Whether you’ve just bought it or been using your card for a while, it’s handy to know exactly how to activate or cancel your Student Mobility Card. We outline both processes below.
After just seven easy steps you’ll soon be able to travel the entire country with ease. However, in our experience, there’s one aspect that particularly confuses international students who have just arrived in the Netherlands — “picking up” your card. We’ll make sure to fully explain what this means and what it involves below, as well as all the other things you can expect before hopping on your first train.
Please note that you can only follow these steps once you’ve already bought and received your Student Mobility Card. Haven’t bought one yet? You can grab yours here.
Head on over to the App Store or Google Play Store and download the Student Mobility app free of charge. Here, you’ll also be able to see an overview of your travels and be conveniently charged for these.
Once you’ve downloaded the Student Mobility app, it will prompt you to make an account, as well as to connect your Student Mobility Card.
Next, it’s time to add your payment method of choice. Best of all: No Dutch bank account? No problem. You can choose to add a credit card from your home country, after which the app will ask you to verify it via a 0.01 EUR payment.
Before you can board your first train or tram, you’ll need to give us four hours to prepare your ‘digital product’ — essentially, this is your subscription which will allow you to travel with a student discount and be automatically charged for it via the payment method you entered in the app.
After four hours, grab your Student Mobility Card and go to an NS train station near you or an OV-Chipkaart service point. Find the nearest one to you here. Most Albert Heijn grocery stores also have them.
This is the part that usually confuses people who aren’t from the Netherlands. Before you can start using your Student Mobility Card, you need to properly activate its services by ‘picking them up’. This can be done at a yellow NS ticket machine found at all train stations or the aforementioned OV-Chipkaart service point.
Simply set the machine to English, scan your card, click on ‘pick up order’ and scan your card again. You can also see the entire process here, in case you need visuals.
That’s it. Now you’re all set to ride on the transportation of your choosing. Whether train, tram, bus, metro, boat or bike, you can discover the ins and outs of your new (temporary) home.
We also have a comprehensive guide that explains all Dutch modes of transportation here.
Do you want to cancel your Student Mobility Card or subscription? We’re sad to see you go. You can do so in the Student Mobility app by following these steps:
We’d also like to let you know that if you have any unpaid travel expenses, we will charge your card at the next scheduled billing moment. Once that’s all covered, you can no longer use your Student Mobility Card.
And that was our walkthrough of how to both activate and cancel your Student Mobility Card. Happy travels!
Would you like to know more about how public transport works in the Netherlands? Then check out this blog of ours.
