The step-by-step plan for Morocco

Law 02-03 regulates the entry and residence of foreigners. Whoever holds Moroccan nationality alongside the Dutch is not a foreigner in Morocco and falls outside that law: no carte d'immatriculation, no renewal clock, no mention of purpose.

That is no theoretical distinction. Moroccan nationality passes by descent and cannot be given up, so many Dutch people have it without ever having done anything with it. For them this journey starts with applying for or renewing the Moroccan identity card, not with a residence application.

If you're not sure, this is the first step of your whole emigration and not a detail for along the way: the rest of this plan turns out differently. The Moroccan consulate can establish whether you're in the registers.

Two things turn out differently here than most Dutch-language pages claim.

The tax. The treaty of 1977 has no social security article. As a result the AOW falls under the residual article, and that places it exclusively with Morocco. Your occupational pension goes the same way. But a government pension — ABP, and everything that comes from past employment with the government — may under the treaty be taxed in both states. So a former civil servant has a fundamentally different picture here from someone with only AOW and occupational pension, and that difference is nowhere to be found.

Healthcare. Morocco is on the official list of treaty countries. You register with the CAK, receive a treaty form and register with it at the Moroccan healthcare institution; the treaty contribution is withheld from your Dutch pension. So no lifelong private policy.

Holiday Morocco and living Morocco are two countries. Tangier, Agadir and Marrakesh have the facilities, the flights and the Dutch communities; the Rif and the Middle Atlas have the family and the prices, but also the winters and the distance to a hospital that provides the care your treaty entitlement gives you access to.

Factor one thing into that choice that doesn't stand out on holiday: where you live decides which care is actually reachable, and the treaty entitlement is a right to the public system — not to the private clinics where many Dutch people end up in practice.

Morocco is cheap on the application side: the residence card costs tens of euros, not thousands. The money sits in two other items. The first is the first months in the new place. The second is the car, and that is no side issue here — see phase 4.

With this destination this conversation has a shape it doesn't have with other countries. For part of the families this isn't an emigration but a return — sometimes for one generation yes and for the other not. Children who grew up in the Netherlands then move to the country of their parents and not to their own.

Discuss the money too. What phase 3 says about the tax reduction means that part of your wealth stays in Morocco after the transfer. That is a decision for two, not for one.

From here everything counts back. The tightest clock of this journey is in phase 2: ninety days after arrival the application for your residence card must be lodged. What starts earliest is in phase 4, with the pet — there the preparation is already ticking before your departure date is fixed.