For pensioners
Retiring to Curaçao
Curaçao is emigrating within your own Kingdom: your passport gives you the right to live there, your AOW travels along in full — including the single-person rate — and for pensioners the penshonado scheme is ready. Only that scheme hangs on a clock almost nobody knows, and it starts running on the day you register.
The penshonado scheme: 10% on your foreign income, provided you make the request within two months of registering and buy a home within eighteen months. Anyone who misses the clocks pays the full rate. What the Netherlands keeps levying on your pension meanwhile depends on the kind of pension, and the protective assessment travels to the Kingdom too.
You have your right of residence recorded at the Admissions Organisation: the declaration by right costs XCG 615, the decision period is four months and you may wait for it on the island. Within five days of settling you should be registered at Kranshi, with proof of deregistration from the Netherlands no older than six months; three working days later you collect the sédula, and only then do you really exist on the island.
The move itself goes by sea container, with weeks of sailing time and an exemption that only works if you know the conditions: six months of ownership, an inventory list with values, declaration within six months. One car per family may come along tax-free if it was in your possession and use for twelve months — otherwise the sum tips towards: buy there.
Still deciding between countries? To the pension comparer
Your money: the penshonado scheme and its clocks
Tax and the penshonado scheme: the two-month clock nobody knows about
Your AOW (the Dutch state pension) travels to Curaçao in full — including the single person's rate. And for pensioners there's the penshonado scheme: 10% on your foreign income, provided you make the request within two months of registration and buy a home within eighteen months. Whoever misses the clocks pays the full rate.
Updated 7 September 2026
When does your pension stay taxed in the Netherlands? The three pots and the three conditions
"Your pension is taxed in your new country of residence" is right by approximation and not in the details. Your AOW, your company pension and your government pension each follow a rule of their own, and with the company pension the Netherlands can still levy if three conditions apply at once. This article explains which three, and which four questions you have to answer for your own situation.
Updated 27 August 2026
Your Dutch pension abroad: what comes along, and who levies
The AOW (the Dutch state pension) travels fully to the EU and to Australia — the latter thanks to a treaty from 2001. Your company pension too, but *where* you pay on it depends on the tax treaty, and the exemption you arrange yourself.
Updated 11 September 2026
The protective assessment: the bill that travels with you, and that never expires for one item
On emigration the Netherlands imposes an assessment on your pension, your annuity and your substantial shareholding that you don't have to pay — as long as you do nothing that makes it collectable. For pension and annuity it usually lapses after ten years. For a substantial shareholding it doesn't: that one remains valid indefinitely.
Updated 27 August 2026
Your paperwork: declaration, Kranshi, sédula
The declaration by operation of law: you may live on Curaçao — but have it recorded
Your Dutch passport gives you the right to live on Curaçao. You have that right recorded at the Toelatingsorganisatie: XCG 615, a decision period of four months — and you may simply await the decision on the island. What goes into the file, including the document that only keeps for three months.
Updated 11 September 2026
Kranshi and the sédula: the registration your Curaçao life hangs on
Within five days of settling you're supposed to be on the books at Kranshi — with your declaration, your tenancy agreement and a proof of deregistration from the Netherlands no older than six months. Three working days later you collect the sédula, and only then do you really exist on the island.
Updated 11 September 2026
Deregistering with the municipality: when exactly, and what stops then
Deregistering from the BRP is only possible from five days before departure, and is compulsory as soon as you're away for more than eight months a year. What stops at that moment, what stays, and which piece of paper you have to ask for right away.
Updated 11 September 2026
Keeping a bank account and DigiD: the two lines you never cut
After your deregistration you still need the Netherlands for years — for the M return, refunds and your pension. Within the EU your bank account is a right, towards Australia a favour from the bank. And your DigiD you arrange before departure, not after.
Updated 11 September 2026
The crossing: house, container, car
Buying a house on Curaçao: the notary arranges it — and the OZB is charged in bands
On Curaçao you buy through the notary, who executes the deed and settles the transfer tax on completion. After that comes the annual property tax: a banded rate of 0.4 to 0.6 per cent on the register value the Inspectie determines. And because many homes stand on long-lease land, the long-lease check is just as important here as the structural survey.
Updated 7 September 2026
The container to Curaçao: what the crossing costs, and how the exemption works
Your household contents cross the ocean by sea container — count on weeks of sailing time and thousands of euros. Customs grants an exemption from import taxes for used household goods, but only whoever knows the conditions (six months of ownership, an inventory list with values, declaration within six months) benefits from it.
Updated 11 September 2026
Your car to Curaçao: one exemption, twelve months of ownership, otherwise the full rate
One passenger car per family may come along tax-free — provided it was in your possession and use for twelve months before shipment. Whoever falls outside that pays import levies that usually tip the sum towards: buy there.
Updated 11 September 2026
Cancelling your health insurance without a gap
Your Dutch basic insurance is tied to living or working in the Netherlands and stops being a given on emigration. The art is to have the end date match your new cover — and to know which route belongs to your situation.
Updated 28 August 2026
Want to walk this journey with the order watched — the penshonado request within two months, Kranshi within five days, the proof of deregistration still fresh? The Curaçao step-by-step plan is ready for you.
The departure guide
Five mails, and you see your whole journey
Not ready to start yet? Choose your destination and we'll send you the departure guide: five mails in a week and a half, with the order, the pitfalls and the real costs. After that at most one mail a month: first the question where your plans stand, then now and then one thing that fits the time of year or your country. No newsletter, and you can switch it off at any time.
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Forty-four journeys are fully ready: your step-by-step plan, your documents and your costs in one place, with the timing watched. Pay once, and it's yours.