What changes financially when you move to Scotland?
Tick where your income comes from. You then see which rules Scotland 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.
What the Netherlands doesn't let go of
Which Dutch obligation travels with you?
Your AOW build-up stops; you apply for voluntary insurance within a year
Every year you live outside the Netherlands without being insured costs you part of your later AOW. Continuing voluntary insurance is possible if you sign up within one year of no longer being insured.
You must also have been insured for at least one continuous year directly before leaving. Put that date in your diary before you go. Whether it is worth the premium depends on your situation: work it out before the deadline passes.
- sign up
- within 1 year of no longer being insured
- condition
- insured for at least 1 year directly before leaving
Your WIA benefit may go with you to the UK, a supplement may not
The UK is on the UWV list of countries the Netherlands has agreements with: a WIA, WAO or WAZ benefit may go with you. A supplement on your benefit (Toeslagenwet) does not.
A WIA benefit does not give you the right to live in the UK: you need a visa for that. Report your move to the UWV in advance. After your move the UK taxes the benefit, according to the Belastingdienst treaty table. Your healthcare runs through the CAK.
- WIA, WAO and WAZ
- may go with you
- supplement (Toeslagenwet)
- does not go with you
A WW benefit usually stops if you go to live abroad
The WW and the Wajong are not on the UWV list of benefits that may go with you. They usually stop if you go to live abroad.
There is a scheme to look for work abroad for a while while keeping WW, with a UWV form. Whether it applies to the UK, check with your work adviser before you leave. Do not count on it.
Where this comes from: UWV, to which country can you take your benefit: "WW and Wajong usually cannot be taken"; the page on WW abroad for the scheme with form PD U2.
Read the whole storyYour child benefit does not go with you to the UK
If you move to the UK with your family after 1 January 2021, Dutch child benefit stops. You still get it up to and including the quarter in which you move.
The child-related budget depends on the child benefit and therefore stops too. With a visa you usually cannot rely on British schemes: most visas give no right to public funds, the British benefits. Allow for that in your family budget.
Allowances do not stop by themselves
If you live abroad, you are no longer entitled to rent allowance. Stop it yourself as of the date of your move.
You do that in Mijn toeslagen, the online environment of Dienst Toeslagen. Healthcare allowance can sometimes continue, for example if you are registered with the CAK with a Dutch pension; otherwise you stop that too. The child-related budget you stop through the BelastingTelefoon. Anything overpaid is reclaimed later.
Where this comes from: Dienst Toeslagen, I am moving abroad: what do I report; worked out in the knowledge article.
Read the whole storyYour Dutch basic health insurance ends with the move
Your Dutch health insurance stops when you move. Report the move to your insurer yourself.
What replaces it depends on your route. If you come with a visa and pay the Immigration Health Surcharge, you get the NHS. If you have a Dutch pension or benefit, it runs through the CAK with an S1. Neither starts by itself.
Where this comes from: Description from the knowledge article on healthcare in Scotland.
Read the whole storyFor inheritance and gifts the Netherlands keeps counting you in for ten years
The Successiewet treats an emigrated Dutch national as still living in the Netherlands for ten years (article 3). That applies on death and to gifts. The inheritance tax treaty with the United Kingdom leaves that period in place.
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 falls under Dutch gift tax. For a gift in the first year after you leave this applies to anyone who lived in the Netherlands, even without Dutch nationality. If the UK taxes as well, the treaty provides a credit, so you do not pay twice on the same thing.
- residence fiction
- 10 years
British inheritance tax depends on how long you live in the UK
Since 6 April 2025 British inheritance tax looks at your residence history. If you lived in the UK for ten of the past twenty tax years, you are a long-term UK resident and your assets outside the UK also fall under British inheritance tax.
In your first years in Scotland the UK therefore mainly taxes your British assets on death. After that it shifts. Together with the Dutch ten-year rule, this is a reason to have your will reviewed again after a few years, by someone who knows both countries.
- long-term UK resident
- 10 of the previous 20 tax years in the UK
This is not tax advice
These are the rules that apply to your situation. What they add up to is not shown here. Scotland is the United Kingdom: you need a visa to live there, and a visa based on benefits or a pension does not exist. The 2008 tax treaty gives your AOW, your pension and also your government pension to the UK as your country of residence. Scotland has its own income tax bands. What the rules together mean for you is for a tax adviser who knows both systems to work out. Take this list to that conversation: 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 Scotland: 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 Scotland 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.