Leaving from Belgium?To the Belgian plan →See the plan for Belgians moving to Curaçao →This plan is for people leaving the Netherlands.
Curaçao · Within the Kingdom
Emigrating to Curaçao
To live on Curaçao, you apply for a declaration from the immigration service and then register. Your Dutch passport gives you the right to live there. That's why almost everyone underestimates what has to happen. It's a real emigration: your health insurance and AOW accrual stop.
€ 299 one-off · 29 steps · no subscription
- Kind of journey
- Within the Kingdom: admission by operation of law
- The chain
- Declaration → Kranshi → sédula → health insurance
- The move
- By sea container: count in weeks of sailing
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 don't need a visa and there's no language barrier. Still, this journey has to go in order. Every link in the Curaçao chain wants to see the previous one. And the container and customs set the pace of your move.
- Orientation
The same passport, a different country
In this phase you find out what it means to move to a different country on the same passport. Curaçao is an autonomous country within the Kingdom. It isn't a municipality of the Netherlands, and it isn't the Caribbean Netherlands like Bonaire either. As a Dutch citizen you're admitted by operation of law: the law itself gives you the right to live there. You do have that right recorded. After that follows a chain of registrations of its own. You learn what that means for your income and your healthcare. You explore the island outside high season. And you have the family conversation, with the distance to family as the honest hard point.Read more
- Closing the Netherlands
For the authorities this is an ordinary emigration
In this phase you close the Netherlands, and everything stops: your health insurance, your benefits, your AOW accrual. You gather the documents the Curaçao chain will want to see. The most important is the international proof of your deregistration from the Netherlands. Kranshi, the population register of Curaçao, literally asks for it. You also have the tax conversation. Curaçao has a tax system of its own and its own arrangement with the Netherlands.Read more
- The move
Here Curaçao resembles Australia, not Spain
In this phase you move your household contents, pet and car. The household contents cross the ocean by sea container. Count on weeks of sailing and on customs that want to see an inventory list. Your pet doesn't fall under EU rules, but under import requirements of its own with a long lead time. And the car is a real sum: import duties often make bringing it more expensive than buying there.Read more
- Registration on Curaçao
Every link wants to see the previous one
In this phase you register on Curaçao, in a fixed order. First you apply to the immigration service for the declaration of admission by operation of law. Then you register at Kranshi with your Dutch papers. Then you collect the sédula, the ID card you need for the bank, work and just about everything. Last, you arrange health insurance. Whoever comes complete is settled in weeks. Whoever misses a link starts over.Read more
- Arrival
Swap your driving licence and choose a school
In this phase you exchange your driving licence and choose a school. On Curaçao that school choice is a bigger decision than in the Netherlands: language, curriculum and costs diverge widely. After that the real getting used to begins. Almost everything reaches the island by boat, and you see that in the prices. And there's a pace you won't want to miss after three months.Read more
This is what one step of your plan looks like
This is the real thing: one of the steps of the Curaçao journey, exactly as it appears in your personal step-by-step plan, with the deadlines, the offices and the sources.
Step 4.1 of your plan
Apply for the declaration of admission by operation of law
- Lead time
- legally at most four months — and you may await it on the island
- Costs
- XCG 615 (± € 300) per application
With this declaration you record that you may live on Curaçao. It is the first link of the chain: everything that follows waits for it.
Preferably start on it while still in the Netherlands. How to go about it:
- Lodge the application online, through the application portal.
- Add the documents you gathered in phase 2, and your fresh certificate of conduct (VOG).
The Admissions Organisation, the service that decides on your residence, legally has four months for the decision. Here your passport pays off: as a Dutch citizen you may await that decision on Curaçao. So you don't have to wait for the declaration to leave.
The rest of the chain does wait for the declaration. Kranshi only registers you once the declaration has been issued. You then show the stamp in your passport, and the printed decision on your application. It must still be valid for at least four months when you register.
The earlier this application runs, the shorter the row of links after it.
Where you arrange it
What this step rests on
And this is the dashboard that step lives in. The example shows the plan for Spain; your dashboard shows the plan for Curaçao.
This is step 4.1 of 31. The other 30 are ready for you, each with the same sources, the same offices and a schedule that keeps track of your dates.
See all 31 steps for CuraçaoWhat you get for € 299
All 31 steps to Curaçao, 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 Curaçao
€ 299
one-off · 31 steps
- Pay once, no subscription
- Destination changes? Within 30 days I switch your plan to another country free of charge
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What will your move to Curaçao cost? Work it out →
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Every step on one list, free
Not ready to start yet? Then you get the departure checklist for Curaçao: 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 Curaçao 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 Curaçao? 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 Curaçao 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 Curaçao
Per phase, the articles that are already there. They're written from the same journey and go deeper than what fits above.
- The container to Curaçao: what the crossing costs, and how the exemption worksYour household contents cross the ocean by sea container — count on weeks of sailing time and thousands of euros. Customs grants an exemption from import taxes for used household goods, but only whoever knows the conditions (six months of ownership, an inventory list with values, declaration within six months) benefits from it.
- The declaration by operation of law: you may live on Curaçao — but have it recordedYour Dutch passport gives you the right to live on Curaçao. You have that right recorded at the Toelatingsorganisatie: XCG 615, a decision period of four months — and you may simply await the decision on the island. What goes into the file, including the document that only keeps for three months.
- Working on Curaçao: no work permit, but a CRIB number, and a payslip with four premiumsAs a Dutch citizen admitted by operation of law you may work and run a business on Curaçao without a work permit: the ban in the labour law does not apply to you. What is new: a CRIB number at the Tax Administration, wage tax of 9.75 to 46.5%, four premiums on your payslip and a tax return on your worldwide income. And the minimum wage: an hourly wage of Cg 11.93 since 1 January 2026.
- Tax and the penshonado scheme: the two-month clock nobody knows aboutYour accrued AOW (the Dutch state pension) travels to Curaçao in full — including the single person's rate. And for pensioners there's the penshonado scheme: 10% on your foreign income, provided you make the request within two months of registration and buy a home within eighteen months. Whoever misses the clocks pays the full rate.
- Renting on Curaçao: the rent commission, the notice period and what Kranshi wants from your contractRenting on Curaçao is a free market with a legal floor: the National Ordinance on Rent of 2011. Notice takes at least a month, a landlord cannot put you out of your home without the rent commission's consent, and that commission costs you nothing. And the tenancy agreement is more than a roof: Kranshi wants to see it before you can register.
- Your car to Curaçao: one exemption, twelve months of ownership, otherwise the full rateOne passenger car per family may come along tax-free — provided it was in your possession and use for twelve months before shipment. Whoever falls outside that pays import levies that usually tip the sum towards: buy there.
All 14 articles about Curaçao
- Your pet along to Curaçao: chip, rabies, a fourteen-day certificate and the deposit at customs
- Bank and payments on Curaçao: the sédula opens the account, the CRIB number the tax
- Kranshi and the sédula: the registration your Curaçao life hangs on
- Healthcare on Curaçao: the bvz, the premium through your tax and the gap before you register
- Buying a house on Curaçao: the notary arranges it — and the OZB is charged in bands
- Your first weeks on Curaçao: five days for Kranshi, three working days to the sédula, and the clocks that start after that
- Your driving licence on Curaçao: register for free, exchange for XCG 175, and renew through the RDW
- School on Curaçao: compulsory from four, and the language choice you make before the move
Also applies to your move
Ready to begin?
The step-by-step plan for Curaçao: 31 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.