What changes financially when you move to Belize?
Tick where your income comes from. You then see which rules Belize and the Netherlands apply to your situation: which country may tax you, which schemes exist and how you get insured. With the source, so you can check it yourself.
This applies to everyone who moves. Tick above what applies to you, and the rest will appear.
What the Netherlands doesn't let go of
Which Dutch obligation travels with you?
Your AOW build-up stops when you leave, repairing is possible within one year
This is about the build-up of your AOW, not the payment. What you've built up until you leave stays. But as soon as you're no longer insured in the Netherlands, you build up nothing more. Every year until your AOW age then costs 2% of your later AOW. If you already receive AOW, this no longer plays a role.
The treaty with Belize is about the payment of benefits, not about insurance. For most emigrants the insurance therefore ends at the moment of departure. With voluntary insurance at the SVB you close the gap, for at most ten years. That's only possible if your application is in within one year after the end of your compulsory insurance. The premium depends on your income and is revised every year, so there's no amount here.
- reduction per uninsured year
- 2% of your AOW
- application voluntary insurance
- at the latest 1 year after the end of your insurance
- duration voluntary insurance
- at most 10 years
Source: General Old Age Pensions Act — article 13 paragraph 1 (reduction of 2% per uninsured calendar year), article 35 paragraph 1 (voluntary insurance, at most ten years) and article 36 paragraph 1 (application at the latest a year after the end of the compulsory insurance) — checked on 2026-10-19
Read the whole storyYour Dutch basic insurance ends on deregistration
Your basic insurance stops on the day you deregister. Your new policy only starts once you've been accepted.
If you put off the insurance question until after the move, you may have become too old for the policy your plan rested on. So arrange your cover first, and only then take steps you can't reverse. Don't count on the National Health Insurance of Belize in your first year: it asks for a Social Security card, and a foreigner only gets one with permanent residence or a temporary status.
Where this comes from: The order from the healthcare article — a policy of your own before departure — and the fixed emigration rule that the Zvw ends on deregistration.
Read the whole storyWith inheritance and gifts the Netherlands counts you in for another ten years
The Successiewet, the law on inheritance and gift tax, acts as if an emigrated Dutch national still lives in the Netherlands for ten years. That applies on death and on a gift.
If you die within ten years of leaving, your heirs pay Dutch inheritance tax, as if you still lived here. What you give in those years, for example to your children, falls under Dutch gift tax. So check your will and your gift plans before you leave. For a gift in the first year after you leave this even applies to everyone who lived in the Netherlands, also without Dutch nationality.
- deemed residence
- 10 years
This is not tax advice
These are the rules that apply to your situation, not what they add up to. With Belize tax and the AOW go separate ways. There's no tax treaty. So the Netherlands keeps taxing your AOW, your pension and your annuity, without an exemption and usually without tax credits. Belize, by its law, only taxes income from Belize. For the AOW there is a treaty: the 2005 treaty on the export of benefits. Because of it a single person gets the full AOW in Belize, and not the AOW for married people. There's no healthcare treaty, so no CAK. Take this list to a tax adviser who knows both countries.
Still deciding between countries? Put the rules of two or three countries side by side
Then actually doing it
Knowing which rules apply is the first half. The second is applying them in time: in the right order, without missing a deadline, and with your documents at hand.
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.