The step-by-step plan for Germany

Good news to start with: as a Dutch citizen you need no visa and no residence permit for Germany. Free movement within the EU arranges that. You don't have to visit an immigration office either. That counter was abolished for EU citizens in 2013.

What Germany does have is a registration culture of its own. Within two weeks of moving into a home, you have to register at the Bürgeramt, the municipal service office. That registration is called the Anmeldung. Almost everything else follows from it: your tax number, your health insurance, your employer and 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. If you know that, you simply plan for it.

In this step you see which German healthcare system applies to you and what it costs. Germany has two side by side: a public one (GKV) and a private one (PKV). Which one you end up in decides your monthly costs and your options for decades.

• The public insurance (GKV). As an employee you're insured here automatically. The contribution for medical costs is about 17.5% of your wage. On top of that comes 3.6% for the Pflegeversicherung, the long-term care insurance (4.2% without children). Your employer pays about half. Your children are then co-insured for free, and so is your spouse or registered partner without their own income. If you live together unmarried, that does not apply to your partner: they need insurance of their own.
• The private insurance (PKV). If you earn more than € 77,400 a year, you may move to it. The PKV lures with lower premiums, but every family member pays separately. And the way back is legally sealed.

Know this choice before you sign an employment contract. Your salary decides which doors are open, and the wrong door closes behind you.

In this step you see what the move is going to cost you. The good news: Germany is the cheapest move of all destinations. There's no ocean, no customs and no visa fees.

The money is in the things you don't see coming:

• The deposit: at most three months' basic rent, meaning the rent without additional costs.
• Double housing costs in the months you're looking for a home.
• A rental market that's tighter in the big cities than the Dutch one.

Work it out with your own choices in the calculator. It also shows how far the outcome can vary, so that you have the conversation about the move with real numbers.

With this step you decide together whether it will be Germany. 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 emigrating close by is still emigrating.

Going alone? Then have this conversation with the people you leave behind. The questions below work for them too.

Take three evenings. One conversation is too short for a decision like this. Agree on three evenings, a week apart:

• Evening 1, why. What do we hope to find in Germany? What are we leaving behind here? Would that really be different there?
• Evening 2, what we give up. Who and what will we miss? What are we dreading most? What do we do if it disappoints?
• Evening 3, the conditions. What has to be in place for each of us to say yes? When do we check together whether it's going well, for example after six and after twelve months? And what would be a reason for us to go back?

Write the conditions down. On the kitchen-table card it all fits on one A4.

On those evenings, don't underestimate the culture. Some differences only stand out once you live there: the post that comes by letter, the appointment culture, the paper folders. Also discuss which of you earns the income in the first months, and what the plan is if the job or the home disappoints.

Divide the work. Agree who takes on which part of this plan: the papers, the house and the cancellations, the school, the move. That way not one of you carries everything. Invite your partner into your plan; then you both see what's done.

Is one of you going without an income of your own? Whoever lives in Germany and doesn't work in the Netherlands usually no longer builds up AOW, the Dutch state pension. For every year you're not insured, you later get 2 percent less AOW. You can insure yourself voluntarily with the SVB. You have one year for that, counted from the moment you're no longer insured. Also discuss whether that partner keeps an account and money of their own, and how you decide together on large expenses.

Married, registered or living together? That can make a difference for your partner's residence permit, for co-insurance in healthcare and for inheritance. In Germany it counts for wage tax too. Married couples choose their Steuerklassen together, the tax classes that determine how much is withheld every month. With a large income difference, the combination III/V can make a big difference net per month, and it exists only for married couples. And in the German public health insurance, a partner without their own income is only co-insured for free if you are married or in a registered partnership. Check at tax and at your healthcare further on in your plan what applies to you.

Are children coming? How you tell them depends on their age:

• Up to about four. Tell them shortly before the move and keep fixed routines, such as the bedtime ritual and the cuddly toy in the hand luggage.
• Primary school. Tell them well in advance and let them look along: photos of the school, the neighbourhood and the house. Let them choose something, such as their room.
• Teenagers. Involve them in the decision itself. For them, saying goodbye to friends weighs the most. Agree how they keep in touch and when they'll see their friends again.

How the German school works, and when children are sorted by level, is in the article about school with this step.

Who learns the language, and when? Dutch and German resemble each other, but an employment contract, a rental contract and a parents' evening at school are something other than a chat at the campsite. If you seriously learn German before you leave, it pays you back twice over in the first year. Often the partner without work needs the language most, and that's exactly the one without colleagues to practise with. Plan it together, preferably before you leave.

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.