The step-by-step plan for Sint Maarten

In this step you read on what basis you may live on Sint Maarten, and what you arrange for it.

Sint Maarten has been an autonomous country within the Kingdom since 10 October 2010. It has an Admission and Expulsion Ordinance of its own: the law that decides who may live there. That law resembles those of Curaçao and Aruba, but it's a different law.

Your Dutch passport gives you the right to live there. The law calls that admission by operation of law. These conditions come with it:

• Good conduct over the past five years.
• Housing.
• Sufficient means of subsistence.

You have that right laid down in a Declaration by Operation of Law. You apply for it at IBP, the immigration service of Sint Maarten.

One thing is different here from anywhere else in the Kingdom: the national border runs across the island. The north side is French Saint-Martin: France, EU, euros. You live on one side, and your rights differ per side. This plan is about the country Sint Maarten.

Meanwhile, for every Dutch authority this is an ordinary emigration. Your health insurance stops, your benefits stop and your AOW accrual (the Dutch state pension) stops.

In this step you see how you earn a living there and how you're insured for healthcare. That last part above all decides whether this journey works for you.

Working is allowed. As a Dutch citizen admitted by operation of law you fall outside the work-permit regime for foreigners: you don't need a work permit. The labour market there is English-speaking and runs mainly on tourism.

Healthcare works fundamentally differently from Curaçao. There is no country-of-residence system for everyone: you aren't insured automatically because you live there. The ZV insurance of SZV, the body that runs the island's social insurance schemes, covers only employees below the wage limit (XCG 120,000 per year). If you earn more, run a business or live off your pension, you insure yourself entirely privately.

For pensioners that's the breaking point of this plan:

• There's no CAK route: the scheme through which, with a Dutch AOW or a Dutch pension, you're insured via the CAK in your new country of residence. That route exists nowhere within the Kingdom. Bitterly enough, it does on the French part of the island.
• Premiums rise steeply with age.
• Above seventy-five many insurers accept no new customers.

Read the healthcare article before you plan any further. In phase 2 you arrange the transition.

In this step you find out what it's like to live on the island, not just to holiday there. Holiday Sint Maarten and living Sint Maarten are two different islands.

The touristy south around Simpson Bay charges American prices, in American dollars. Outside it the rent drops, but the groceries come by boat everywhere. Explore both sides of the border. Shopping and eating out can also be done on the French side, in euros. Also look honestly at what the island doesn't have: the anonymity, the choice and the seasons of the Netherlands. And all that on sixteen by thirteen kilometres.

Take the hurricane season seriously. It runs from June to November inclusive. Hurricane Irma flattened the island almost entirely in 2017. You see that risk in the insurance premiums, the build quality and the planning of your move.

If you know the island outside the high season and still want it, you really want it.

In this step you see what the move is going to cost you. The calculator above works with your own moving choices.

The paperwork here is strikingly cheap. The Declaration by Operation of Law costs about a hundred euros. And the island is a free port, so import duties don't exist.

The real money is in:

• The sea container for your household contents.
• The rent, in American dollars.
• For pensioners, the private health insurance, which comes back every year.

A rule of thumb: count in dollars, not in guilders. Rents and many groceries are in practice dollarised there: they're set in dollars. Whoever builds their budget on the official guilder rates counts themselves rich.

In this step you decide together. There are no forms, and yet this is where most journeys fail.

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 on Sint Maarten? 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.

With Sint Maarten these two belong on those evenings too:

• The distance. You don't just fly back and forth for a birthday.
• The hurricane season. A few months of alertness every year are part of life here, and not everyone carries that equally lightly.

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 on Sint Maarten usually stops building up AOW. AOW is the Dutch state pension, and for the AOW the Caribbean part of the Kingdom counts as outside the Netherlands. 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 residence, for being insured together for healthcare and for inheritance. Check in the steps on your residence and 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.

Mind the language at school. Education there is predominantly in English. For children that's a bigger step than it looks in the brochure photo. Schools that teach (partly) in Dutch have waiting lists.

Who learns the language, and when? On Sint Maarten that's English: the labour market there is English-speaking, and education mostly too. If one of you speaks little English, it's often the partner without work who needs it most, and that's exactly the one with no colleagues to practise with. Plan it together, preferably before you leave.

With this step you close the orientation: you choose a target date for departure. Don't see it as a deadline, but as a compass.

These clocks set the pace here:

• The Declaration by Operation of Law: count on weeks to months.
• The container: weeks on the water.
• The hurricane season: preferably don't plan your arrival in the middle of September.

A realistic picture: from serious decision to being settled, this journey takes most people four to nine months.

You fill in the date below in this card, and filling it in completes the step. You can always adjust your target date. The planning then adjusts with it.