The step-by-step plan for Portugal

As a Dutch citizen you need no visa: you get on the plane, you arrive, and nobody asks anything. For the first three months you may stay unconditionally. That is exactly why this journey is systematically underestimated.

Stay longer, and Portuguese law prescribes a registration — the CRUE, at the town hall of your place of residence, within 30 days after those first three months. That registration has requirements: work, or demonstrable means with healthcare cover. And unlike how it feels, this isn't optional: registering too late carries a fine of € 400 to € 1,500. It's just that nobody comes to remind you — you only get stuck at the bank, the school or the tax office.

Which situation applies to you decides your whole preparation. Are you going to work in Portugal, employed or self-employed? Then this is arranged by itself: you fall under Portuguese social security.

If you're not working in Portugal — you work remotely for a Dutch employer, you live off assets, or you're retired — then at registration you have to be able to declare and substantiate two things: sufficient means for everyone who's coming, and health insurance that covers in Portugal. Pensioners have it easier: for them the S1 form (via the CAK, see phase 2) arranges that the Netherlands keeps carrying the healthcare.

Portugal registers on a declaration on your honour — so there's no counter that ticks off an amount in advance. That doesn't make it more optional, but more personal: what "sufficient" is gets assessed when it comes to it, and whoever can't substantiate their declaration builds on sand.

In Portugal the choice of region is above all a housing-cost choice, and the difference is bigger than people think: in the statistics of new rental contracts Lisbon rents at almost Dutch levels, while the interior and the smaller towns sit at less than half of that. The same monthly rent buys three times as much home in Castelo Branco as in the capital.

Look beyond the summer photo: northern Portugal has real, wet winters, and many houses are built for neither cold nor damp. And weigh the language — in the Algarve you get by with English, at the municipal counter in an inland town you don't. A scouting trip outside the high season says more than ten evenings of searching.

The calculator for Portugal works on your own moving choices and shows three cost blocks. The application block is almost nothing for Portugal: the CRUE costs ten or twenty euros per person, the NIF little to nothing. The weight is elsewhere — in the move (further than Spain, so more expensive) and above all in the landing period: deposit and rent in advance, and living while no income comes in yet.

A rule of thumb that makes the journey less stressful: don't count yourself rich on a quick sale or a quick job, and only start spending once the first months are covered.

This is the step without forms, and yet this is where most journeys fail. Emigrating isn't something you do alone — even if the papers are in one name. Discuss with your partner and, depending on their age, your children: why do we want this, what are we giving up, and what is for each of us the condition for saying yes?

One point deserves extra weight with Portugal: the language. Portuguese is harder for Dutch people than Spanish — the pronunciation doesn't give itself up easily — and daily life outside the tourist areas does run in it. For children what applies everywhere applies: young children pick it up surprisingly fast, for teenagers the transition is harder and extra support is no luxury.

Close the orientation phase with a target date for departure. Not as a deadline — as a compass. Just as with Spain, with Portugal you wait for nobody's permission, so the pace is up to you. A realistic picture: from serious decision to being settled, this journey takes most people three to nine months, depending on how fast your home and papers come together.

You fill it in below in this card, and filling it in is completing the step. You can always adjust your target date — the planning adjusts with it.