Belize · Visa required
Emigrating to Belize
With a Dutch passport you can enter Belize without a visa, but thirty days at a time. Whoever wants to stay chooses a route. With the QRP programme you live there from 40, says the Belize Tourism Board, on an income of at least 2,000 dollars a month from outside Belize, about 1,780 euros. You apply for permanent residence after a year of living there, and whoever works needs a work permit. There's no tax treaty, so the Netherlands keeps taxing your AOW and your pension. But because of a treaty on benefits a single person keeps the full AOW. There's no healthcare treaty, so no CAK.
€ 399 one-off · 38 steps · no subscription
- Kind of journey
- In without a visa, then a route to stay: the QRP at the Belize Tourism Board, permanent residence after a year, or a work permit
- The clock
- Extending at Immigration every thirty days; for permanent residence a year of living there with at most fourteen days away
- Note
- No tax treaty, so the Netherlands keeps taxing; but an AOW treaty, so the full AOW; no healthcare treaty, so no CAK
Last updated: 19 October 2026
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Five phases, from the first thirty days to your own residence card
This journey turns on one clock and a choice. The clock is the thirty days you get at every entry: whoever wants to stay extends at Immigration every thirty days, until the route is sorted. The choice is that route. According to the BTB, the QRP is for whoever is 40 or older and receives at least 2,000 dollars a month from outside Belize, and gives exemption from import duties and from tax on foreign income, but no work. Permanent residence asks for a year of living there with at most fourteen days away. On top of that there's what the brochure doesn't mention: there's no tax treaty, but there is a treaty on benefits, so your AOW goes along in full.
- Orientation
Thirty days at a time, four routes, and a treaty for your AOW
In this phase you learn how living in Belize works, and what it does to your income and your healthcare. With a Dutch passport you may stay thirty days, and after that you extend. Whoever wants to stay chooses the QRP, permanent residence after a year, a work permit, or the route through a Belizean partner. There's no tax treaty: the Netherlands keeps taxing your AOW and pension. But because of the 2005 treaty on the export of benefits a single person keeps the full AOW. There's no healthcare treaty, so no CAK. And the travel advice is yellow: read it before you choose where to live.Read more
- Your visa
Choosing a route, papers with an apostille, and the application at the BTB or Immigration
In this phase you arrange your ground to stay. With the QRP you submit your application to the Belize Tourism Board, with a medical certificate at most three months old and a certificate of conduct at most six months old. You deposit 2,000 dollars every month at a bank in Belize. For permanent residence you first live in Belize for a year and as a Dutch national you pay 6,000 Belize dollars. Your employer applies for a work permit at the Labour Department. Your papers get an apostille, and an English translation if they aren't in English.Read more
- Closing the Netherlands
No tax treaty, but the full AOW, and no CAK
In this phase you work through the familiar list for closing down in the Netherlands. There's no tax treaty. So the Netherlands keeps taxing your AOW, your government pension, your company pension and your annuity, and usually you get no tax credit. Belize, by its law, only taxes income from Belize, and exempts a pension from outside Belize. Your AOW goes along in full, even if you go alone, but child benefit stops. There's no CAK: your policy has to be accepted before you deregister. And whoever leaves before the AOW age can insure themselves voluntarily within one year.Read more
- The move
With the QRP without import duties, otherwise two thirds of the value on a car
In this phase you move the household goods, the car and the pet. With the QRP your household goods and a car at most five years old go along without import duties in the first year, if the BTB approves the list three weeks ahead. Without the QRP you pay duties, and on a passenger car 66.50 to 74.38 percent of the value. The pet needs a veterinary certificate at most two weeks old, a rabies vaccination and a treatment against parasites. On arrival BAHA inspects the animal. And because Belize isn't on the EU list, you have the blood test for the way back done in the Netherlands already.Read more
- Arrival in Belize
Every thirty days to Immigration, then healthcare, bank, licence and house
In this phase you arrange your residence, your healthcare, your bank and your house after landing. Every thirty days you extend your stay at Immigration, for 200 Belize dollars, until your card or your permit is there. Your international policy stays your healthcare. At the bank you meet the Central Bank's exchange control rules. You arrange your driving licence at your municipality's traffic department. And whoever buys a house pays 8 percent stamp duty as a foreigner above the first 20,000 Belize dollars.Read more
This is what one step of your plan looks like
This is the real thing: one of the steps of the Belize journey, exactly as it appears in your personal step-by-step plan, with the deadlines, the offices and the sources.
Step 3.4 of your plan
Deregister and tell the SVB: your AOW goes along in full
- Lead time
- deregistering is possible from 5 days before departure; the whole takes 4-8 weeks
- Costs
- limited — cancellation costs per contract
In this step you deregister from your municipality and pass on your new address. If you're going to live outside the Netherlands for more than eight months a year, you have to deregister. That's possible from five days before your departure up to the day itself.
The municipality passes your new address on to Dienst Toeslagen. But an allowance you're no longer entitled to, such as rent allowance, you stop yourself in Mijn toeslagen.
