The step-by-step plan for Belgium

This step shows you what Belgium asks of you, even as an EU citizen. You may live and work there. But "may" is not "sorted".

If you stay longer than three months, a fixed chain follows:

• You apply at the municipality for a declaration of registration, at the latest when that period expires. The proof you then receive is called annex 19.
• The neighbourhood police officer, the local police officer for your area, visits for the residence check. They check that you really live at that address.
• Only then do you receive the electronic EU card, your Belgian residence card.

Since 1 September 2025 the municipality has been stricter. It only accepts your application if your file of evidence is complete. Sending documents on afterwards is no longer possible.

Meanwhile, for every Dutch authority this is an ordinary emigration. You deregister, your allowances stop, and you get a tax life in two countries. Emigrating nearby is still emigrating.

This step is where you choose the scenario that decides everything else. In Belgium your emigration is a menu of choices. The question is: will you work in the Netherlands or in Belgium?

If you keep working in the Netherlands, you stay socially insured there. That means:

• Your AOW accrual (the Dutch state pension) simply continues.
• You keep your Dutch health insurance and your healthcare allowance.
• The Netherlands taxes your salary.

If you switch to a Belgian employer, everything moves with you:

• Your healthcare runs through a mutualiteit (a Belgian health fund) instead of a health insurer.
• You build up a Belgian rustpensioen, Belgium's statutory pension. Your AOW stays at what you had already built up.
• You get a payslip with a logic of its own. The charges are higher, but you also get double holiday pay, a thirteenth month and automatic indexation: your salary rises with prices by itself.

Work out both scenarios before you sign anything. The difference is bigger than any gross salary suggests.

This step is where you choose where in Belgium you'll live, and with it which rules apply to you. Belgium has regions, each with rules of its own: Flanders, Brussels and Wallonia. Which region you pick is not a matter of taste but a choice of rules. These things differ per region, sometimes considerably:

• the BIV, the tax you pay when you register your car in Belgium
• child benefit
• the registration duties on a purchased home, the Belgian property transfer tax
• the low-emission zones, which keep older cars out
• the language of administration

For most Dutch people the Flemish border area wins, on language and on rates. The registration duty on your only own home is 2% there.

If you're looking at Brussels, know two things:

• Dutch-language education there reserves 65% of places for children of Dutch-speaking parents. That's a big advantage, but you do have to be able to prove it.
• Since 2026 the low-emission zone there bars every diesel older than Euro 6.

Choose the region before the neighbourhood, and the neighbourhood before the house.

This step shows you where the money in this move really goes. The paperwork here is a matter of tens of euros: the EU card costs around twenty euros. The money is in the home and in the car:

• The home. A rental deposit of two to three months, on a blocked account, plus the first rent. If you buy, you pay registration duties that run from 2% to 12.5% per region.
• The car. What you get back in Dutch BPM partly goes out again in Belgian BIV.

The calculator lines it up for your situation. If you're also comparing salaries, remember the step about your scenario: gross says little here.

This step makes sure the whole family knows what changes, and stands behind it. The pitfall of Belgium is that it doesn't look like a pitfall. Family stays within driving distance and the language stays yours.

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

Take three evenings. One conversation is too short for a decision like this. Agree on three evenings, a week apart:

• Evening 1, why. What do we hope to find in Belgium? 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 are we dreading most? What do we do if it disappoints?
• Evening 3, the conditions. What has to be in place 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 would be a reason for us to go back?

Write the conditions down. On the kitchen-table card it all fits on one A4.

On those evenings, discuss precisely what does change:

• Whoever goes to work in Belgium has hardly any accrued holidays in year one. The system accrues your holiday in the previous year.
• Social life really does move with you. A Dutch person in Belgium lives close by. But they are administratively, fiscally and in the long run also emotionally an emigrant there.

Say that honestly. It prevents the quiet disappointment of year two.

Divide the work. Agree who takes on which part of this plan: the papers, 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 going without an income of your own? Whoever lives in Belgium and doesn't work in the Netherlands usually no longer builds up AOW, the Dutch state pension. For every year you're not insured, you later get 2 percent less AOW. You can insure yourself voluntarily with the SVB. You have one year for that, counted from the moment you're no longer insured. Also discuss whether that partner keeps an account and money of their own, and how you decide together on large expenses.

Married, registered or living together? That can make a difference for your partner's residence permit, for co-insurance in healthcare and for inheritance. Check at your registration with the municipality and at your healthcare further on in your plan what applies to you.

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

• Up to about four. Tell them shortly before the move and keep fixed routines, 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 the most. Agree how they keep in touch and when they'll see their friends again.

The children switch school systems. In Antwerp, Ghent and Brussels you enrol them digitally, within fixed periods. Whoever is late misses out at the popular schools. How that enrolment works is in the article about school with this step.

Who learns the language, and when? In Flanders you already speak the language. But the administrative language differs per region: if you choose Brussels or Wallonia, you'll deal with French too. Often the partner without work needs the language most, and that's exactly the one without colleagues to practise with. Plan it together, preferably before you leave.

This step sets when you want to live in Belgium. Choose below the date on which you want to be standing there. The step-by-step plan works out whether that's feasible with what still has to happen.

The journey to Belgium is short. Without buying a house a few months is realistic. The fixed deadlines sit mainly after the move: the application, the neighbourhood police officer and the card.

A target date is yours. Moving it is always allowed, and moving it is a perfectly good outcome.