Albania · Visa required
Emigrating to Albania
Albania isn't an EU member, but since 2025 it treats EU citizens almost as if it were. With a Dutch passport or your ID card you may stay ninety days per six months. If you want to live there, you no longer apply for a residence permit, but register as an EU citizen within three months: with a job, a business of your own, as a family member, or on your own means, such as a pension, with an Albanian health policy. The 2004 tax treaty gives your AOW and your occupational pension to Albania; have it checked in advance whether Albania taxes a foreign pension. There's no AOW treaty, so whoever goes alone gets the AOW for married people. And no CAK: you take out an Albanian policy.
€ 399 one-off · 40 steps · no subscription
- Kind of journey
- No visa and since 2025 no residence permit: a registration as an EU citizen on your own means, work, a business of your own or as a family member
- The clock
- Ninety days per six months as a visitor; registering within three months; after five years permanent residence
- Note
- No AOW treaty, so a single person gets the AOW for married people; a tax treaty that gives your pension to Albania; no CAK
Last updated: 26 October 2026
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Five phases, from ninety days to your registration as an EU citizen
This journey turns on one change in the law. Until 2025 a Dutch national applied for a residence permit in Albania, and many sites still describe that. Since the 2025 law you register as an EU citizen within three months of arrival, on one of four grounds: work, a business of your own, family, or your own means with an Albanian health policy. On top of that there's what the brochure doesn't mention: the tax treaty gives your AOW and your occupational pension to Albania, and without an AOW treaty a single person gets the amount for married people.
- Orientation
Ninety days, a registration instead of a permit, and an AOW without a treaty
In this phase you learn how living in Albania works, and what it does to your income and your healthcare. As a visitor you may stay ninety days per six months. Since 2025 you can live there with a registration as an EU citizen, on your own means, with work, with a business of your own or as a family member. There's no AOW treaty, so a single person gets about 30 percent less AOW. The 2004 tax treaty gives your AOW and your occupational pension to Albania. And the travel advice is green.Read more
- Your visa
Choosing a ground, and your papers with an apostille and an Albanian translation
In this phase you choose the ground on which you register, and get your papers ready. On your own means you show your income or assets and a health policy in Albania. With work you need no work permit: an EU citizen may work like an Albanian. With a business of your own you register with the QKB, the business register, and get a NIPT, the tax number. Your certificates get an apostille and a translation into Albanian, and are at most six months old. Exactly how the registration works is in a decision of April 2026; ask the border police or check e-Albania.Read more
- Closing the Netherlands
Your pension to Albania, the AOW for married people if you go alone, and no CAK
In this phase you work through the familiar list for closing down in the Netherlands. Your AOW goes along, but without an AOW treaty a single person gets the amount for married people, and child benefit, the allowances and unemployment benefit stop. The tax treaty gives your AOW, your occupational pension and your annuity to Albania. If Albania taxes your pension not at all or hardly, and it's more than 20,000 euros a year, the Netherlands may still tax a built-up pension. An ABP pension stays taxed in the Netherlands. There's no CAK, and whoever leaves before the AOW age can insure themselves voluntarily within one year.Read more
- The move
Household goods free, the car after a year of ownership, and a blood test for the pet
In this phase you move the household goods, the car and the pet. Things you've had for at least six months come in free of import duties. A car you've had for at least a year can come as removal goods, if you don't sell it for two years afterwards; otherwise you pay VAT on its value. Your dog or cat travels with a microchip and a rabies jab. Albania isn't on the EU list of countries without a blood test: have the blood test for the way back done in the Netherlands already.Read more
- Arrival in Albania
The registration, the civil registry, then healthcare, bank, licence and home
In this phase you arrange your registration, your healthcare, your driving licence and your home after arrival. Within three months you register as an EU citizen and then you enrol with the civil registry. You can insure yourself voluntarily with the Albanian health fund, for about 450 euros a year, with a six-month waiting period. You can exchange your Dutch driving licence after a year of residence; the road transport service mentions no exam for it. And buying is possible, but no agricultural land, and always have the land registry and a lawyer check the ownership first.Read more
This is what one step of your plan looks like
This is the real thing: one of the steps of the journey to Albania, exactly as it appears in your personal step-by-step plan, with the deadlines, the offices and the sources.
