What changes financially when you move to Portugal?
Tick where your income comes from. You then see which rules Portugal and the Netherlands apply to your situation: which country may tax you, which schemes exist and how you get insured. With the source, so you can check it yourself.
This applies to everyone who moves. Tick above what applies to you, and the rest will appear.
Which country may tax
Which part of your income may your new country of residence tax?
Where you are tax resident depends on the circumstances
Your tax residence is the country where you live for tax purposes. It is not decided by the number of days, but by all your facts together. Deregistering with the municipality counts, but it is only one fact among the others.
This is the first question that must be answered. Only then does the tax treaty come into view, and the treaty decides who may tax what. What is weighed: where your permanent home is (the home that is available to you on a lasting basis), where your partner and children live, where you work and where your social life is.
Special regimes
Is there a favourable regime, and do you qualify?
The NHR regime no longer exists for newcomers
The NHR regime gave newcomers ten years of low rates. Foreign pension at first often stayed untaxed. From 2020 new participants paid 10% on it. It made Portugal's reputation, but it was closed as of 1 January 2024. Anyone moving now can no longer get in.
NHR stands for Residente Não Habitual, a scheme for new residents. The transitional window for those who had already taken steps at the end of 2023 has also since closed. This is here because the NHR regime still comes up in almost every conversation about Portugal. Anyone building their decision to move on it is building on something that no longer exists.
Where this comes from: Described in the knowledge article, which traces the closure to the Portuguese budget law for 2024 (Lei 82/2023). That law itself is not among the sources of that article, so this is not yet a verified rule.
Read the whole storyWhat the Netherlands doesn't let go of
Which Dutch obligation travels with you?
Your AOW accrual stops on departure, repairable within one year
This is about the accrual of your AOW, not the payment. What you've built up until you leave stays yours. But as soon as you're no longer insured in the Netherlands, you build up nothing more. Every year until your AOW age then costs 2% of your later AOW. If you already receive AOW, this no longer applies.
For most emigrants the insurance ends on the day of departure. Do you keep working in the Netherlands, or does your employer post you abroad? Then you can stay insured. You can close the gap with voluntary insurance with the SVB (the Social Insurance Bank, which handles the AOW), for ten years at most. For that, your application must be in within one year of your compulsory insurance ending. And you must have been insured for at least a year directly before that. The premium depends on your income and is revised every year. That is why no amount is given here. Put the application deadline in your diary before you go.
- reduction per uninsured year
- 2% of your AOW
- application for voluntary insurance
- no later than 1 year after your insurance ends
- duration of voluntary insurance
- 10 years at most
Source: Algemene Ouderdomswet (General Old Age Pensions Act) — article 13(1) (2% reduction per uninsured calendar year), article 35(1) (voluntary insurance, ten years at most) and article 36(1) (application no later than one year after the compulsory insurance ends) — checked on 2026-09-19
Read the whole storyThe year of departure requires its own tax return
If you emigrate halfway through the year, you live that year partly inside and partly outside the Netherlands. For that there is the M return, the tax return for the year of your emigration.
This return is often forgotten. A letter only reaches you if your address abroad is correct in the RNI, the register for people who live outside the Netherlands. So put it in your planning for the year after your departure. You can do it online via Mijn Belastingdienst.
Source: Filing a return for the year of emigration — the M form — checked on 2026-09-11
Read the whole storyFor inheritance and gifts the Netherlands counts you in for ten more years
The Inheritance Tax Act (Successiewet), the law on inheritance and gift tax, pretends an emigrated Dutch national still lives in the Netherlands for ten years. That applies on death and to gifts.
If you die within ten years of leaving, your heirs pay Dutch inheritance tax, as if you still lived here. What you give away in those years, to your children for example, falls under Dutch gift tax. So review your will and your gift plans before you leave. For a gift in the first year after you leave, this even applies to everyone who lived in the Netherlands, also without Dutch nationality.
- deemed residence
- 10 years
This is not tax advice
These are the rules that apply to your situation. What they add up to for you is not here: that is the outcome, and we do not calculate it. With Portugal almost everything turns on a figure that is not here. The threshold of € 10,000 in the treaty is so low that most Dutch occupational pensions exceed it. Whether the Netherlands may then actually tax depends on two other conditions: one about your pension accrual and one about your Portuguese assessment. Take this list to a tax adviser who knows both systems. Then you know which questions to ask.
Still deciding between countries? Put the rules of two or three countries side by side
Then actually doing it
Knowing which rules apply is the first half. The second is applying them in time: in the right order, without missing a deadline, and with your documents at hand.
Every step on one list, free
Not ready to start yet? Then you get the departure checklist for Portugal: 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 Portugal 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.