UK nationals who settled here before the end of the Brexit transition period hold Withdrawal Agreement documents that are now several years old, and renewal is often the wrong frame for where that group actually stands. Timing still matters for anyone holding a temporary document.
Most of this cohort has moved past the point where renewal is even the right word. UK nationals living in the Netherlands before the end of the Brexit transition period got Withdrawal Agreement documents from IND — either a temporary one, valid five years, for those who hadn't yet hit five years of residence, or a permanent one straight away if they already had. Since most of those original documents were issued back in 2020 or 2021, the large majority of that pre-2021 cohort has by now crossed the five-year mark and is either already holding, or eligible to apply for, the permanent version — that's the normal 2026 state for most people in this group, not still cycling through temporary five-year renewals. You can apply for permanent status up to three months before your temporary document expires, avoiding any lapse. The permanent document itself is valid ten years for adults (five if under 18) and can be renewed, but renewing it isn't mandatory to keep your underlying rights — it's really just a card refresh. No reports of renewal backlogs or biometric issues specific to this group turned up in research, though that isn't a guarantee there are none — check ind.nl/brexit or contact IND directly well before any expiry date.