Step 1.1 of your plan
Understand the system: ninety days without a visa, and since 2025 a registration instead of a permit
- Lead time
- reading step
- Costs
- none
In this step you learn how you may come to live in Albania. Albania is not a member of the EU; it's a candidate member. Still, since 2025 it has its own arrangement for EU citizens, and that makes it simpler for you than many sites suggest.
With a Dutch passport or an ID card you need no visa. You may stay ninety days within every period of 180 days. Make sure your document is still valid for at least three months after you leave Albania.
Since 2025: a registration instead of a permit. Law 43/2025 amended the Albanian aliens act. An EU citizen may now stay longer than three months without a residence permit. You do register: within three months of arrival, online, with the border and migration service of your place of residence. You then get a registration certificate, in Albanian the certifikatë regjistrimi. After that you register with the gjendja civile, the civil registry of your municipality. After five years you have the right of permanent residence.
You register on one of these grounds:
- Own means. You live off your pension, your wealth or remote work for abroad, with enough money and a health policy in Albania.
- Employed work. With an Albanian employer, without a work permit.
- Your own business. Registered with the QKB, the Albanian business register.
- Family. As the partner or child of an EU citizen who lives there. With an Albanian partner there is also a separate permit.
Studying is also a ground; it isn't in this plan.
Two things to know now:
- Many sites are out of date. You still often read about the permit for retirees, with a pension of 1,200,000 lek a year, about the nomad permit, the permit for homeowners, or a five-year permit for EU citizens. Those are permits for people who aren't EU citizens, or rules from before 2025. They no longer apply to you as a Dutch national.
- The implementation is new. We couldn't read the implementing decision, VKM 240 of 1 April 2026; only the draft. According to that draft the registration is free, goes via e-Albania, the Albanian government portal, and the check takes five working days. Before you leave, check whether the service is already on e-Albania, with the border police (Policia e Shtetit) or on e-Albania itself.
The Dutch embassy is in Tirana, at Rruga Asim Zeneli 10. Applying for a new passport isn't possible in Albania: you do that at the embassy in Skopje, in North Macedonia, or at a Dutch border municipality. Collecting it is possible in Tirana.
What this step rests on
- NederlandWereldwijd — travel advice Albania: green, no visa with a Dutch passport or ID card
- Ligj 79/2021 "Për të huajt", consolidated after Ligj 43/2025 — article 29: ninety days within 180 days; article 33/1: EU citizens without a residence permit, registration within three months
- Ligj 79/2021, original text — article 33(5): the old five-year permit for EU citizens, deleted in 2025
- Konsultimi Publik — draft amendment of VKM 858: the registration certificate free of charge, via e-Albania, in five working days
- Albanian embassy in The Hague — EU citizens enter with just an ID card
- NederlandWereldwijd — the Dutch embassy in Tirana
- NederlandWereldwijd — applying for a passport from Albania: Skopje or a border municipality, collection in Tirana
And this is the dashboard that step lives in. The example shows the plan for Spain; your dashboard shows the plan for Albania.
This is step 1.1 of 40. The other 39 are ready for you, each with the same sources, the same offices and a schedule that keeps track of your dates.
See all 40 steps for AlbaniaWhat you get for € 399
All 40 steps to Albania, for your situation
In order, with the office and the official source at every step. Steps that don't apply to you don't appear.
Your deadlines in one place
For each step you see the latest date to start, and you get a heads-up before something is due or expires. Your documents sit in the vault, with their dates.
A plan that stays right
Twice a month we check the sources. If something changes, it's in your plan and you get a message.
The step-by-step plan for Albania
€ 399
one-off · 40 steps
- Pay once, no subscription
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Every step on one list, free
Not ready to start yet? Then you get the departure checklist for Albania: every step in order, to print and tick off. With it, five mails in a week and a half about the pitfalls and the real costs. If the rules for Albania change, you'll hear about it. After that we ask once where your plans stand, send one offer, and now and then one thing that fits your moment. No newsletter, and you can switch it off at any time.
That was the move. And once you live there?
Which country may tax your pension once you live in Albania? Is there a favourable regime, a scheme that lowers your tax? And how do you get insured? That depends on where your income comes from. Tick it and you'll see which rules apply to you, with the source.
See the financial conditionsClosing down the Netherlands: all your letters in one go
Moving to Albania starts with leaving the Netherlands properly. That's why the plan includes the letter tool: you enter your details once and every cancellation and notification letter is ready.
