Some 7,300 people are being paid a special social security benefit after returning to their home country to live, the social insurance bank SVB has told website Nu.nl.

The re-immigration benefit is payable to people who came to the Netherlands to work for at least eight years and have now gone back home, as well as to a select group of refugees, Nu.nl reported.

The total bill for the benefit reached nearly €34m last year, compared with €22m five years ago.

The benefit is only paid if the claimant’s income in their home country is below local minimum income requirements.

Work

Claimants must be over the age of 55, have come to the Netherlands from the age of 18, worked here for at least eight years and been claiming benefits in the Netherlands for at least a year.

The benefit, which is being phased out by 2025, was paid to people of 79 different nationalities last year.

In total, nearly 2,800 Turkish nationals made use of the ruling to return home in 2015.