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State pension and healthcare when you live on your boat: does the home port count?

A Dutch home port does not automatically keep you insured for the AOW state pension and healthcare. Since 1988 the courts have looked at where your boat really belongs, not at the flag or the sea letter. The Central Appeals Tribunal confirmed that in 2023 and the Supreme Court upheld it in 2025. The SVB decides whether you stay insured. Ask for a Wlz investigation before you leave.

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Written and checked by Auke on , against the sources at the bottom. Is something no longer right? Report it below and I'll fix it.

If you live on your boat and leave for an indefinite period, you do not automatically stay insured for the AOW (the Dutch state pension) and for healthcare. Not even if your boat sails under the Dutch flag with a home port in the Netherlands. Whether you stay insured is decided by the SVB, the Social Insurance Bank. So put your plan to the SVB before you leave, with a Wlz investigation.

Three things to know in advance:

  • The law treats a ship with a Dutch home port as part of the Netherlands, but only "with regard to the crew". Whether you count as "crew" as the owner is something the courts have never had to decide: in four cases about families on their own yacht, it always failed on something else, the boat no longer had a Dutch home port.
  • Since 1988 the highest administrative courts have looked at where the boat really belongs, not at the flag or the sea letter. Anyone who sails away and stays away has no Dutch home port after a year.
  • Once you are no longer insured, you have one year to insure yourself voluntarily. After that it is no longer possible.

What does the law say about a ship with a Dutch home port?

Three laws contain the same sentence: the AOW (article 3), the Long-term Care Act (Wlz, article 1.2.2) and, for tax, the General State Taxes Act (AWR, article 4). It reads: ships "which have their home port in the Netherlands [are] regarded as part of the Netherlands with regard to the crew."

If you have your boat registered and apply for a sea letter (zeebrief), a home port in the Netherlands is entered in the register and marked on your boat. That is set out in the Kingdom Act on the nationality of seagoing vessels. How it works is explained in sailing the world under the Dutch flag.

So it seems that with such a boat you keep living in the Netherlands, wherever you sail. That is not how it works. Two things have been decided. The rule exists for seafarers without a home ashore. According to settled case law it only applies to seafarers for whom "no residence on the mainland can be identified". The ship then counts as a piece of the Netherlands, but whether you live there is still judged by the SVB on the facts. And the home port is the port where your boat really belongs: where it starts and ends its voyages, the country with which it has the closest tie. Not the port on your sea letter.

What did the courts decide?

This is settled case law. The Central Appeals Tribunal, the highest court for the AOW and child benefit, applied the rule in 1988, 2010 and 2023 to families who lived on their own yacht. Three times the outcome was: no Dutch home port any more. The Supreme Court upheld the 2023 ruling on 18 July 2025.

The 2023 case. A family left for the Caribbean by sailing yacht in 2009. The boat had a Dutch sea letter, sailed under the Dutch flag and had a Dutch home port in its tonnage certificate. The mother stayed registered at her father-in-law's address, kept her business registered in the Netherlands, filed her tax return here and came back one month a year. Even so, she had to repay € 7,686.86 in child benefit. The Tribunal: the country with which the ship has the closest tie counts as its home port, and "the formal home port and the flag under which the ship sails are therefore not decisive". Because the boat had left straight away and stayed in the Caribbean, its home port was "in any event no longer in the Netherlands after the first year of departure".

The 2024 case. On 26 September 2024 the District Court of Amsterdam ruled in the case of a man who set off on a world trip with his partner and his sailing boat on 1 July 2006. When he applied for the AOW in 2022, the SVB granted him 68 percent. According to the SVB he had not been insured since 2006. The court agreed with the SVB.

Three points from that ruling:

  • The home port is a fact, not a paper. The court: the concept of "home port" "is a factual concept. It is the port where the ship actually belongs." And: "the formal home port and the flag under which the ship sails [are] not decisive." After 2006 the boat had never been back in its Dutch port.
  • Being registered did not save him. All those years he was registered at a friend's address. But he stayed at changing addresses, and the court saw "no identifiable home base" in the Netherlands. His visits to family and for medical care were "too incidental and short".
  • Tax assessments are not voluntary insurance. He argued that he had been voluntarily insured. But his tax assessments did not show that he had paid contributions for voluntary insurance.

None of these courts said anything about whether an owner is "crew". They did not need to: the cases failed on the home port. The 2010 and 2023 cases were about child benefit, those of 1988 and 2024 about the AOW, and the test comes from a 2011 tax judgment of the Supreme Court. The courts read the provisions in the AOW, the child benefit act, the Wlz and the AWR as one rule. Assume it works out the same for your healthcare and your tax. No appeal in the 2024 case can be found on rechtspraak.nl (as at 27 October 2026); for the line of case law that makes no difference.

