The step-by-step plan for Albania

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• Many sites are out of date.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.

In this step you see what emigrating to Albania does to your AOW, your tax and your healthcare.

The AOW. The Netherlands has no social security treaty with Albania. The AOW does go along, but up to the amount for married people. For a couple nothing changes. Whoever goes alone gets net fifty instead of seventy percent of the net minimum wage: about 30 percent less. The survivor's benefit (the Anw), an allowance and the AIO supplement don't go along. Unemployment benefit and child benefit stop.

Tax. There is a tax treaty, from 2004, which has applied since 1 January 2006. In principle only Albania, as the country where you live, may tax your AOW, your company pension and your annuity. An ABP pension for work in government stays taxed in the Netherlands. There is one exception: if Albania doesn't tax your pension, or only partly, and you receive more than 20,000 euros a year in total, the Netherlands may tax your pension after all. Whether Albania taxes a foreign pension is not certain at the moment. You read about that in phase 3.

Healthcare. Albania isn't on the list of treaty countries for healthcare. So there's no CAK. Your Dutch basic insurance stops when you deregister. In Albania there is the FSDKSH, the Albanian health fund. Whoever works is compulsorily insured there. Whoever doesn't work can join voluntarily, for 3,400 lek a month, about 37 euros, with a six-month waiting period. Whoever registers on own means needs a health policy in Albania.

Your AOW build-up stops. Whoever lives outside the Netherlands is usually no longer insured. Each year until your AOW age then costs 2 percent of your later AOW. You can insure yourself voluntarily with the SVB. The application must be in within one year.

In this step you choose where in Albania you want to live. Roughly you choose between three kinds of places: the capital Tirana, a town or village on the coast, or the interior with the mountains.

Look at four things for each place:

• Healthcare. According to the travel advice, healthcare is limited, especially outside Tirana. Not all specialist care is available in Albania, not even in private clinics. The large university hospital, the QSUNT, is in Tirana.
• Nature. Albania has earthquakes, floods and forest fires. Hiking trails are often unmarked, and in remote areas your phone sometimes has no coverage.
• Buying or renting. A foreigner may not own agricultural land, forest or pasture. Many buildings still have no title deed. How to buy safely is in phase 5.
• Work and school. Whoever wants to work as an employee or send children to an international school soon ends up in Tirana. International schools are mainly found there; check their own sites for places and fees.

Go and look first. You may be in Albania ninety days per 180 days. That way you see the neighbourhood, the prices and the distances yourself, and how far the nearest hospital is.

In this step you see what the move is going to cost you. Albania pays in lek. On 26 October 2026, according to the Bank of Albania, 1 euro was 90.80 lek. The amounts below are converted with that rate and rounded.

The registration itself costs little:

• The registration certificate is free according to the draft decision.
• The papers do cost money: an apostille per document, and a translation into Albanian.

The money is in other items:

• Healthcare. As an employee you pay 1.7 percent of your gross wage to the health fund, and your employer does too. Voluntarily insured you pay 3,400 lek a month, about 37 euros, or 40,800 lek a year, about 450 euros. Whoever doesn't work also needs a policy.
• The home. When buying, you register the deed with the land registry. Each year you pay the municipality a building tax of 0.05 percent of the value of your home.
• The car. As removal goods it's free of duties if it has been in your name for at least a year. Otherwise you pay VAT on the customs value. The Albanian registration costs 4,000 lek for the plates and 2,500 lek for the registration certificate, together about 72 euros.
• The driving licence. Exchanging costs 4,000 plus 4,500 lek, about 94 euros.
• Living. VAT is 20 percent. The minimum wage is 50,000 lek gross a month, about 550 euros. The average gross wage in the second quarter of 2026 was 92,150 lek, about 1,015 euros.

In this conversation you decide together whether Albania fits, and when. You record what each of you needs in order to say yes.

Going alone? Then have this conversation with the people you leave behind. The questions below work for them too.

Take three evenings for it. One conversation is too short for such a decision. Agree on three evenings, with a week in between:

• Evening 1, why. What do we hope to find in Albania? What are we leaving behind here? Would that really be different there?
• Evening 2, what we give up. Who and what will we miss? What do we dread most? What do we do if it disappoints?
• Evening 3, the conditions. What must be arranged for each of us to say yes? When do we check together whether it's going well, for example after six and after twelve months? And what is a reason for us to go back?

Write down the conditions. Everything fits on one A4 on the kitchen-table card.

With Albania come two things you need to look at together on those evenings:

• The ground and the duration. Your residence depends on your ground. With work on your job, with own means on enough money and a health policy in Albania. Only after five years do you have permanent residence. Discuss what you'll do if the ground to stay falls away.
• Healthcare. Outside Tirana healthcare is limited, and not all specialist care is available in Albania. Agree on what you'll do if one of you becomes seriously ill: where you'll go, and how you're insured if you want to return to the Netherlands.

Divide the work. Agree who takes on which part of this plan: the papers for your residence, the house and the cancellations, the school, the move. That way not one of you carries everything. Invite your partner into your plan; then you both see what's done.

Is one of you coming along without an income of their own? Whoever lives in Albania and doesn't work in the Netherlands usually no longer builds up AOW. For every year you're not insured, you later get 2 percent less AOW. You can insure yourself voluntarily with the SVB. You have a year for that, counted from the moment you're no longer insured. Also discuss whether that partner keeps their own account and own money, and how you decide together on large expenses.

Married, registered or cohabiting? If you're both Dutch, each of you registers yourself: on a ground of your own, or as a family member of the other. Exactly who counts as a family member isn't in the legal text we read. Bring your marriage or partnership certificate with apostille and translation. If one of you has Albanian nationality, an unmarried partner can also come, with a notarial declaration that you live together and proof of means. Check under your ground later in your plan what applies to you.

Are children coming along? How you tell them depends on their age:

• Up to about four. Tell them shortly before the move and keep fixed habits, such as the bedtime ritual and the cuddly toy in the hand luggage.
• Primary school. Tell them well in advance and let them look along: photos of the school, the neighbourhood and the house. Let them choose something, such as their room.
• Teenagers. Involve them in the decision itself. For them saying goodbye to friends weighs heaviest. Agree on how they keep in touch and when they see their friends again.

How school works in Albania, and what an international school or Dutch distance learning offers you, you read in the article about school with this step.

Who speaks the language? The government works in Albanian: your documents are translated into Albanian, and the state school teaches in Albanian. According to the travel advice, emergency workers speak little or no English. Agree on who starts learning before departure.

Choose the day you want to leave. The plan counts back from that date: when the papers from the Netherlands must be in, when you register and when you deregister.

Count five clocks:

• Your certificates and your certificate of conduct may be at most six months old, with apostille and an Albanian translation.
• After arrival you have three months to register, and your ninety days without a visa simply keep running.
• On own means you need a health policy in Albania when you register. The Albanian health fund has a six-month waiting period; make sure your policy covers you from day one.
• With a pet: have the blood test for the return trip done in the Netherlands, at least thirty days after the rabies jab.
• With a car: as removal goods it's only free of duties if it has been in your name for at least twelve months.