Leaving from Belgium?To the Belgian plan →See the plan for Belgians moving to Sint Maarten →This plan is for people leaving the Netherlands.
Sint Maarten · Within the Kingdom
Emigrating to Sint Maarten
To live on Sint Maarten, you apply for a declaration from the immigration service and then register. That admission is cheap and the island is a free port. Two things decide this journey: healthcare, which outside employment you insure entirely yourself, and your birth certificate, which may be no older than three years.
€ 299 one-off · 29 steps · no subscription
- Kind of journey
- Within the Kingdom: Declaration by Operation of Law
- The chain
- IBP → Census Office → ID card
- Note
- No CAK route: outside employment you insure yourself
Last updated: 14 October 2026
Will your departure date work? Check it in the free step-by-step plan →
Five phases, from orientation to island rhythm
Admission here is cheap, health insurance expensive. The Declaration by Operation of Law costs about a hundred euros, and the free port levies no import duties. But there is a flip side. Healthcare has no country-of-residence system: you aren't insured automatically because you live there. Under the BRNSM, the tax arrangement between the Netherlands and Sint Maarten, the Netherlands may tax your pension at up to 15%. And your birth certificate with apostille (an international stamp of authenticity) may be at most three years old. Whoever knows the order and the deadlines is settled there in months.
- Orientation
An admission law of its own, and healthcare as the breaking point
In this phase you learn how admission and healthcare work on Sint Maarten. Sint Maarten has been an autonomous country since 2010 with an admission law of its own, the Admission and Expulsion Ordinance. Your passport gives you admission by operation of law: the law itself gives you the right to live there. You do demonstrate that right, with a certificate of conduct over five years, housing and means of subsistence. You also learn the system that carries this journey. The SZV health insurance, the island's public health insurance, only covers employees under the wage limit. Everyone else insures privately, and above seventy-five many insurers accept no new customers. And you explore both sides of the border, because the northern half of the island is France.Read more
- Closing the Netherlands
The three-year certificate, the acceptance question and the BRNSM
In this phase you work through the familiar list, with three accents of its own. First the documents. At the Census Office, the population register, birth and marriage certificates with apostille may be at most three years old. So get them fresh, and the certificate of conduct last of all. Then healthcare. First ask an insurer whether it will accept you, and only then take steps you can't undo. And tax. Under the BRNSM the Netherlands may withhold up to 15% on your periodic pension, and it taxes your AOW without limit. The inheritance and gift fiction is five years here instead of ten: for that long after you leave, the Netherlands still counts you as a resident for inheritance and gift tax.Read more
- The move
A free port: container without a customs circus
In this phase you move your household contents, car and pet. The household contents go by sea container to Philipsburg. Unlike on the neighbouring islands, you don't apply for an exemption, because Sint Maarten levies no import duties. Even the car may come along without you having to own it for a set time first. You only lose the residual BPM: the part of the Dutch car tax you do get back when exporting within the EU. So rather take a depreciated car than a young one. For your pet you apply in advance for an Animal Movement Permit, the import permit. Two clocks run with it: the vaccination must be older than twenty-one days, the certificate younger than fourteen. And you plan the move around the hurricane season.Read more
- Registration on Sint Maarten
IBP → Census Office → ID card, and every link wants to see the previous one
In this phase you arrange your residence and your registration, in a fixed order. First you apply at IBP, the immigration service, for the Declaration by Operation of Law. It costs XCG 200 and takes weeks to months, so lodge it right away. Then you register free of charge at the Census Office. You do that in person, the children too, with the fresh certificates and the international proof of your deregistration from the Netherlands. After that you collect the Sint Maarten ID card that bank, employer and insurer want to see. Then you arrange your healthcare cover and your banking. You pay there in Caribbean guilders and dollars side by side.Read more
- Arrival
Driving licence, school in English and the annual plates
In this phase you exchange your driving licence, sort out your number plates and choose a school. As a resident you exchange your driving licence without a test, because the arrangement with the Netherlands works both ways. You pay the motor vehicle tax there by buying new number plates every year. For that you need insurance and an inspection card. The school is what you want to arrange furthest ahead. Education is predominantly in English, the Dutch-language exceptions have waiting lists, and you enrol your child at the school itself.Read more
This is what one step of your plan looks like
This is the real thing: one of the steps of the Sint Maarten journey, exactly as it appears in your personal step-by-step plan, with the deadlines, the offices and the sources.
Step 2.2 of your plan
Arrange the healthcare transition
- Lead time
- 2-6 weeks — the acceptance question first
- Costs
- the premium of your new policy; bridging cover for the first period
In this step you make sure you're not uninsured for a single day. Your Dutch basic insurance stops on emigration.
There is no CAK route: the scheme through which you're insured via the CAK in your new country of residence with a Dutch AOW or a Dutch pension. Within the Kingdom there's no healthcare treaty.
Which insurance you have on Sint Maarten depends on your work:
- Employed below the wage limit. Then you come under the SZV ZV on registration: the health insurance of SZV, the body that runs the social insurance schemes on the island.
- In all other cases, such as an entrepreneur, a higher wage or a pension. Then a private policy is your system, and that you arrange before departure.
The order here is the reverse of what people usually do. This is how to go about it:
- First put the acceptance question to an international insurer: will they accept you, given your age and health? Ask for the age limits in black and white.
- Only then take irreversible steps.
- Cover the gap between your Dutch end date and your first insured day on the island. There should be a travel or expat policy in between that carries medical costs in the Caribbean.