Just the letters, without the plan? That works too, for € 49
- Health insurance, rent, energy, subscriptions, GP, school, bank and pension fund: 16 kinds of letters. You enter your details only once.
- A sending list that counts back from your departure date and your notice period, even when that's three months.
- Also what you need to ask for as an emigrant: your no-claims years in English, your medical file and the school report (the report on your child for the new school).
Auke, maker of Vertrekklaar
On 2 January we're leaving ourselves, on a trip around the world with our family. What I put here, I'm arranging for my own family too.
On 20 September 2026 a customer wrote that the CAK rule for early retirement was missing from his plan. He was right. That evening the step was in thirteen plans, with the source attached.
The knowledge base on Albania
Per phase, the articles that are already there. They're written from the same journey and go deeper than what fits above.
- Working in Albania: no work permit, a registration, and what you pay in contributions and taxSince 2025 a Dutch citizen no longer needs a work permit in Albania: an EU citizen has the same right to work as an Albanian. You register as an employee or self-employed person within three months. On your salary you pay social contributions and income tax: nothing up to 50,000 lek a month, 13 percent above that, and 23 percent above 2,040,000 lek a year. A business of your own is registered with the QKB.
- Living in Albania as a Dutch citizen: no residence permit any more, but a registration within three monthsAlbania is not an EU country, but since the 2025 amendment an EU citizen no longer needs a residence permit there. You may stay 90 days in any 180 days without a visa. To live there, you register online as an EU citizen within three months, on one of four grounds: work, your own business, your own means with an Albanian health policy, or family. Many sites still describe the old permit; it no longer applies to you.
- AOW, pension and tax in Albania: Albania may tax, but whether it does is still uncertain, and without a social security treaty less AOW for those moving aloneUnder the 2004 tax treaty only Albania taxes your AOW, your occupational pension and your annuity; an ABP pension from government service stays with the Netherlands. Whether Albania actually taxes a foreign pension is uncertain: the law and the tax authority's guidance contradict each other. If Albania does not tax it and you receive more than 20,000 euros a year, the Netherlands may tax your pension after all. A single person receives about 30 percent less AOW.
- Dog or cat to Albania: easy on the way out with a chip and rabies jab, but a titre test for the way backYour dog or cat can come to Albania with a microchip, a rabies vaccination at least 21 days old and the EU pet passport. Albania probably also asks for a health certificate from an official vet, valid for ten days. A titre test is not needed on the way out. It is for the way back: Albania is not on the EU list. So have the test done in the Netherlands before you leave.
- Household goods to Albania: free of import duties if you have owned them for six months, and declare cash from 10,000 eurosIf you move to Albania, your used household goods enter the country free of import duties. The condition: you have owned them for at least six months, and they keep the same use. Customs asks for, among other things, a list, proof of your deregistration and a lease in Albania. Alcohol, tobacco and professional goods are excluded. Cash from 10,000 euros must be declared, both to Albania and to the EU.
- Car and driving licence in Albania: duty-free as household goods after a year of ownership, at least Euro 4, and exchanging without a testYour car can come to Albania. If it has been in your name for at least twelve months, it enters free of duties as household goods, but you may not sell it for two years. Otherwise you pay only VAT on the customs value. A used car must meet at least Euro 4; there is no age limit. You exchange your Dutch driving licence without a test for 8,500 lek, about 94 euros, once you have a right of residence of more than a year.
All 13 articles about Albania
- Banking and payments in Albania: the lek, an Albanian account, and the 10,000 euro cash limit
- The first weeks in Albania: your registration within three months, the civil registry, your healthcare and the deadlines that start running
- Buying a house in Albania: no agricultural land, building land only after an investment, and to the land registry within 30 days
- Renting in Albania: your lease as proof of your address, checking the owner with the land registry, and six months for the tax office
- Registration in Albania: your certificate as an EU citizen, the civil registry, the NIPT and the embassy in Tirana
- School in Albania: nine years of basic education from 6 to 16, lessons in Albanian, and Dutch child benefit stops
- Healthcare in Albania: no CAK, the Albanian health fund FSDKSH, a policy for your registration, and 112
Also applies to your move
Ready to begin?
The step-by-step plan for Albania: 40 steps, with your documents and your costs in one place. For each step you see the latest date to start. You pay once and it's yours.