Leaving from Belgium?To the Belgian plan →See the plan for Belgians moving to Costa Rica →This plan is for people leaving the Netherlands.
Costa Rica · Visa required
Emigrating to Costa Rica
To live in Costa Rica, you apply for a residence permit, usually as a pensionado (retiree) with a pension of 1,000 dollars a month. You do that in Costa Rica itself, within the 180 days you may stay as a tourist. The harder part: Costa Rica has no treaty at all with the Netherlands. That is why the sum in the brochure doesn't add up.
€ 399 one-off · 35 steps · no subscription
- Kind of journey
- Residence as pensionado: 1,000 dollars a month, lodged in Costa Rica itself
- The clock
- 180 days as a tourist to lodge, then months of waiting
- Note
- No treaty: the Netherlands keeps taxing without credits, and the Caja comes on top
Last updated: 14 October 2026
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Five phases, from the pension statement to the two hundred metres
The income test is simple, but the waiting takes long. You have 180 days to lodge your application. Your birth certificate and your certificate of conduct (VOG) may then be at most six months old. After that you wait months for your residence card. On top of that, Costa Rica has three times no treaty with the Netherlands: not for tax, the AOW and healthcare. And the brochures still mention a law that has been closed since 14 July 2026. This plan works with the rules of now.
- Orientation
Three residence cards, an income test in dollars, and three times no treaty
In this phase you choose your card and learn what the absence of treaties means for you. First the cards. As a pensionado (retiree) you show a pension of 1,000 dollars a month. As a rentista (someone living on fixed income) you show 2,500 dollars. As an inversionista you make an investment. You first get a temporary card for two years, and after three years permanent residence. Then the treaties. The Netherlands keeps taxing your AOW and your pension, without tax credits. Costa Rica doesn't tax your Dutch income. Whoever goes alone gets the AOW at the married rate, the lower amount for someone who is married or living together. There is no CAK, but there is a compulsory affiliation to the Caja, the Costa Rican state healthcare system, on top of your own policy. You also read why the brochures lag behind: the law of 2021 closed on 14 July 2026.Read more
- Your right of residence
Statement, certificate, VOG: apostilled, translated, at most six months old
In this phase you put your file together and lodge it. The income test is literally in the law. The work is in the documents. You need the pension statement from the SVB or your pension fund, your birth certificate and a certificate of conduct. Each document gets an apostille, an international stamp of authenticity, and is officially translated in Costa Rica. The certificate and the certificate of conduct may not be older than six months at lodging. You lodge in Costa Rica itself, as a tourist within the 180 days. For that change of category, from tourist to applicant, you pay 200 dollars. Then you wait months for the decision. Your spouse and children go along as dependientes (family members) on one pension.Read more
- Closing the Netherlands
No exemption, but a policy before you deregister, and the married rate
In this phase you work through the familiar list, but the step of the wage tax exemption is missing. Without a treaty the Netherlands keeps taxing your AOW, your pension and your annuity. You pay no contributions, but usually you also get no tax credits. Costa Rica only taxes income from Costa Rica itself. Your own health policy has to be accepted before you deregister. After all, there is no CAK, and the Caja only comes after the card. Report to the SVB in time. Whoever goes alone gets the AOW at the married rate. And ask for a pension statement that names the amount you really get.Read more
- The move
Duties and VAT on the goods, the car stays behind, and a chip for the animal
In this phase you move your household goods and your pet. The household goods go by sea container to Limón or Caldera, and that takes five to eight weeks. Since 14 July 2026 the one-off exemption of the law of 2021 has ended. The household goods now pay import duty and VAT on the customs value. For the car, customs adds up a stack of taxes, to a good seventy percent of the value. So count on selling and buying again. The pet needs a chip, the vaccinations, a deworming within fifteen days and a clinical examination within two weeks. All of that goes on one certificate from the NVWA.Read more
- Arrival in Costa Rica
Fingerprints, lodging, waiting, then the card, the Caja and the licence
In this phase you lodge your application and arrange what follows. In the first weeks you give your fingerprints at the ministry and hand in your file at the DGME, the Costa Rican immigration service. The receipt keeps you legal until the decision. As soon as your application is approved, you go to the Caja in the same week. Article 80 requires an uninterrupted affiliation from the grant. A bank account is already possible on your passport; if a bank still waits for the card, that is its own policy. You have your driving licence converted as soon as your application has been lodged, without an exam. If you buy a house, stay away from the two hundred metres along the coast. That strip is public or under concession (a permit from the state), and a foreigner only gets a concession after five years. After two years you renew your card, and after three years you become a permanent resident.Read more
This is what one step of your plan looks like
This is the real thing: one of the steps of the journey to Costa Rica, exactly as it appears in your personal step-by-step plan, with the deadlines, the offices and the sources.
