The step-by-step plan for Peru

In this step you learn how you may come to live in Peru. Peru works with calidades migratorias: kinds of stay, each with a purpose and a duration of its own. The immigration law is Decreto Legislativo 1350, amended in 2023 by Decreto Legislativo 1582.

For whoever wants to stay, there are four routes:

• Rentista. For whoever has a pension or fixed income. By law the length of stay is indefinite.
• Trabajador. For whoever has a contract with an employer in Peru.
• Nómada digital. For whoever works remotely as an employee for a company outside Peru.
• Familiar de residente. For whoever is married to a Peruvian, or comes along as a family member.

You apply for the calidad online at Migraciones, the Peruvian immigration service. According to Migraciones you're outside Peru when you do. After approval the Peruvian consulate puts the visa in your passport. With that visa you enter, and in Peru you apply for your identity card as a foreigner: the carné de extranjería.

With a Dutch passport you may enter as a tourist for up to 90 days without a visa. Extending isn't possible. So a scouting trip is possible, but the application itself you make from outside Peru.

Not retired yet? Whoever leaves before the AOW age looks at the income that exists then. The rentista works with any fixed income of at least 1,000 dollars net a month, also from assets. Whoever keeps working remotely for an employer outside Peru looks at the nómada digital.

In this step you see what emigrating to Peru does to your tax, your AOW and your healthcare. The short answer: for none of the three is there a treaty.

The tax. The Netherlands and Peru have no tax treaty. Peru isn't in the Belastingdienst's table, and isn't on the NederlandWereldwijd list. NederlandWereldwijd says: if there's no treaty, the Netherlands has the right to tax. So the Netherlands keeps taxing your AOW, your pension and your annuity. And Peru taxes your worldwide income as soon as you're a tax resident there, a domiciliado. How that works out is in steps 3.2 and 3.3.

The AOW. Peru isn't among the 36 countries with which the Netherlands has a social security treaty. The AOW does go along, but up to the married rate. For a couple nothing changes. Whoever goes alone drops from seventy to fifty percent of the minimum wage.

Healthcare. Peru isn't on the list of treaty countries for healthcare either. So there's no CAK. Your Dutch basic insurance stops when you deregister. After that a policy of your own is your healthcare. See step 3.1.

Your AOW build-up stops. Whoever lives outside the Netherlands is usually no longer insured. Every year until your AOW age then costs 2 percent of your later AOW. You can insure yourself voluntarily with the SVB. The registration has to be in within one year.

In this step you choose where you want to live. Peru is big, and the differences between the coast, the Andes and the Amazon are big. Whoever knows Cusco and Machu Picchu from a holiday doesn't know the country yet.

At every place, look at three things:

• The altitude. Lima is by the sea, Arequipa and Cusco are high in the Andes. Live for a few weeks in the place you choose, in the season you'll really be there.
• Healthcare. Ask at every place where the nearest hospital is, and whether your policy works there.
• The desks. You collect your carné at an office of Migraciones. Check beforehand which office is near you.

As a tourist you may stay for up to 90 days. The application for your calidad migratoria you then make from outside Peru. See step 2.7.

In this step you see what the move will cost you. On the application side Peru is cheap. The application for the calidad costs S/ 58.80, about 15 euros, and the carné S/ 24.

The money sits in three other items:

• The health policy that replaces the CAK, and that returns every year.
• The move across the ocean, with a levy of 12 percent on the value of your household goods.
• The car, because a used car may only enter Peru if it's at most two years old and runs on petrol.

In this conversation you decide together whether Peru fits, and when. With this country come three things you need to see together.

• The AOW. The drop to the married rate only hits whoever goes alone. If one of you dies, the other becomes single. Even then it stays the lower AOW for as long as you live in Peru.
• The language. At the desks, the bank and the doctor, everything is in Spanish. Agree who's going to learn Spanish, and how.
• The distance. Family and grandchildren in the Netherlands you no longer see in between. Agree how often you'll come back. Note: whoever is outside Peru for more than 183 days in a row loses their stay. See step 5.7.

Choose the day you want to leave. The plan counts back from that date: when the papers from the Netherlands need to be in, when you apply for the calidad and when you deregister.

Count three clocks. Migraciones decides within thirty working days. You collect the visa at the consulate within thirty days, and it lapses if you don't use it within six months. And in Peru you need an Interpol statement at most six months old for your carné.