Opening a DEGIRO or Meesman Account as an Expat: A Step-by-Step Walkthrough

Our broker comparison guide covers which category of platform fits your situation — this one covers what actually happens once you click "open account" on the two most commonly chosen: DEGIRO, the discount broker, and Meesman, the index-only platform. Both processes are genuinely quick once you're eligible to start them. The part that trips up new arrivals isn't the form itself — it's discovering, halfway through, that you're missing a prerequisite you didn't know you needed.

Before you start: what you need in hand

Both platforms need three things from you before they'll open an account, and they need them in this order:

A BSN (burgerservicenummer). Both DEGIRO and Meesman ask for your Dutch citizen service number during signup — it's how they report your holdings for Dutch tax purposes. If you haven't registered with your municipality yet, stop here and do that first; see our first-90-days checklist for the full sequence.
A bank account in your own name, in the account's base currency. For a EUR account, that means a working Dutch (or other SEPA) IBAN — not a home-country account still in your name from before you moved. Both platforms verify this by asking you to transfer a small amount (commonly a cent or two) from that account, confirming the name on the account matches your application.
A valid passport or EU/EEA ID card. Both platforms verify identity with a document scan plus a live selfie or short video check. A residence permit alone typically isn't accepted as the primary document — bring your passport.

If any of these three aren't in place yet, the account-opening form will let you get partway through and then stall. Get the BSN and bank account sorted first; the broker step is the fast part.

Opening a DEGIRO account

Register with your personal and tax details, including your BSN and country of tax residency.
Complete the knowledge-and-experience questionnaire. This is an EU-wide regulatory requirement (MiFID II), not a DEGIRO-specific hurdle — every EU broker asks it. Answer honestly rather than rushing through to "get it done": if your answers indicate limited experience with a given instrument type (derivatives, for instance), the platform may restrict you from trading it directly until you demonstrate more familiarity. This is a protection, not a bureaucratic wall.
Verify your identity by uploading your passport or ID and completing the live selfie/video check.
Link and verify your bank account in your base currency, confirming it via the small transfer described above.
Choose your account type. DEGIRO offers a small number of account tiers with different levels of product access and cost structure — check the current options directly on their site, since tier names and what each includes are exactly the kind of thing that changes between when this is written and when you read it.
Fund the account and place your first order.

Opening a Meesman account

Apply online, providing your BSN, passport/ID, and bank account details. Meesman's own estimate is twenty to thirty minutes for the whole application if you have everything in hand.
Complete identity verification via a photo or video liveness check alongside your ID document.
Choose an account type. Meesman offers a standard investment account and a dedicated pension account (lijfrente-style) for retirement saving with different tax treatment — decide which fits your goal before you start, since they're not the same product.
Pick your fund. True to the "index-only" category described in our broker guide, you're choosing from a small, deliberately limited menu — typically a global equity index fund or a mixed stock/bond fund at different risk levels — rather than assembling a portfolio yourself.
Set up your deposit. Meesman is built around automatic recurring monthly investing rather than one-off trades; you can also fund it with a lump sum, but decide your ongoing contribution now rather than treating this as a one-time top-up.

The snags that are specific to being an expat

Wrong-order attempts are the single most common failure mode. Trying to open a broker account before your BSN exists or before your Dutch bank account is actually active (not just requested) will stall the application partway through — the platforms don't tell you this upfront, you just hit a wall.
A home-country account won't satisfy the bank-linking step, even if it's in your name and even if it holds euros. The account needs to be one you can receive the verification transfer into and that matches the currency of the brokerage account you're opening.
Document acceptance is confirmed at signup, not before. If you're a non-EU national relying on a residence permit as your primary ID, don't assume it'll be accepted — bring your passport as the default, and treat anything else as a bonus that might work.
A "limited experience" questionnaire result isn't a bug to route around. If you're tempted to re-answer the knowledge questionnaire until it unlocks what you originally wanted to trade, that defeats the point of the check — it exists because those products carry real risk that's worth understanding first, not because the platform doesn't trust you.

After the account is open

The account-opening step is a one-time task, but two things about it are worth revisiting: your January 1st portfolio statement each year for your Box 3 wealth tax declaration, and whether the account type or fund choice you picked on day one still fits as your situation changes — a pension account decision or a fund's risk level isn't meant to be "set once and never reconsidered," even if the deposit itself is automated. Neither platform is named here as a recommendation over the other; which one fits depends on the comparison factors in our broker guide, not on which one has the shorter signup form. See the path to FI for where this step fits.