Buying a house on Sint Eustatius: 5% on purchase, 0.7% without surcharges and a Land Registry at Fort Oranje

Yes, as a Dutch citizen you buy on Sint Eustatius as in the rest of the Caribbean Netherlands: through the notary, who passes the deed and remits the tax. Count on 5% transfer tax on top of the purchase price. The find at belastingdienst-cn.nl lies in the years after: the property tax has an exemption for the home you live in yourself, and whoever keeps a second home or a rented property pays on Statia an effective 0.7% of the value per year, without the island surcharges Bonaire has levied on top since 2020. The trap is not the purchase but the order and the scale: land is scarce, the supply small, and whoever buys before knowing the island buys on a market of 3,200 people where selling can take years.

In your first year you do not buy. You rent, you get to know the island, and only then do you decide. Why that order is fixed is in why you do not buy a house in your first year. This article is for the moment you have got there.

How does the purchase go, and who registers it?

Transfer tax is levied on the buyer, and the notary makes sure the tax due is declared and remitted to the Tax Administration Caribbean Netherlands; you do not have to go to a counter yourself. The registration of the deed goes through the Land Registry. Since 1 January 2021 the Kadaster Act BES applies: the cadastral tasks of Bonaire, Sint Eustatius and Saba have been placed with the Dutch Kadaster, but the offices on the islands remain. On Statia it is at Fort Oranje 5 in Oranjestad, and that is where you submit the documents, because submission takes place at the office of the island itself. Before you sign, request an extract or a full title search: the Kadaster itself writes that the cadastral registration is still being built up, and that until then an extract is produced on request. Land, moreover, does not come only from private owners: the issuing of land is a task of the Public Entity's Domain Management, not of the Kadaster.

What does buying a house on Sint Eustatius cost on top of the price?

Item	Amount or rule
Transfer tax	5% of the value, through the notary
Property tax, home you live in yourself	exempt
Property tax, second home or rented	0.7% a year (17.5% on a notional benefit of 4%), with an exemption on the first USD 70,000
Island surcharges on property tax	none on Sint Eustatius and Saba; Bonaire levies 30%
Building permit fee, construction cost up to $ 25,000	$ 60
Building permit fee, construction cost $ 50,000 to $ 250,000	$ 435 plus 1.35% of the amount above $ 50,000
Building permit fee, construction cost $ 500,000 or more	$ 6,010 plus 1% of the amount above $ 500,000

The Tax Administration's own example: a second home of USD 200,000 is taxed on USD 130,000, and that is USD 910 a year. On Bonaire 30% surcharges come on top; on Statia they do not. Whoever hesitates between "buy first, move later" and "move first, then buy" therefore has a smaller difference here than on Bonaire, but still one: the exemption applies only to the home that is your main residence.

What do I pay every year after that, and when nothing?

Property tax is a flat-rate levy: not on the rent you actually receive, but on a notional income of 4% of the value of the property, at 17.5%. Certain objects are exempt, and the most important of these is the owner-occupied home. Live there yourself and you do not pay this tax; keep the house as a second home or rent it out and you do. How that relates to your pension and the BES taxes is covered separately.

What do you need to know if you build or renovate?

Two things that weigh more heavily on Statia than on Bonaire. First the permit: for a building permit under the Building and Housing Ordinance the Public Entity charges fees by construction cost, from $ 60 for a small renovation to over $ 6,000 plus 1% for a construction sum above half a million; an application submitted only after construction has started is increased. Second the climate. The KNMI writes that the hurricanes in the Caribbean pose a risk above all for the Windward Islands Sint Eustatius and Saba: on average a hurricane passes within 150 kilometres once every two years, against once in ten years for Bonaire, and the season runs from June to November. On steep volcanic slopes the heavy rainfall is a danger of its own. That determines what you buy, how you build and what you insure.

What does the rental year teach you first?

On which slope the water stands, where the wind comes from and what the STUCO electricity bill does. The housing market is the island's biggest item, the Public Entity itself names the limited availability of land as a brake on construction, and precisely that scarce supply is the reason not to buy from a photo. How renting on Sint Eustatius works in the meantime, and how housing, healthcare and work on the island fit together, you read in the other articles; the order is in the step-by-step plan for Sint Eustatius.

In Vertrekklaar this is phase 4 of 5 of the journey, step 4.1: the same steps, but for your situation — in your order, tickable, and with the deadlines watched. See the whole journey to Sint Eustatius or go straight to step 4.1 in the open plan.