen prompts into a headset and the recording is rated later.
In DUO’s practice exams the 16 questions come in four groups of four: a person on video asks you something; you talk about one picture; you choose between two pictures and say why; you describe three pictures, a set or a sequence.
You get up to 60 seconds per answer. Most good answers need far less than that.

What the marking rewards. Each answer is rated out of 12 on six aspects: whether it does what was asked and can be understood (up to 3), vocabulary (2), grammar (2), fluency (2), coherence (1) and pronunciation (2). An answer that does not do what was asked scores zero on every aspect, so answer the actual question first.

Writing

Schrijven

Pen and paper40 minutes4 tasks

The only part still written by hand, with a blue pen, in an exam booklet.
In DUO’s practice exams the four tasks are a form to fill in, a short text for a neighbourhood newspaper and two emails or letters built from three or four bullet points; in some papers one of them is a note based on pictures.
Write in full sentences. A list of words does not count as an answer, even when every word is right.

What the marking rewards. Whether the task is done: every bullet point covered, every field of the form filled sensibly. After that come grammar, spelling, vocabulary and, for the longer texts, whether the sentences hang together. Forms are rated on task completion, spelling and vocabulary only.

Knowledge of Dutch society

Kennis van de Nederlandse Maatschappij (KNM)

Computer45 minutes40 questions

A new version of the exam has run since 1 July 2025.
Every question has a picture, and the question and its three answer options are read aloud. The questions are short everyday situations: a neighbour, a payslip, a school letter, a doctor.
Eight themes: history and geography; housing; the state and the rule of law; work and income; public bodies; education and raising children; manners, values and norms; health and health care.

What the marking rewards. Whether you know how things work in the Netherlands and what the right next step is: who to call, what you are entitled to, what is expected of you. It is a knowledge test at an easy language level, not a language test.

Under the 2013 law most people also complete ONA, Orientation on the Dutch Labour Market: a portfolio and an interview, or a 64-hour course, costing 40 euro. Under the 2021 law it is replaced by MAP, a module run by your municipality with no DUO exam. Neither tests your Dutch.

The B1 route: Staatsexamen NT2 programma I

Since 1 January 2022 the language exam of the B1 route is not a separate integration exam at all. It is the Staatsexamen NT2 programma I, the state exam in Dutch as a second language, written by the College voor Toetsen en Examens and taken at the same DUO locations. You still sit KNM on top. Demand has exploded: 60,186 NT2 exam sittings in 2024 and 95,642 in 2025, of which 73,374 were programma I.

Part	Time	What you do	2025 cut score	Passed in 2025
ReadingLezen	110 minutes	About 35 multiple choice questions on 6 texts. Paper text booklet, questions on screen. A dictionary is allowed.	24 of 35	44%
ListeningLuisteren	90 minutes	38 or 39 multiple choice questions on 4 or 5 audio texts and a video text. Each fragment is played once.	26 of 39	43%
WritingSchrijven	100 minutes	12 typed tasks: 8 sentence tasks (4 to finish, 4 to insert), 2 partial tasks (a short message or a form) and 2 short texts covering 5 to 7 points.	25 of 47	62%
SpeakingSpreken	About 25 minutes	16 recorded answers: 8 short ones of 20 seconds and 8 of 30 seconds. Each prompt is shown once, with no going back.	75 of 128	53%

Cut scores are the raw marks needed on the 2025 public exams; the CvTE sets the cut for each exam afterwards, so treat them as a guide. Pass rates are for programma I in 2025, from the CvTE annual report: every part fell against 2024, reading and listening by about nine points, and the CvTE says it has no explanation yet.

B1 is a different exam, not a harder A2. Listening texts are heard once, speaking answers are 20 or 30 seconds instead of up to 60, writing is typed and marked against grammar points, and reading is close to two hours of longer texts. Practising on A2 material will not prepare you for it.

How it is marked

The good news is that nothing is all or nothing. The less good news is that DUO does not publish the real A2 pass marks, so aim above the targets its own practice exams give.

Every part stands alone

There is no total score and no averaging. You pass or fail reading, listening, speaking, writing and KNM separately, you keep the parts you passed, and you only resit and pay for the part you failed.

No published pass mark, but a guide

DUO does not publish the pass mark of the real A2 exams or KNM. Its practice exams give a guide instead: the KNM practice exam counts as passed at 28 of 40, and the reading and listening practice exams show your chance of passing in bands (for reading, 17 to 22 correct is a reasonable chance and 23 or more a large one). Treat them as targets, not guarantees.

