About Vertrekklaar
Who's behind this
Vertrekklaar exists because a specialised agency asked well over nine thousand euros to get our paperwork in order. This is the whole story, and how you can tell whether you can trust what's written here.
Auke
founder of Vertrekklaar
It started with Australia. We had serious plans to emigrate, and we did what everyone does: search. What we found was mostly contradictory. One says you start at A, another at B. Everyone had a different opinion and quoted a different amount. And all the while that same unease: have we forgotten anything?
So we approached an agency that specialises in exactly this: working everything out and filing the applications. That felt like a relief. Until we saw the price tag: well over nine thousand euros to get through the paper tiger.
Six months later we made a different choice. We're not emigrating to one country, we're going to see the world: we're selling our house and going travelling the world with the family, for an indefinite time. And then we ran into exactly the same thing: documents, appointments, forums full of half answers, costs you only discover afterwards. On those forums we also saw that we weren't the only ones. Everyone runs into the same wall, and everyone works out the same things again on their own.
Then I thought: this can be done better. I'm not a migration adviser and I won't become one. What I can do is work things out and automate them. That's what I've gone into. So I turned it into a project: put everything we had to figure out in proper order once, so the next person doesn't have to do it again.
Those nine thousand euros, by the way, are where the price comes from. We didn't need someone to take it over from us. We needed the overview such a person has in their head. Making that overview doesn't cost nine thousand euros. Nobody had just taken the trouble to write it down yet.
And yes, this isn't theory for me. Our house is going and we're heading into the world with the family. Everything written here about leaving the Netherlands, I go through myself: deregistering, your health insurance, benefits, the tax return for your year of departure, your DigiD and your bank account. If something's wrong, I'm the first to notice.
The knowledge base and the cost indication are public and free, even if you never become a customer. Read an article about your own country and click the sources below it. Then you can see for yourself whether it holds up.
You don't have to take my word for it
Sites about emigrating are full of numbers that once came from somewhere. We do three things differently, and you can check all three yourself.
01
Under every article are the sources
Underneath are the official pages the facts come from, by name and link. If you want to check something, you click through instead of working it out again. When in doubt, go by the source, not our article.
02
Every rate says when we looked
Official amounts, such as visa fees or the cost of an NIE application (the Spanish identification number for foreigners), come with a source and the date we last checked them. When that date gets too old, our own check reports it and we look again.
03
An estimate is called an estimate here
Some costs nobody publishes officially, such as a move or your first months. We simply call those an estimate, and an estimate deliberately gets no check date. Such a date would suggest a precision that isn't there. Anyone who quotes you an exact amount for a container to Australia is making it up.
What happens after something is written down
A check date says someone looked. This is how that looking works.
- 01
Every step rests on a source with a date
Under every step are the official pages it rests on, and the date we last checked them. When in doubt, go by the source, not our text.
- 02
The full round twice a month
On the 1st and the 15th of the month, nine checks go through every source. They look for dead links, expired rates and amounts tied to a year. And they check whether the paid plan lags behind the free pages anywhere. We read what the checks report ourselves and update it. A change is in every plan it belongs in within the same week.
- 03
A customer's report goes into the plan the same day
On 20 September 2026 a customer wrote that the CAK rule for early retirement was missing from his plan. (The CAK arranges healthcare for people living in the EU or a treaty country on a Dutch pension or benefit.) He was right. That evening the step was in thirteen plans, with the source attached. Run into something like that yourself? Ask your question at that step. I read it.
What Vertrekklaar is not
We'd rather tell you now what we don't do than have you find out later. We draw these limits on purpose.
- No migration advice
- We organise and inform. We don't assess your application and give no judgement on your chances. For the substantive assessment we refer you to a registered migration adviser. For Australia that's a MARA agent: an adviser registered with the Australian government.
- No tax advice
- We do name what's at play: the M form (the Dutch tax return for the year you leave), the 183-day rule, your pension. How that works out for you is personal. A tax specialist who knows both countries can work that out for you.
- We don't file anything for you
- You make the official application yourself, through the portal of the government in question. We don't file anything on your behalf. We make sure that by then you have everything complete and you're on time.
- No guarantee on the outcome
- Whether your visa is granted is decided by the government of your destination country. We reduce the chance of it going wrong through something you could have prevented. No more than that, but that's exactly where many journeys get stuck.
Every step on one list, free
Not ready to start yet? Choose your destination and you get the departure checklist: every step in order, to print and tick off. With it, five mails in a week and a half about the pitfalls and the real costs. If the rules for your country change, you'll hear about it. After that we ask once where your plans stand, send one offer, and now and then one thing that fits your moment. No newsletter, and you can switch it off at any time.
Ready to begin?
64 journeys are fully ready: your step-by-step plan, your documents and your costs in one place, and the plan keeps an eye on your deadlines. You pay once, and then it's yours.