Tell the SVB about your departure too. For the AOW Belize is a favourable exception:
- The full AOW goes along. The General Old Age Pensions Act gives whoever lives outside the Netherlands the AOW for married people. But the treaty with Belize says: a rule that restricts a benefit only because you live outside the Netherlands doesn't apply to whoever lives in Belize. So a single person keeps the AOW for a single person.
- The Anw goes along too. The treaty also applies to survivors' benefits.
- A supplement doesn't. The treaty doesn't apply to social assistance and the Supplementary Benefits Act.
That difference is large. In a country without such a treaty, a single person drops from seventy to fifty percent of the minimum wage. In Belize not.
If you leave before your AOW age, your AOW build-up stops. The treaty arranges the payment, not the build-up. Whoever goes to live outside the Netherlands is usually no longer insured for the AOW and the Anw. For every year you're not insured, you later get 2 percent less AOW. You can close the gap with voluntary insurance at the SVB. You have one year for that from the moment you're no longer insured. If you go together, this applies to each of you separately.
What this step rests on
- NederlandWereldwijd — when do I have to deregister from a Dutch municipality
- NederlandWereldwijd — how do I deregister if I go abroad
- Wetten.overheid.nl — the treaty with Belize on the export and enforcement of social security benefits, articles 2 and 4
- Answers to parliamentary questions 2024Z02891 — the 36 treaty countries, including Belize, where the full AOW goes
- General Old Age Pensions Act, article 9a — the rule for whoever lives outside the Netherlands, which the treaty with Belize sets aside
- SVB — you're going to live outside the Netherlands: 2 percent less AOW per uninsured year, and one year to insure yourself voluntarily
- Dienst Toeslagen — I'm moving abroad, what do I pass on?
And this is the dashboard that step lives in. The example shows the plan for Spain; your dashboard shows the plan for Belize.
This is step 3.4 of 38. The other 37 are ready for you, each with the same sources, the same offices and a schedule that keeps track of your dates.
See all 38 steps for BelizeWhat you get for € 399
All 38 steps to Belize, 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 Belize
€ 399
one-off · 38 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 Belize: 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 Belize 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 Belize? 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 Belize 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 Belize
Per phase, the articles that are already there. They're written from the same journey and go deeper than what fits above.
- Healthcare in Belize: no CAK, an NHI that only buys primary care, and your own policyBelize is not a treaty country for healthcare: when you emigrate your Dutch basic insurance stops and there is no CAK scheme. Belize's National Health Insurance buys primary care from affiliated clinics, for $ 2 per consultation, but only for people with a valid Social Security card. A QRP member or visitor does not have one, and so arranges a policy themselves.
- Residence routes to Belize: QRP, permanent residence, work or partnerYou move to Belize without a visa in advance: you enter as a visitor and then choose a route. Retirees aged 40 and over can, according to the Belize Tourism Board, join the QRP programme, with 2,000 US dollars a month of income from outside Belize. You only apply for permanent residence after a year of legal stay, with at most 14 days away. Working requires a work permit.
- Working in Belize: the Temporary Employment Permit, three job adverts first and BZ$ 3,000 a yearAnyone who wants to work in Belize needs a Temporary Employment Permit. The employer applies to the Labour Department, with among other things three job advertisements; as a self-employed person you apply yourself. You hear the outcome within 30 days. A one-year permit costs BZ$ 3,000 for a professional, a technician or a self-employed person. As a visitor or in the QRP programme you may not work.
- AOW, pension and tax in Belize: full AOW, no tax treatyFor the AOW, Belize is a treaty country: since 1 April 2006 an agreement on paying out benefits applies, so even a single person receives the full AOW there. There is no tax treaty. The Netherlands keeps taxing your AOW, your pension and your annuity, usually without tax credits. Belize only taxes income from Belize and explicitly exempts a foreign pension.
- Car and driving licence in Belize: up to 74% in duties, the QRP exemption and a test at the municipalityImporting a passenger car into Belize costs, with import duty, environmental tax and GST together, 66.50% of the value including shipping, or 74.38% with six or eight cylinders. Only in the QRP programme do you bring a car of at most five years old free of duty in the first year. You get your driving licence from your municipality's traffic department, in Belize City with a practical test.
- Dog or cat to Belize: a BAHA permit, a two-week certificate and the blood test for the way backA dog or cat may enter Belize with an import permit from BAHA, the agricultural health authority, and a veterinary certificate issued no more than two weeks before travel. A first rabies vaccination must be at least four weeks old. Belize is not on the EU list of countries without a blood test: have that test done in the Netherlands before you leave, otherwise you wait 90 days on return.
All 13 articles about Belize
- Household goods to Belize: duty-free with a residence permit or the QRP, otherwise you pay duties
- Banking and paying in Belize: a fixed rate, exchange control and who may open an account
- The first weeks in Belize: extend every 30 days, and do not stay away too long for a year
- Buying a house in Belize: the notice to the central bank, two land registers and the stamp duty
- Renting in Belize: no sales tax on a home, but on holiday lets, and your lease as proof of address
- Registration in Belize: your residence status, your Social Security card and your TIN
- School in Belize: compulsory from 5 to 14, tuition-free schools and a student permit per school year
Also applies to your move
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The step-by-step plan for Belize: 38 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.