And this is the dashboard that step lives in. The example shows the plan for Spain; your dashboard shows the plan for Sint Maarten.
This is step 2.2 of 31. The other 30 are ready for you, each with the same sources, the same offices and a schedule that keeps track of your dates.
See all 31 steps for Sint MaartenWhat you get for € 299
All 31 steps to Sint Maarten, for your situation
In order, with the office and the official source at every step. Steps that don't apply to you don't appear.
Your deadlines in one place
For each step you see the latest date to start, and you get a heads-up before something is due or expires. Your documents sit in the vault, with their dates.
A plan that stays right
Twice a month we check the sources. If something changes, it's in your plan and you get a message.
The step-by-step plan for Sint Maarten
€ 299
one-off · 31 steps
- Pay once, no subscription
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Every step on one list, free
Not ready to start yet? Then you get the departure checklist for Sint Maarten: 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 Sint Maarten 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.
That was the move. And once you live there?
Which country may tax your pension once you live in Sint Maarten? Is there a favourable regime, a scheme that lowers your tax? And how do you get insured? That depends on where your income comes from. Tick it and you'll see which rules apply to you, with the source.
See the financial conditionsClosing down the Netherlands: all your letters in one go
Moving to Sint Maarten starts with leaving the Netherlands properly. That's why the plan includes the letter tool: you enter your details once and every cancellation and notification letter is ready.
Just the letters, without the plan? That works too, for € 49
- Health insurance, rent, energy, subscriptions, GP, school, bank and pension fund: 16 kinds of letters. You enter your details only once.
- A sending list that counts back from your departure date and your notice period, even when that's three months.
- Also what you need to ask for as an emigrant: your no-claims years in English, your medical file and the school report (the report on your child for the new school).
Auke, maker of Vertrekklaar
On 2 January we're leaving ourselves, on a trip around the world with our family. What I put here, I'm arranging for my own family too.
On 20 September 2026 a customer wrote that the CAK rule for early retirement was missing from his plan. He was right. That evening the step was in thirteen plans, with the source attached.
The knowledge base on Sint Maarten
Per phase, the articles that are already there. They're written from the same journey and go deeper than what fits above.
- Working on Sint Maarten: no work permit, but wage tax, SZV premiums and a business licenceAs a Dutch national admitted by operation of law, your employer on Sint Maarten needs no employment permit — the National Ordinance on foreign labour exempts you. What does come: wage tax in brackets from 10 to 38 percent plus 25 surcharge points, SZV premiums that run up to a wage ceiling, and for whoever starts on their own a business licence from TEATT before the Chamber of Commerce. The rules, the rates and the order.
- Healthcare on Sint Maarten: no CAK route, a ZV for employees — and beyond that you yourselfWithin the Kingdom there is no healthcare treaty: your Dutch basic insurance stops and the CAK does nothing for you. The SZV health insurance covers only employees below the wage limit of XCG 120,000 — everyone else, pensioners first and foremost, insures fully privately. How the system works, what the premiums are, and why the acceptance question comes before everything.
- Tax on Sint Maarten: the BRNSM, the 15% withholding tax and the island's own penshonadoBetween the Netherlands and Sint Maarten it is not the old BRK that applies but the BRNSM: the Netherlands withholds up to 15% on your periodic pension and taxes your AOW without limit. On top of that the island has its own penshonado scheme of 10% — which does *not* remove the Dutch levy. Who taxes what, article by article, with the conditions and deadlines from the law.
- Renting on Sint Maarten: dollars, the rent committee and the contract the Census Office wants to seeRenting on Sint Maarten needs no permit or guarantor, but the market prices in US dollars and the lease is more than a housing paper: it is the proof of accommodation for your Declaration by Operation of Law and for registration at the Census Office. What the island's Civil Code regulates, what the rent committee decides, and the clause you have put in before you sign.
- Taking your pet to Sint Maarten: the permit first and the fourteen-day clockNo EU regime: for each animal you apply in advance for an Animal Movement Permit, free, fourteen to five days before arrival — and after that two clocks tick: the health certificate endorsed by the NVWA may be at most fourteen days old on arrival, and a first rabies vaccination requires a waiting period of twenty-one days. Whoever knows the order makes it comfortably; whoever starts with the certificate pushes back their own departure.
- Moving to a free port: the container, the car and the hurricane seasonSint Maarten levies no import duties — the customs circus of the neighbouring islands falls away, and even the car may come along without an ownership requirement. What remains: the sea container as the clock of your planning, the residual BPM you lose, the annual number plates of XCG 275 or 750 and a moving calendar that plans around the hurricane season.
All 12 articles about Sint Maarten
- Banking and paying on Sint Maarten: the ID card first, guilders and dollars side by side, and your AOW in euros
- The Declaration by Operation of Law on Sint Maarten: IBP, Census Office and the three-year certificate
- Your first weeks on Sint Maarten: the chain from IBP to Census Office to ID card, and what waits on it
- Car and driving licence on Sint Maarten: your Dutch licence is recognised, the plates you buy every year
- Buying a house on Sint Maarten: freely for sale, but look under the ground first
- School on Sint Maarten: compulsory from four, and the language of instruction the school chooses itself
Also applies to your move
Ready to begin?
The step-by-step plan for Sint Maarten: 31 steps, with your documents and your costs in one place. For each step you see the latest date to start. You pay once and it's yours.