Partner comes along without a job of their own: deregistering, healthcare, AOW and the house

This article is for the partner who comes along. Not the one with the contract, the visa or the residence permit in their name — but the one who "just comes along", without a job of their own there. In the story of the emigration you may be the second name. For the Dutch government you're an independent emigrant with a file of your own, and that file is bigger than your partner's. After all, your partner gets an employer, an insurance and a salary there; you don't. What you get, you arrange yourself.

This applies to every destination. Whether your partner goes to America on an employer visa, to Germany for a job or to Curaçao with a declaration by operation of law: the Dutch side is exactly the same for you. How the visa or residence title works for the accompanying partner is in the country steps of your step-by-step plan.

Why not just stay registered?

It's the first thought of almost everyone in this situation, and it's understandable: you have no job there, you come back often, you don't want to let go of the children, the house and your family doctor. Why would you deregister?

Because it's not a choice. Whoever stays outside the Netherlands for more than eight months within a period of a year has to deregister from the Personal Records Database (BRP). Those months don't have to be consecutive, and it makes no difference whether you have a job there, an income, or only a partner. A plan of four months here and eight months there falls under it too — on the day you pass the eight months, not only at the end of the year.

What happens if you don't do it anyway isn't a fine but something more annoying: an administration that rests on an address where you don't live. Your health insurer insures you on the basis of a registration that isn't right, and may reclaim premium and healthcare costs as soon as that comes out. The Belastingdienst pays out allowances to a household that isn't there, and reclaims them. And municipalities check addresses: a deregistration "ex officio", because the municipality discovers that you don't live there, is a worse deregistration than one you arrange yourself — without proof of deregistration, without a chosen date, and with a gap in your papers that you have to explain later.

Staying registered yields nothing you don't also have if you deregister. Your passport stays Dutch, you come back whenever you want, your BSN stays yours. What you lose by deregistering are entitlements — health insurance, allowances, AOW accrual — and you lose those by wrongly staying registered too, only then with a reclaim on top.

And what you get back if you do do it well: a departure with a chosen date, an international proof of deregistration that you need at the counter there, and an administration in which every body switches over on the same day. That's boring, and that's exactly the intention.

What stops for you on the deregistration date

The list is the same for the partner without a job as for the partner with one, with one difference: with you nobody fills it in by itself.

Your health insurance. The Dutch basic insurance stops on the day of your emigration — not on the day you cancel your policy, but on the day you no longer live in the Netherlands. Your partner in many cases gets an insurance via the employer there; check whether you're co-insured on that, from which day, and what happens in the weeks between departure and the first working day. If there's no employer cover for you, you take out an insurance of your own in the country of destination, or an international policy for the transition. How you close the gap between two systems is in Cancelling your health insurance without a gap.

If you plan to be in the Netherlands for part of the year: you're then no longer insured here. A travel or expat insurance that covers the Dutch months is then no luxury but the only cover you have.

Your AOW accrual. Every year you live or work in the Netherlands, you build up two percent AOW (the Dutch state pension). That stops on the day you're no longer insured — for you and for your partner both, and the gap can't be made up later. The SVB offers a voluntary insurance for AOW and Anw to whoever goes to live outside the Netherlands. The rules: sign up within one year after the end of your compulsory insurance, and you must have been compulsorily insured for at least one year before that. The Anw insurance you apply for immediately on departure. The premium depends on income with a minimum and a maximum; the SVB works it out for you. Precisely for the partner without income of their own there, this is often the cheapest insurance you'll ever take out — because without income you pay close to the minimum, and your partner meanwhile may be building up pension in a system that's of no use to you. Background in AOW on emigration.

Your allowances. Healthcare allowance, housing allowance, child budget: they stop on emigration, and you stop them yourself. If you don't, they keep running on a household that no longer exists, and the Belastingdienst reclaims. See Stopping allowances on emigration.