Speaking and writing are rated by people

Reading, listening and KNM are scored by the computer. Speaking recordings and writing booklets go to trained raters working from the published rubric, which is why those results take longer, currently up to 16 weeks at A2.

The Staatsexamen NT2 is scaled to 500

At B1 and B2, raw points are converted to a scale and 500 or more passes each part. The CvTE sets the raw cut score after each exam, which is why the public exams publish theirs: 75 of 128 for speaking in 2025, for example.

Booking and changing a date

You book in Mijn Inburgering with your DigiD. DUO warns that it can take more than six weeks before you can sit an exam. Changing or cancelling is free, with a refund, up to one week before the exam.

Who pays

Exams cost 50 euro per part. Asylum status holders get the first two attempts at each exam free; later attempts are paid and cannot come out of the DUO loan. The Staatsexamen NT2 can be paid from the DUO loan, or by the municipality for status holders.

Results and your deadline

Results arrive by letter and in Mijn Inburgering. Because A2 speaking and writing results are delayed, DUO gives an automatic six-month extension to people close to their integration deadline. Diplomas have been digital since 1 January 2026.

The exam abroad: basisexamen inburgering buitenland (A1)

If you need an mvv, the provisional residence visa, to join a partner or family member in the Netherlands, you sit a shorter A1 exam on a computer at a Dutch embassy or consulate before you travel. Each of its three parts is graded from 1 to 10 and a 6 or higher passes. The fee is 50 euro per part, 150 euro in total, and about 9,000 people a year take it.

KNS, knowledge of Dutch society

30 questions in 30 minutes. A photo and a spoken question with two answer options. Every question and answer is in the official photo book of the self-study pack.

Lezen, reading

19 questions in 35 minutes on short texts.

Spreken, speaking

22 recorded items in 30 minutes: 10 questions to answer and 12 sentences to complete. The full list of speaking items is published by the government.

Practice exams and the self-study pack, available in 33 languages, are on naarnederland.nl. Passing it does not replace the inburgeringsexamen: once you live in the Netherlands the integration obligation still applies.

How to prepare for the inburgeringsexamen

The format is predictable and fully documented, which is the best thing about this exam. People fail on the computer-recorded speaking and on the writing rubric far more often than on vocabulary, so practise in the exam’s own shape from the start.

Start with the free official exams

Inburgeren.nl has 15 free A2 practice exams in the real exam software: four reading, three listening, three speaking, two KNM, and three writing booklets to print. For B1, oefenexamensnt2.nl has interactive exams plus the 2023, 2024 and 2025 public exams with their marking models.

Read the rubrics before you practise speaking

DUO publishes the A2 speaking rubric. An answer that does not do what the question asks scores zero on every aspect, so the first skill to train is answering exactly the question on screen, in full sentences, before you worry about accent.

Record yourself against a clock

Nobody talks back in the speaking exam. Rehearse with a timer and a recording: up to 60 seconds per answer at A2, 20 or 30 seconds at B1. Listening back to yourself is the closest thing to how the raters hear you.

Write by hand for A2, type for B1

A2 writing is still pen and paper, so practise on paper and check your spelling yourself. Cover every bullet point of an email task, because missing one costs more than a grammar slip. B1 writing is typed and tests specific sentence patterns, like subordinate clauses and inversion.

Treat KNM as a knowledge test

KNM questions and their options are read aloud and the language is easy. What is tested is how things work: who you call about rent benefit, what a school expects from parents, what to do when you are ill. The two official KNM practice exams show the eight themes.

Book early, then work backwards

Exam dates can be more than six weeks out, and A2 speaking and writing results currently take up to 16 weeks. If you have an integration or naturalisation deadline, book the parts you are ready for first and keep the hardest one for last.

Official A2 and KNM practice (inburgeren.nl)Official B1 and B2 practice (oefenexamensnt2.nl)

Where Mocko fits, honestly

We do not have inburgeringsexamen or Staatsexamen NT2 practice tests yet. Dutch is not in the product, and we would rather say so than let you find out after signing up. What is live on Mocko today is French, English and Spanish exam prep: timed mock exams with the same kind of computer-recorded speaking these exams use, marked instantly. If you also need English for work or study, the Versant test guide is the place to start, and the Mocko blog covers the rest. If you want Dutch practice here, tell us at the bottom of this page.

