AOW, pension and tax in Uruguay: full AOW, but no tax treaty

If you live in Uruguay, you receive your full AOW, even as a single person. The Netherlands and Uruguay signed a social security treaty in 2005, and Uruguay is among the 36 countries outside the EU, the EEA and Switzerland to which the AOW is exported in full. There is no tax treaty. Uruguay is missing from the overview the Belastingdienst published in 2026, and from NederlandWereldwijd's list. So the Netherlands keeps taxing your AOW and your pension. Uruguay does not list a pension from abroad among the foreign income it taxes.

Income	Netherlands	Uruguay, if you are a tax resident there
AOW	taxed; a single person keeps 70 % of the minimum wage	not listed among the taxed foreign income
Occupational pension, ABP	taxed, as wages from a former employment in the Netherlands	not listed; the pension tax IASS excludes it
Annuity (lijfrente)	taxed if the contributions were deductible	have it checked whether Uruguay sees it as income from capital
Interest, dividends, capital gains from abroad		taxed since 2026, rate 12 %, unless you choose the newcomer scheme
Rent from a home in the Netherlands		taxed since 2026
Wages or rent in Uruguay		taxed

Why does the Netherlands keep taxing?

NederlandWereldwijd puts it plainly: if there is no tax treaty with your country of residence, the Netherlands has the right to levy tax. With Uruguay the Netherlands only has a treaty on the exchange of information on tax matters. That concerns data, not the question of which country may tax.

Article 7.2 of the Income Tax Act sets out what you then declare in the Netherlands: your pension as wages for work you did in the Netherlands (paragraph 2(b)), an annuity whose contributions were deductible ((d)), and benefits from a Dutch public-law body such as the SVB ((e)). Your occupational pension, your annuity and your AOW remain Dutch income; see also where is your pension taxed.

For "other countries", which includes Uruguay, the Belastingdienst only lists the entrepreneur's deduction and the tax-free allowance in box 3. The tax credits are not listed.

How much AOW do you receive?

The full amount. In 2024 the minister listed the 36 countries outside the EU, the EEA and Switzerland with which the Netherlands has a social security treaty, and Uruguay is among them. The Netherlands must export the full AOW to those countries. A single person therefore keeps 70 % of the minimum wage, instead of the 50 % that applies outside a treaty country. Under the treaty, the SVB calculates your AOW only on the years you were insured in the Netherlands.

The SVB pays the AOW to Uruguay in euros, via Citibank, with at most € 0.48 in costs per payment; see bank and payments.

What does Uruguay tax?

You become a tax resident if you are in Uruguay for more than 183 days in a calendar year, or if your family lives there. A resident pays the IRPF, the income tax, on income from Uruguay. A pension from the Netherlands does not fall under that. The separate tax on pensions, the IASS, explicitly excludes pensions from foreign pension institutions (Ley 18.314, article 2).

Since 1 January 2026 Uruguay does tax four kinds of income from abroad: interest and dividends, rent, and the gain on selling investments or property. That is a result of the budget law Ley 20.446. The rate for what does not fall under a lower rate is 12 %.

If after leaving you still have a rented-out home or investments, both the Netherlands and Uruguay may tax. For foreign income from capital, Uruguay lets you deduct the foreign tax (article 25), but never more than the Uruguayan tax on it. Have it calculated for both countries before you move.