Buying a house on Aruba: the familiar notary process — with a kink in the tax at 250,000 florin

First the order that is fixed on this site: you don't buy in your first year — you rent, you discover which part of the island suits you, and only then do you decide. This article is for the moment you have got that far — and then Aruba is surprisingly familiar territory.

The process: simply a notary, just like at home

Aruba works with the notary system you know from the Netherlands: the notary draws up the deed of transfer, executes it, settles the transfer tax and takes care of the registration at the land registry. No separate tax counters beforehand as in Southern Europe, no bidding rounds with their own rulebook as in Scandinavia. The points to watch are in what you buy: check whether it is freehold land, long lease (erfpacht) or rented land — on Aruba all three are common, and with long-lease or rented land you want to know the remaining term and the ground rent before you sign. Your notary looks into that; ask for it explicitly. And bear in mind that buying says nothing about being allowed to stay: your admission is a separate process.

The bill: 3% becomes 6% above 250,000 florin

The transfer tax you pay as buyer, via the notary, and the rate has a kink: 3% on the value up to and including Afl. 250,000 (around € 127,000) and 6% on everything above that. At the prices of an average home you soon fall partly into the higher rate — work it out beforehand, because on a house of Afl. 600,000 the difference between "everything at 3%" and reality is well over ten thousand florin. On top of that come the notary's fees and, with a mortgage, the costs of the mortgage deed.

And afterwards: the land tax

Whoever is the owner of a house or land on Aruba on 1 January pays land tax for that year, under the national ordinance in force since 2019. The assessment comes from Departamento di Impuesto; the amount depends on the value of your property. Put it in your annual budget, and for the complete picture of living and paying on the island see working and earning on Aruba and your first weeks on Aruba.

In Vertrekklaar this is phase 5 of 5 of the journey: the same steps, but applied to your situation — in your order, tickable, and with the deadlines monitored. See the whole journey to Aruba.