Your tax position. You both leave, so you both become non-resident taxpayers: the Netherlands then only taxes income from a Dutch source. For the year of departure you each file an M return. The tax partnership you had in the Netherlands only continues outside the Netherlands if you both count as qualifying non-resident taxpayers — and with a destination outside Europe that's almost never the case. What that means for tax credits and the division of deductions is precisely the kind of sum you put once before a tax adviser who knows both countries.

What you arrange yourself, in the weeks before the deregistration

Three things your partner can't do for you, and that become more laborious after departure.

DigiD. You'll be doing business with the Netherlands for years — the M return, the SVB, later your pension — and that runs via DigiD. Make sure you have it, with the app and the Berichtenbox, before you deregister. Applying from abroad is possible, but goes via a counter or video calling.

A bank account in your own name. Not only a joint account. Trailing settlements, a refund from the Belastingdienst, the SVB premium: you want a Dutch account that's yours. Ask your bank before departure whether they keep an account of a customer in your destination country and under which conditions; the answer differs per bank and per country. See Keeping a bank account and DigiD.

An address of your own for post, and an authorised representative. After deregistration you're in the Non-Residents Records Database, with a foreign address. Pass that address on to every body that sends you post, and consider authorising someone in the Netherlands for the things that require a signature at a counter.

If you want to be here for part of the year

That's possible, and as a Dutch citizen you don't have to ask anyone for permission. Within the limit of eight months away per year you come back as often and as long as you like. What you arrange for it is small but concrete: the travel insurance for those months, a car you leave here suspended at the RDW (the road tax then stops by itself, and you don't need insurance and inspection as long as it's suspended — the RDW sends no post abroad, by the way, so put the end date in your own calendar), and your registration as a voter outside the Netherlands.

What you can't do: use a Dutch health insurance, allowances or a registration in those months. The rhythm of four months here and eight there is a fine life; it just isn't Dutch residency.

The house

If the house stays yours, something changes on the deregistration date in the tax and possibly in the mortgage.

The mortgage interest deduction only exists after emigration for whoever is a qualifying non-resident taxpayer: virtually all your income is taxed in the Netherlands, and you live in an EU country, the EEA, Switzerland or on the BES islands. Whoever goes to America, Australia or Dubai doesn't meet that, and whoever goes to Germany but has their income there usually doesn't either. If the house is empty and for sale, the relocation scheme applies temporarily; after that — and when renting out or keeping it, immediately — the home counts as Dutch assets. A home in the Netherlands stays taxed here, even if you no longer live in it.

The mortgage itself: renting out without written consent from the bank is prohibited in virtually every mortgage contract. Ask in advance. Banks by no means always say no, but count on conditions or an interest surcharge. And if children of yours will be living in the house, for the bank that's also "someone else lives there": report it.

Selling, renting out or keeping for your own months is a choice you put once, before the deregistration, before a tax adviser. Afterwards it's expensive to turn around.

Children staying in the Netherlands

Children of eighteen and over who keep living here stand on their own administratively. Their health insurance and healthcare allowance simply continue separately from yours, their registration doesn't change, and custody or travel consent no longer plays a role.

One thing does run via you: DUO's supplementary grant depends on the parents' income, and foreign income DUO doesn't get automatically from the Belastingdienst. You report it yourselves, via Mijn DUO or the form "Doorgeven inkomen buiten Nederland", with the assessment of the country where you live as proof — and count on more than eight weeks of processing. If you don't, DUO calculates with an income that isn't right, and corrects that later.

For younger children who stay behind — with the other parent after a divorce, for example — other rules apply, with custody and consent involved. Those are in Emigrating with children after a divorce.

The sum

Whoever does this well gets a departure where everything switches over on the same day, healthcare cover without a gap, an AOW accrual that continues for a few tens of euros a month, and a house of which you know in advance what it does for tax. Whoever lets it slide discovers the reclaim, the AOW gap and the lapsed interest deduction one by one — usually in the second year, when the M return comes in.

The step-by-step plan of your destination puts this in the right order, with the deadlines: what you arrange before your partner's contract is signed, what has to happen in the last month, and what comes back every year.