The Founding Sequence
Every requirement of a DAFT founding depends on another one, and doing them in the wrong order is how people lose months. Here is the order that does not deadlock, phase by phase.
Since April 2024 you can file first and assemble after, which is the single fact that makes this sequence calm.
The untangled order: before the move, get the slow US documents moving and line up a Dutch accountant with a BECON number. On landing, register with the municipality within five days, because the BSN unlocks everything. In the first month, register the business at the KVK, open the business bank account, deposit the €4,500, and have the accountant sign the opening balance. Since the April 2024 pilot none of that has to exist before a first-time applicant's DAFT application is filed. Health insurance follows within four months of arrival.
Address before KVK, because the registry will not register a business into thin air. BSN before bank, because no Dutch bank onboards a ghost. Bank before balance, because the accountant cannot attest to money that has nowhere to sit. Every horror story in this process is one of these three, attempted backwards.
From our own file: the accountant call is the one we did earliest, and it retroactively organized everything else. One conversation, and the sequence stopped being trivia and became a to-do list.