Inburgeringsexamen: frequently asked questions

What is the inburgeringsexamen?

It is the set of exams that completes the Dutch integration obligation: reading, listening, speaking and writing in Dutch, plus KNM, a test of knowledge of Dutch society. At A2 it is run by DUO for the Ministry of Social Affairs and Employment. Under the 2021 integration law most people take the language part at B1 instead, through the Staatsexamen NT2.

Do I need A2 or B1 for the inburgeringsexamen?

It depends on your route. If your integration obligation started on or after 1 January 2022 and you are on the B1 route, you need the Staatsexamen NT2 programma I (B1) plus KNM. If you fall under the 2013 law, if your municipality switched you to A2 after 600 hours of lessons, or if you are integrating voluntarily for naturalisation, the A2 inburgeringsexamen applies.

What is the pass mark for the A2 inburgeringsexamen?

DUO does not publish the pass mark of the real exam. Its free practice exams give a guide: the KNM practice exam counts as passed at 28 of 40, and the reading and listening practice exams show your chance of passing in bands, with 23 or more of 25 in reading a large chance. DUO also publishes the speaking and writing rubrics, and they are worth reading closely: an off-task answer scores zero however good the Dutch is.

How much does the inburgeringsexamen cost?

At A2, 50 euro per part, so 250 euro for reading, listening, speaking, writing and KNM. ONA costs 40 euro. The Staatsexamen NT2 costs 50 euro per part or 200 euro for all four. Asylum status holders get the first two attempts at each A2 exam free.

Is the inburgeringsexamen on a computer?

Mostly. Reading, listening, speaking and KNM are taken on a computer at a DUO location, and speaking is recorded rather than done with an examiner. A2 writing is the exception: it is still written with a pen in an exam booklet. At B1, the Staatsexamen NT2 writing exam is typed.

What is KNM and how hard is it?

KNM, Kennis van de Nederlandse Maatschappij, tests what you know about life in the Netherlands across eight themes, from housing and work to health care and the rule of law. Since 1 July 2025 it has 40 three-option questions in 45 minutes, each with a picture, and the question and options are read aloud. The language is simple; the knowledge is what is tested.

Do I need B1 for Dutch citizenship?

Not as of October 2026. Naturalisation still asks for A2, which the A2 inburgeringsexamen or the Staatsexamen NT2 meets. The government plans to raise it to B1, but the 2027 budget lists the implementing decree as still in internal preparation, with no date. Check inburgeren.nl and the IND before you apply.

How long do inburgeringsexamen results take?

DUO normally sends A2 and KNM results within 8 weeks. Since 31 July 2026 it has said A2 speaking and writing can take up to 16 weeks because of a rating backlog, and it extends deadlines automatically for people close to theirs. Staatsexamen NT2 results take about 5 weeks.

Can I retake one part of the inburgeringsexamen?

Yes. Every part is a separate exam with its own result, so you keep what you passed and book only the part you failed. Each attempt is paid again unless it is one of the two free attempts for asylum status holders. For the Staatsexamen NT2, you can book a retake once you have the result.

Where can I practise for the inburgeringsexamen for free?

Inburgeren.nl has 15 free official A2 practice exams: four reading, three listening, three speaking, two KNM and three writing booklets to print. For B1, oefenexamensnt2.nl has interactive Staatsexamen NT2 exams and the 2023 to 2025 public exams with their rating models and cut scores. Start there before you pay for anything.

Integration rules, fees and waiting times change. Everything here was checked against DUO, the CvTE and Dutch government sources in October 2026, but Mijn Inburgering and your municipality are the authority on your own obligation.

Other exams joining Mocko

Guides to the other language certificates joining Mocko, with the format, the levels and what each one is accepted for.

DELE A2 · SpanishPractice liveThe Instituto Cervantes A2 diploma, and the exam route to Spanish nationality.fide test · FrenchSwitzerland’s oral and written language test for residence and naturalisation.SLE · FrenchPractice liveThe Government of Canada’s Second Language Evaluation, graded A, B, C and E.CILS B1 Cittadinanza · ItalianThe shortened B1 exam built specifically for Italian citizenship applications.CIPLE · PortugueseCAPLE’s A2 certificate, the language proof for Portuguese nationality.

Want to practise for the inburgeringsexamen on Mocko?

Practice tests for the inburgeringsexamen are not live yet. Email us and we will tell you the day they open, and we will use what you tell us about your exam date to decide what to build first.