One situation is different. If you sail back to the same Dutch port every season and spend the winter there, your boat starts and ends its voyages in the Netherlands. Then there is more to be said for a Dutch home port. No court has decided that for a yacht. Put it to the SVB.

Do not assume that your flag or your sea letter keeps you insured. The sailor in this case only found out when he applied for his AOW that he had not been insured for sixteen years. By then the deadline for voluntary insurance had long passed.

How does the SVB assess your departure?

The SVB looks at whether you remain a resident: someone who lives in the Netherlands. Your registration with the municipality does not decide this. Policy rule SB1027 works with three situations:

How long away For the SVB
less than a year, temporary you remain a resident
more than a year, not permanent still a resident in the first year, not after that
for an indefinite period, or after three years no longer a resident; for an indefinite period from the day after departure

Anyone who sets sail for an indefinite period usually falls in the last row. The rule mentions no ship and no world trip. In the 2023 case the SVB did exactly what the policy rule says: still a resident in the first year after departure "because of the possibly temporary nature", not after that. That is why asking the SVB in advance is so useful. Anyone who comes back to live in the Netherlands within a year, without having lived anywhere else in the meantime, has never been away according to the AOW.

Do you work on board, as a freelancer or for a foreign client? Then your insurance can stop after three months, even if you are still a resident. That is covered in digital nomad: tax and insurance.

What if you are no longer insured?

For every year you are not insured, you later receive 2 percent less AOW. If you die during that time, your surviving dependants receive no benefit under the Anw, the Surviving Dependants Act. You close that gap with voluntary insurance at the SVB:

Voluntary insurance 2026
Who anyone insured for at least a year directly before leaving
Applying no later than one year after the day compulsory insurance ended
How long ten years at most
AOW contribution 17.9 percent of your income, minimum € 569 and maximum € 5,693 per year
Maximum from an income of € 38,883
Anw contribution 0.1 percent, € 3 to € 31 per year

The contribution is based on all your income, including income from abroad. If the two of you travel together, everything applies to each of you separately. More on building up your pension in your AOW build-up stops when you leave.

What about your healthcare if you live nowhere?

Your Dutch health insurance depends on the Wlz. If you stay insured under the Wlz, you must keep your health insurance. If the SVB no longer sees you as a resident, then according to the CAK you no longer need Dutch health insurance.

People who emigrate with a Dutch pension or benefit can sometimes insure themselves through the CAK. But only if you live in a country with which the Netherlands has an agreement on this. Without a country of residence that route is closed, and so is the S1 form you use to register in such a country.

If you are no longer insured, you arrange international health insurance yourself. Pay attention to three things that matter more for a sailor:

  • Cover in every country on your route, including when you cross the Atlantic.
  • Repatriation to a good hospital or to the Netherlands.
  • What happens when you are temporarily in the Netherlands.

How to switch without a gap is explained in health insurance on a world trip.

Why a Wlz investigation before you leave?

Because it is the only way to know for sure in advance. The SVB itself says it cannot tell you directly on its website whether you are insured for the Wlz: "every situation is different". You request the investigation through the SVB website.

Put forward everything that is different for you than for an ordinary traveller:

  • that you have no other country of residence;
  • your boat: the flag, the home port, where the boat starts and ends its voyages, and whether and when it will be back in a Dutch port;
  • whether you work on board, and for whom;
  • your travel plan, and whether and when you want to come back;
  • where you stay when you are in the Netherlands.

Ask the SVB for the date on which your compulsory insurance ends. From that date the year in which you can insure yourself voluntarily begins. Put that date in your calendar. What applies to your tax, your private limited company and an inheritance is set out in box 3, your company and inheritance when you live nowhere.

In Vertrekklaar this is phase 2 of 5 of the journey, step 2.16: the same steps, but for your situation — in your order, tickable, and with the deadlines watched. See the whole journey for a life on the road or go straight to step 2.16 in the open plan.

Want to know more about this?

Then we'll send you the departure checklist for Onderweg, with every step in order, and five mails about the pitfalls and the real costs. You can switch it off at any time.

We use your address, and your departure date if you fill it in, only for the checklist, the guide and the mails after it. You can unsubscribe under every mail.

What this rests on

The facts in this article come from these official pages. Rules change. When in doubt, go by the source, not this article.

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