Leaving from Belgium?To the Belgian plan →See the plan for Belgians moving to Aruba →This plan is for people leaving the Netherlands.
Aruba · Within the Kingdom
Emigrating to Aruba
For Aruba, as a Dutch citizen you need a residence permit for the first five years. That's stricter than on Curaçao, even with the same passport. A lot makes up for it: the AOW you've built up comes along in full, single rate included, and your children go to school in Dutch. This page shows how the chain really runs.
€ 299 one-off · 34 steps · no subscription
- Kind of journey
- Within the Kingdom: five years' permit, then by operation of law
- The chain
- DIMAS permit → Censo → cedula → AZV
- Note
- The AOW you've built up comes along in full. Education is in Dutch
Last updated: 14 October 2026
Will your departure date work? Check it in the free step-by-step plan →
Five phases, from orientation to being settled
You need no visa and there's no language barrier. Still, this journey has real deadlines: ten weeks for the permit, three weeks for the registration, thirty days for the health insurance, and a renewal that comes back every year. Whoever knows the order is settled in months.
- Orientation
The same passport, but admission rules of its own
In this phase you learn how admission works, choose your route and explore the island. Aruba decides for itself who may live there, Dutch citizens included. Almost every website gets this wrong. A European Dutch citizen without Aruban ties doesn't get a declaration by operation of law here on arrival (the proof that you may stay without a permit). You need a permit for the first five years. The staircase is fixed: five years on a permit, then admission by operation of law, and free after ten years. As your route you choose employment, business or living off assets (your pension or savings). Explore the island outside high season. An honest trump for families: education is in Dutch there.Read more
- Closing the Netherlands
An ordinary emigration, with the sharpest edges off
In this phase you wind up the Netherlands. Your health insurance, benefits and AOW accrual stop, as with every emigration. But within the Kingdom a lot works out well. Your accrued AOW comes along in full, including the higher amount for single people (the single rate of 70%), and an AOW supplement for a younger partner if you still have one. Your certificates, such as your birth certificate, need no apostille (an international stamp of authenticity). And under the old Kingdom arrangement, Aruba taxes your AOW and pension. What you arrange yourself: the switch to your new health insurance, fresh certificates that mustn't be too old, and the RDW proof almost nobody knows about.Read more
- The move
A customs territory of its own, with a generous exemption
In this phase you move your household contents, the car and the pet. That Aruba is within the Kingdom means nothing at the border: Aruba levies its own import duties plus 7% tax on almost all imports. The removal-goods exemption makes up for a lot. On your used household contents you pay no import duties and no border tax. Even the car can come along, if you've owned and used it for six months. The rules for the pet are mild: no titre test (a blood test for rabies antibodies) and no quarantine. The container only sails once you've landed and registered.Read more
- Registration on Aruba
Every link wants to see the previous one, and one deadline is about money
In this phase you arrange your permit, your registration, your identity card and your health insurance. The order is fixed. First comes the permit from DIMAS, the Aruban admission service. It takes ten weeks. If you're employed, your employer applies for it. Dutch citizens pay no security deposit. Then you register at Censo, the population register, with your fresh Dutch papers. Then you collect the cedula, the Aruban identity card. Then comes the deadline that's about real money. If you report to the AZV, the Aruban health insurance, within thirty days of registration, you're insured retroactively. If you come later, you pay everything in between yourself.Read more
- Arrival
Convert your driving licence, and renew your residence every year
In this phase two things still need action: converting your driving licence and keeping track of the deadlines of your residence status. Your Dutch licence is invalid on Aruba as soon as you live there. For the conversion, the BER (the driving licence examination office) wants to see the RDW authenticity declaration you arranged before departure. Your status has fixed moments: renew every year, after five years the declaration by operation of law, free after ten. The school is the quiet trump: in Dutch, with mavo, havo and vwo, for tens of euros a year.Read more
This is what one step of your plan looks like
This is the real thing: one of the steps of the Aruba journey, exactly as it appears in your personal step-by-step plan, with the deadlines, the offices and the sources.
Step 2.3 of your plan
AOW, AOV and child benefit: the mildest safety net outside Europe
- Lead time
- an afternoon of research; decide on voluntary insurance
- Costs
- voluntary AOW insurance: premium via the SVB calculator
In this step you find out what happens to your AOW (the Dutch state pension), and what Aruba gives in its place. Here Aruba is the mildest destination outside Europe.