Step 3.2 of your plan
Know where you pay tax: the Netherlands keeps taxing, without tax credits
- Lead time
- one good conversation with a tax adviser
- Costs
- advisory hours
With this step you know where you will pay tax. The answer: in the Netherlands, and without the credits you get now.
With most destinations on this site, this is the step where you apply for the wage tax exemption. Not here. Without a tax treaty the Netherlands has the right to tax, and it does so on everything that comes from the Netherlands: your AOW, your occupational pension, your government pension and your annuity. The SVB and your pension fund keep withholding tax. There is no exemption to apply for.
What does fall away are the national insurance contributions and the Zvw contribution (the contribution for Dutch health insurance). You're no longer insured, so you pay only tax.
Against that stands something most people don't see coming. Whoever lives outside the EU isn't a qualifying non-resident taxpayer. As a result you usually have no entitlement to the tax part of the tax credits, the reductions on your Dutch tax. So you pay the rate without the general tax credit and without the elderly person's credit.
Have a tax adviser work out what remains net. Include your return as a non-resident taxpayer.
And this is the dashboard that step lives in. The example shows the plan for Spain; your dashboard shows the plan for Costa Rica.
This is step 3.2 of 37. The other 36 are ready for you, each with the same sources, the same offices and a schedule that keeps track of your dates.
See all 37 steps for Costa RicaWhat you get for € 399
All 37 steps to Costa Rica, 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 Costa Rica
€ 399
one-off · 37 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 Costa Rica: 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 Costa Rica 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 Costa Rica? 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 Costa Rica 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 Costa Rica
Per phase, the articles that are already there. They're written from the same journey and go deeper than what fits above.
- Healthcare in Costa Rica: your own policy, and the Caja on topNo CAK route, so an own policy is what you carry from the first day. But unlike in Panama or Mexico something comes on top: as soon as you're a resident, the migration law requires an uninterrupted affiliation to the Caja, the state system, against a percentage of a reference income of at least the amount of your card. Two premiums side by side, and an order that prevents a gap.
- The residence routes to Costa Rica: three cards, an income test in dollars, and a waiting time the brochure doesn't mentionCosta Rica gives whoever stays a temporary residence as pensionado, rentista or inversionista, with an income test that is literally in the law: 1,000 dollars of pension a month, or 2,500 dollars of fixed income. You lodge in Costa Rica itself, within the 180 days you get as a tourist, and then wait months for the decision. And the incentive law of 2021 every brochure mentions closed on 14 July 2026.
- Working in Costa Rica: as a pensionado only with permission, and the rules your employer knowsWhoever comes as a pensionado or rentista may only work or run a business with separate permission from the DGME; whoever comes for a job has a category of their own. Around it a labour code of 1943 that still applies: eight hours a day and 48 a week, two weeks' holiday per fifty weeks, a thirteenth month before 20 December, and minimum wages per occupation that rose by 1.63 percent on 1 January 2026. And whoever wants to use a Dutch degree first goes to CONARE.
- AOW, pension and tax in Costa Rica: without a treaty the Netherlands keeps taxing, and without creditsThe Netherlands has no tax treaty with Costa Rica, and that reverses the sum the brochure promises. Costa Rica doesn't tax your Dutch income — that is right — but the Netherlands simply keeps taxing your AOW, your pension and your annuity, without exemption and usually without tax credits. And outside a treaty country a single person gets the married rate of the AOW, almost a third less gross. The real sum, rule by rule.
- Household goods, car and pet to Costa Rica: the exemption that is closed, the car you don't take, and a chip for the animalSince 14 July 2026 the one-off exemption of the law of 2021 is closed: the household goods pay import duty and VAT on the customs value, and the car the stack of taxes the customs calculation instruction adds up to a good half of the value, and at a higher rate to a good seventy percent. The pet needs a chip, the vaccinations, a deworming within fifteen days and an examination within two weeks. And the driving licence is converted without exam, as soon as you have the card.
- Banking and paying in Costa Rica: what the bank must ask, the 22-character IBAN and SINPE MóvilThe supervisor SUGEF prescribes precisely what a bank must know about you before it opens an account, and which identity document counts: the passport for whoever is not yet a resident, the DIMEX after that. What the bank asks on top is its own policy. After that you pay with an IBAN of 22 characters and with SINPE Móvil, the central bank's system that ties an account in colones to your phone number.
All 11 articles about Costa Rica
- DIMEX, Caja and your address: registering in Costa Rica, from fingerprints to renewal
- Buying a house in Costa Rica: the two hundred metres, the five years, and 1.5 percent
- Renting in Costa Rica: three years in the law, three months' notice, and a rent that rises with inflation
- Your first weeks in Costa Rica: fingerprints, lodging, and then waiting with the clock in hand
- School in Costa Rica: free and compulsory from preschool to bachillerato, with a school year from February to December
Also applies to your move
Ready to begin?
The step-by-step plan for Costa Rica: 37 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.