The step-by-step plan for Greece

In this step you see which papers you need in Greece, at which counter you get them and in what order.

As an EU citizen you need no residence permit. If you stay longer than three months, you do need a βεβαίωση εγγραφής: the registration certificate from Presidential Decree 106/2007.

Here is the first trap: that paper does not come from the municipality. The Ελληνική Αστυνομία, the Greek police, issues it. In Attica and Thessaloniki the Immigration Departments do this. Elsewhere it's the police stations that handle aliens' affairs. In Italy and Spain the municipality is the place for this. So whoever walks into the δημαρχείο (the town hall) in Greece is standing at the wrong counter.

Around the certificate there are four steps, and the order is fixed:

• First the AFM, the Greek tax number. Everything asks for it.
• Then a home with a registered rental contract.
• Then the registration certificate at the police.
• After that the AMKA, your social security number, for healthcare.

Each step is the entry ticket for the next. The step-by-step plan keeps that order for you.

Where you live decides almost everything: your healthcare, your transport and whether your car comes along at all. So make this choice before the rest of the journey. Be aware: on holiday this choice feels exactly the other way round from when you live there.

• The mainland, such as Athens, Thessaloniki and the Peloponnese. You have hospitals, schools, motorways and an airport within reach, and life goes on all year round.
• An island. You buy space and views. But count on a winter in which half of everything closes, on a hospital that's a boat trip away, and on more expensive groceries, because everything comes by ferry.

The smaller the island, the heavier that weighs. On Crete or Rhodes you notice little of it. On an island with two thousand inhabitants you notice it in everything.

In this step you see what the move is going to cost you. The good news: the paperwork in Greece is almost free. The registration certificate costs € 0.50 in stamp duty, and the AFM and the AMKA cost nothing.

The money goes into three things: the distance, the home, and the car if it comes along. By road it's well over 2,700 kilometres to Greece; the other route is the boat from Italy.

Work it out with your own choices in the calculator.

With this step you decide together whether it's going to be Greece. You end up with a few conditions on paper that you both stand behind.

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, with a week in between:

• Evening 1, why. What do we hope to find in Greece? 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 arranged 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 sheet.

Greece feels like a holiday, but three things need to be on the table:

• The wage level. Greek salaries are well below Dutch ones, while Athens asks almost Dutch rents.
• The distance. A quick weekend back to the Netherlands isn't on the cards.
• The season. The summer you know lasts here into October and is heavy in July and August. Forty degrees is no longer an exception.

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 can both see what's done.

Is one of you going without an income of your own? Whoever lives in Greece and doesn't work in the Netherlands usually no longer builds up AOW. For every year you're not insured, you later get 2 percent less AOW. From the moment you're no longer insured, you have one year to take out voluntary insurance with the SVB. Also discuss who earns the income in the first months, whether the partner without an income keeps an account and money of their own, and how you decide together on big expenses.

Married, registered or living together? It can make a difference for your partner's residence permit, for co-insurance in healthcare and for inheritance. In Greece it counts above all in healthcare. At e-EFKA, the Greek social insurance, a spouse can only be added if the marriage is in the register of the AADE, the Greek tax authority. For a registered partner or a cohabiting partner we found no official confirmation. How you arrange it is in the step about your healthcare further on in your plan.

If you're both Dutch, each of you lives in Greece in your own right. If your partner has a nationality from outside the EU, they live there as your family member. A spouse then always counts as a family member. If you live together unmarried, you prove a durable relationship and Greece assesses it itself.

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

• Up to about four: tell them shortly before the move and keep fixed habits, like 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, like their room.
• Teenagers: involve them in the decision itself. For them, saying goodbye to friends weighs heaviest. Agree how they keep in touch and when they see their friends again.

In Greece compulsory education starts at four, in kindergarten. You enrol your child online at the school that belongs to your home address.

Who learns the language, and when? Greek is the only language on this site with a different script. Every counter, every form and every tax assessment is in Greek. English helps in the tourist areas, and hardly at all outside them. Often the partner without work needs the language most, and precisely that partner has no colleagues to practise with. Plan it together, preferably before you leave.

Choose below the date on which you want to be in Greece. The step-by-step plan works out whether that's feasible with what still has to happen, and from that moment guards the clocks that exist: the three months for the certificate and the six months of car use before the relocation certificate. And 31 October for the 7% scheme: whoever arrives by 2 July and applies by 31 October gets it for the year of the move already. More on that in phase 2, under AOW and pension.