The step-by-step plan for Portugal

As a Dutch citizen you don't need a visa for Portugal. You get on the plane, you arrive, and nobody asks anything. For the first three months you may stay without conditions. That is exactly why this journey is underestimated time and again.

If you stay longer, Portuguese law requires you to register. That registration is called the CRUE, in full Certificado de Registo de Cidadão da União Europeia: the registration certificate for EU citizens. You apply for it at the town hall of your place of residence, within 30 days after those first three months.

That registration comes with requirements. You work in Portugal, or you can show that you have the means to live on and that you're covered for healthcare. How you do that is what you work out in the next step.

It feels optional, but it isn't. Registering too late carries a fine of € 400 to € 1,500. It's just that nobody comes to remind you. You only notice when you get stuck at the bank, the school or the tax office.

In this step you work out how you'll meet the requirements for the registration. Which situation applies to you decides your whole preparation.

Do you work in Portugal, employed or self-employed? Then at registration you declare that you work in Portugal. Separate health insurance is not part of that. This also applies if your clients or your employer are in the Netherlands:

• If you're registered in Portugal as self-employed (trabalhador independente) with the tax authority, the Autoridade Tributária, you work in Portugal. You fall under Portuguese social security and your healthcare runs through the SNS, the Portuguese health service.
• If you're employed by a Dutch employer and work from home in Portugal, you also work in Portugal. Where you're insured depends on how much you work from home; phase 2 explains this.

Are you not working? For example, you live off assets or you're retired. Then at registration you have to be able to declare and substantiate two things:

• You have sufficient means for everyone who's coming.
• You have health insurance that covers you in Portugal.

If you're retired, you have it easier. For you, the S1 form arranges that the Netherlands keeps carrying the healthcare. That form goes through the CAK; phase 2 explains how.

Portugal registers you on the basis of a declaration on your honour: you declare yourself that you meet the conditions. So there's no counter that ticks off an amount in advance. That doesn't make it more optional, but more personal. What counts as "sufficient" gets assessed when it comes to it. Whoever can't substantiate their declaration then is building on sand.

In Portugal the region you choose mainly decides what you spend on housing. That difference is bigger than people think. If you look at the rents in new rental contracts, Lisbon rents at almost Dutch levels. The interior and the smaller towns sit at less than half of that. For the same monthly rent you get three times as much home in Castelo Branco as in the capital.

Also look beyond the summer photo. Weigh these two things:

• The climate. Northern Portugal has real, wet winters, and many houses are built for neither cold nor damp.
• The language. In the Algarve you get by with English, at the municipal counter in a town in the interior you don't.

A scouting trip outside the high season says more than ten evenings of searching.

In this step you see roughly what the journey is going to cost you. The calculator above works with your own moving choices and shows three cost blocks:

• The applications. For Portugal they cost almost nothing. The CRUE costs € 18 per person (less under 25), the NIF (your Portuguese tax number) little to nothing.
• The move. Portugal is further away than Spain, so the move is more expensive.
• The landing period. That's the first stretch after arrival, and this is where the weight lies: 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. Only start spending once the first months are covered.

In this step you check together whether everyone stands behind the decision. 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.

Going alone? Then have this conversation with the people you're leaving behind. The questions below work for them too.

Take three evenings. One conversation is too short for a decision like this. Set aside three evenings, a week apart. Talk with your partner, and depending on their age with your children too:

• Evening 1, why. Why do we want this? What do we hope to find in Portugal? What are we leaving behind here? Would that really be different there?
• Evening 2, what we give up. Who and what will we miss? What are we dreading most? What do we do if it disappoints?
• Evening 3, the conditions. What needs to be in place for each of us to say yes? When do we check together whether it's going well, for example after six and after twelve months? And what would be a reason for us to come back?

Write the conditions down. On the kitchen-table card it all fits on one A4 sheet.

Divide the work. Agree who takes on which part of this plan: the papers, the house and the cancellations, the school, the move. That way not one of you carries everything. Invite your partner into your plan; then you both see what's done.

Is one of you going without an income of your own? Someone who lives in Portugal and doesn't work in the Netherlands usually stops building up AOW. AOW is the Dutch state pension. For every year you're not insured, you later get 2 percent less AOW. From the moment you're no longer insured, you have one year to take out voluntary insurance with the SVB.

Also discuss whether that partner keeps an account and money of their own, and how you decide together on big expenses.

Married, registered or living together? That can matter for your partner's right of residence, for being insured together for healthcare and for inheritance. If your partner is an EU citizen, your partner has a right of residence of their own. If your partner has a nationality from outside the EU, your partner lives in Portugal as a family member of an EU citizen. Not every EU country treats a registered partnership as a marriage. If you're neither married nor registered, the country decides case by case, on the basis of a durable relationship. Check in the step on your healthcare further on in your plan what applies to you.

Are children coming? How you tell them depends on their age:

• Up to about four. Tell them shortly before the move and keep fixed routines, such as the bedtime ritual and the cuddly toy in the hand luggage.
• Primary school. Tell them well in advance and let them look along: photos of the school, the neighbourhood and the house. Let them choose something, such as their room.
• Teenagers. Involve them in the decision itself. For them, saying goodbye to friends weighs heaviest. Agree how they'll stay in touch and when they'll see their friends again.

At a public school everything is in Portuguese. For children, what applies everywhere applies here too. Young children pick up the language surprisingly fast. For teenagers the transition is harder, and extra support is no luxury then.

Who learns the language, and when? With Portugal the language deserves extra weight. Portuguese is harder for Dutch people than Spanish, and the pronunciation doesn't come easily. Outside the tourist areas, daily life does run in Portuguese. Often the partner without work needs the language most, and that's exactly the one with no colleagues to practise with. Plan it together, preferably before you leave.

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.