Explanation of student transportation application for 2025-2026

Application and decision period

We ask you to submit your application for the new school year before June 1, 2025. The processing time for your application is 8 weeks. This period may be extended by a maximum of 4 weeks. After the decision has been made, you will receive a letter within 2 weeks informing you of the decision. This letter will state whether you will receive a reimbursement and whether you will have to pay a personal contribution. 

If you submit an application during the school year, we will make a decision within a maximum of twelve weeks. Costs incurred before we received your application will never be reimbursed. Without a decision, you cannot claim reimbursement and you are not entitled to use the bus or taxi transport paid for and organized by the municipality.

Absence and changes

You must notify the transport company and westmaasenwaal.llv@forseti.nl in good time of any absences or changes to your child's transport, such as illness, dentist appointments, school trips, or canceled classes. You can do this by email.

Are you moving or is your child changing schools?

Then submit a new application. You can fill in the application form with your DigiD at www.westmaasenwaal.nl/leerlingenvervoer.

Form, explanation per question

Applicant details

• The applicant's address may differ from the student's address, for example if the student has been placed in care or in the case of joint custody. In the case of joint custody, this may be in two different municipalities.
• For adapted transport, it is necessary that telephone numbers and an email address are available.

Student information

• Enter the official name as registered with the civil registry and enter the given name.
• Enter the address where the student lives and from where they attend school. Sometimes this is different from the address where the student is registered.
• You apply for reimbursement for student transportation in the municipality where the student actually resides.

School details

• Enter the type of school the student attends. Also enter the address of the location where the student attends school. This address may differ from the school's mailing address.
• Students who attend a regular elementary school may be eligible for transportation assistance for religious or philosophical reasons and/or due to their disability. We may request further information from you.
• If the student is dependent on reimbursement for student transportation due to a disability in order to attend a regular primary school or regular secondary school, we will request further information from you.

Effective date

• Effective date of transportation provision. Transportation provision will not be provided to you retroactively. Costs incurred before we received your application will never be reimbursed.

Type of transport

Students who go on to secondary education (including learning support (LWOO) or practical education (PRO)) are not entitled to compensation.

• Forms of transport
  The basic principle is that if a student needs transport, the costs of public transport will be paid. Accompanying a student, adapted transport, or private transport may be permitted or deemed necessary in special circumstances.
  Each year, we assess whether the type of transportation you request is appropriate for the student and can be provided in the most cost-effective manner for the municipality. This may result in the allocation of a different type of transportation or funding than you requested.
• 
  expert statement If the student requires supervision or adapted transportation, we can request a statement from the permanent student care committee, the supervision committee, the research committee affiliated with the school that the student attends or will attend, or from the assessment committee.
• Transportation to regular education
  Students who attend or will attend a regular primary school or secondary school (including learning support and practical education) and who, due to their physical, sensory, intellectual, or psychological disability, are dependent on appropriate transportation, can apply to the municipality for student transportation services.
  We request additional information from the applicant about the need for transportation facilities for these students. 

Tools

Please also indicate here whether the student uses or is dependent on a wheelchair (electric or manual) or other aids.

General

• The transportation of students must be in line with the school hours as stated in the school plan/school guide. This means that if a student participates in activities that take place outside of school hours, no reimbursement is possible under the West Maas en Waal Municipal Student Transportation Regulation. In that case, you must arrange for the student's transportation yourself.
• The necessary costs associated with weekend and holiday transport are covered if the pupil stays in a boarding school or foster family in order to attend appropriate (secondary) education. If there are other reasons for this stay, such as social or medical reasons (e.g., transportation from home to a medical daycare center), the transportation costs are not eligible for reimbursement.

Distance to school

• When determining the distance between the home and the school, you must use the shortest route (that is sufficiently passable and safe for the student) according to the ANWB route planner. If the distance is more than 4 kilometers, the student may be entitled to reimbursement of transportation costs.

Income

• 
  threshold amount For pupils attending primary school or special primary education (SBO), the costs of transportation for the first 4 kilometers remain at the expense of the parents. Parents pay a personal contribution. This is known as the threshold amount. This threshold amount is based on the costs of public transportation. For the 2025-2026 school year, the threshold amount is €612.80.
  
  If the adjusted collective income (of both parents and/or partners who run a joint household) for the year 2023 is less than €31,500, the threshold amount does not apply. You must provide proof of this. Request an income statement (IB60) from both parents and/or partners who share a household from the tax authorities via DigiD or by calling 0800 0543 and send it with your application.
  If you do not enclose an income statement with your application form, we will let you know and you will have the opportunity to submit this proof within two weeks.
  If we have not received an income statement from you after this grace period, we will not process your application or we will still impose the threshold amount on you.
  
  No threshold amount will be calculated for pupils who attend a school for special (secondary) education as referred to in the Expertise Centers Act or for pupils who attend a school for primary/secondary education and who, due to their physical, sensory, intellectual, or psychological disability, are dependent on transportation facilities that are suitable for them. The student's disability must be demonstrated; we may request further information in this regard.

• Income-related contribution
  If you apply for transportation to a primary school that is more than 20 kilometers from the student's home, the reimbursement will be reduced by an amount that depends on your financial capacity. This contribution is calculated using the table below.

  Income in €	Personal contribution in €
  0 - 42,000	nothing
  42,000 - 50,000	185
  50,000 - 58,000	820
  58,000 - 65,000	1.520
  65,000 - 74,500	2.230
  74,500 - 81,500	2.990
  81,500 and beyond	for every additional €5,000: €715 extra

  At €81,500 and above, the personal contribution is increased by €715 for every €5,000 of additional income (
  ). This means that the personal contribution is calculated on the basis of your financial capacity. This contribution is added to the threshold amount. If this results in the total parental contribution exceeding the cost of transportation, your application will be rejected.

Indication

• Please indicate here whether your child has been assessed under the Youth Act as eligible for, for example, after-school care at a care farm.

Considered objections

• If compensation is granted for student transportation, this compensation relates to the distance between the student's home and the nearest accessible school, unless transportation to a school further away incurs lower costs for the municipality and you agree to this transportation.
• An "accessible school" is defined as the school to which pupils are assigned on the basis of their physical or mental condition. The nearest accessible school does not mean that the pupil must actually attend that school, but in principle the pupil can be admitted to that school. In order to attend a school for special primary education or for (secondary) special education, it must also be the type of school to which the pupil is assigned.
• If you are applying for reimbursement of student transportation costs for attending a school that is more than 4 kilometers from your home, while one or more public schools or schools of a particular religious or philosophical orientation, or of the same type of education, are located closer to your home, please indicate that you have significant objections to those orientations. 

Additional comments

There may be reasons that need to be taken into account when assessing and evaluating your application, but which you have not been able to indicate in the previous questions. When answering this question, you can provide further details or reasons.

Finally

If you still have questions about the student transportation scheme after reading the explanation, please contact Forseti by phone at 073 760 1992or by email at westmaasenwaal.llv@forseti.nl. The West Maas en Waal School Transport Funding Regulation and the associated policy rules can be found on the government website.