The step-by-step plan for Germany

As a Dutch citizen you need no visa and no residence permit for Germany, and there's no immigration office you have to visit — that counter was abolished for EU citizens in 2013. What there is: the German registration culture. Within two weeks of moving into a home you have to register at the Bürgeramt, and that Anmeldung is the domino almost everything else follows — tax number, health insurance, employer, school. The difference with Spain or France is the direction: there you have to make an effort to get registered, in Germany you can't get around the registration. Whoever knows that simply plans on it.

Germany has two healthcare systems side by side, and which one you enter decides your monthly costs and your options for decades. In employment you're automatically publicly insured (GKV, together about 17-18% of your wage of which your employer carries half) — and then your partner without their own income and your children are co-insured for free. Above an annual wage of € 77,400 you may go to the private PKV, which lures with lower premiums, but where every family member pays separately and the way back is legally sealed. Know this choice before you sign an employment contract: the salary decides which doors are open, and the wrong door closes behind you.

Germany is the cheapest move of all destinations — no ocean, no customs, no visa fees. The money is in the things you don't see coming: the deposit of three months' basic rent, double housing costs in the searching months, and a rental market that's tighter in the big cities than the Dutch one. The calculator works on your own choices and shows where the range is, so that you have the conversation about the move with real numbers.

Germany feels like the smallest step of all destinations — you're back with family in a few hours, and that's a real advantage you may weigh. But don't underestimate two things. The language: Dutch and German resemble each other, but an employment contract, a rental contract and a parents' evening at school are something other than a campsite chat — whoever seriously learns German before departure earns that back twice over in the first year. And the cultural differences that only stand out once you live there: the paper post, the appointment culture, the paper folders. Also discuss which of you carries the income in the first months, and what the plan is if the job or the home disappoints. Emigrating close by is still emigrating.

Set a date on which you want to have left. Not because it's fixed, but because the housing search — the bottleneck of this journey — can only be judged against a date, and because the two-week Anmeldung deadline only comes alive once there's a departure day.

Vertrekklaar works out for you whether it fits, and says so honestly if it doesn't. Shifting is always allowed — the date is yours, not the tool's.