Your accrued AOW goes with you in full. That includes the single person's rate of 70%. If you still receive an AOW supplement for a younger partner, it comes along too. That supplement was abolished in 2015. Only people who already had it keep it. It's arranged by order in council (a government decree). So no treaty is needed.
But the accrual stops. The Caribbean part of the Kingdom counts as abroad. So every year there costs you 2% of your AOW. The voluntary insurance closes that gap:
- Apply within one year of the end of the compulsory insurance (usually the day you leave).
- You can insure yourself this way for at most ten years.
Something starts to stand against it. As a resident you accrue Aruban AOV, the Aruban state pension. That's also 2% a year, with a pension age of 65.
And child benefit? Export to Aruba is formally arranged, but it hangs on your Dutch insurance. Whoever emigrates fully is no longer insured and in practice sees it stop. So don't count on it.
And this is the dashboard that step lives in. The example shows the plan for Spain; your dashboard shows the plan for Aruba.
This is step 2.3 of 36. The other 35 are ready for you, each with the same sources, the same offices and a schedule that keeps track of your dates.
See all 36 steps for ArubaWhat you get for € 299
All 36 steps to Aruba, 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 Aruba
€ 299
one-off · 36 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 Aruba: 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 Aruba 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 Aruba? 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 Aruba 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 Aruba
Per phase, the articles that are already there. They're written from the same journey and go deeper than what fits above.
- Aruban admission: five years of permits, then by operation of lawUnlike on Curaçao, a European Dutch citizen on Aruba gets no declaration by operation of law on arrival: for the first five years you simply require a permit, with an annual renewal. How the staircase works — five years of permits, then by operation of law, after ten years free — and which softeners apply to Dutch citizens.
- Working and earning on Aruba: florin, cessantia and the zero bandSince 1 January 2026 Aruba has a minimum hourly wage of Afl. 11.58, your gross pay first loses 5% AOV/AWW and 1.6% AZV, and only then does wage tax begin, above a zero band of Afl. 34,930. On dismissal through no fault of your own there is the cessantia; when ill, the SVb pays 80% from the fourth day. What really appears on an Aruban payslip, and what is not there.
- AOW, pension and tax on Aruba: what the Kingdom does arrangeAruba is the mildest destination outside Europe for your old age: the accrued AOW goes with you in full, with the single-person rate and the allowance, and the 1964 Tax Arrangement for the Kingdom lets the country of residence tax pension from former employment. What stops (the accrual), what begins (the Aruban AOV), what Aruba charges, and where the sharp edges are: the protective assessment, government pension and lump-sum surrender.
- The container to Aruba: exemption, border BBO and the six-month ruleAruba is its own customs territory, and since 2023 customs also levies 7% BBO at the border. Whoever prepares the removal goods exemption properly pays no import duties and no border BBO: twelve months lived outside Aruba, used goods, the declaration of registration in triplicate, and for the car six months of ownership and use. How the application runs, why the container is only up after Censo, and what the car costs without the exemption.
- Renting on Aruba: free prices, a Rent Service that decides on notice, and the contract Censo wants to seeRents on Aruba are free, but ending and raising them are not: without the consent of the Rent and Consumer Affairs Service a tenancy cannot be ended and the rent cannot go up, and that service costs you nothing. The contract is moreover the paper Censo and DIMAS are waiting for. What the government does and does not regulate, and what to check before you sign.
- Your pet along to Aruba: permission in advance, a two-week certificate and a rabies shot at least a month oldA dog or cat from the Netherlands can come along to Aruba without a titre test and without quarantine, but not without the Veterinary Service: before you travel you need permission, to be requested by e-mail with a decision within 48 hours. On arrival customs wants a health certificate at most two weeks old and proof of rabies vaccination older than a month and younger than a year.
All 13 articles about Aruba
- Bank and payments on Aruba: florin pegged to the dollar, 1.3% on every payment abroad, and the extract the bank wants
- Censo Aruba: appointment, address and registration, with the cedula and the personal number
- Your first weeks on Aruba: Censo, cedula and the 30-day window
- Healthcare on Aruba: the AZV, a premium of 10.5% through wages, and no treaty with the Netherlands
- Buying a house on Aruba: the familiar notary process — with a kink in the tax at 250,000 florin
- Your driving licence on Aruba: the Dutch one is invalid as soon as you live there, so convert it at the BER
- School on Aruba: in Dutch, compulsory from four to seventeen, and enrolling between December and February
Also applies to your move
Ready to begin?
The step-by-step plan for Aruba: 36 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.