What changes financially when you move to Spain?
Tick where your income comes from. You then see which rules Spain 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.
Which country may tax
Which part of your income may your new country of residence tax?
Where you are resident for tax depends on your circumstances
It is not the number of days that determines where you are resident for tax, but all your facts together. Deregistering with the municipality is only one of them.
Your tax residence is the country where you pay tax as a resident. What is weighed is where your permanent home is, where your partner and children live, and where you work, bank and have your GP. Case law keeps arriving at the same criterion: is there a lasting bond of a personal nature with the Netherlands? So you can spend well over half a year in Spain and still simply be resident in the Netherlands for tax.
What the Netherlands doesn't let go of
Which Dutch obligation travels with you?
AOW accrual stops on departure; you can repair it within one year
This is about the accrual, not the payment. What you've built up until you leave stays yours. But as soon as you're no longer insured in the Netherlands, you build up nothing more. Every year until your AOW age then costs 2% of your later AOW. If you already receive AOW, this no longer applies.
For most emigrants the insurance ends at the moment of departure. Anyone who keeps working in the Netherlands or is posted abroad can stay insured. Voluntary continued insurance with the SVB (which runs the AOW) closes the gap, for ten years at most. Two conditions apply. Your application must be in within one year of your compulsory insurance ending. And you must have been insured for at least a year directly before that. The premium depends on your income and is revised annually, so no amount is given here. Put that date in your diary before you go.
- reduction per uninsured year
- 2% of your AOW
- application for voluntary insurance
- no later than 1 year after your insurance ends
- duration of voluntary insurance
- 10 years at most
Source: Algemene Ouderdomswet (General Old Age Pensions Act) — article 13(1) (2% reduction per uninsured calendar year), article 35(1) (voluntary insurance, ten years at most) and article 36(1) (application no later than one year after the compulsory insurance ends) — checked on 2026-09-19
Read the whole storyThe year of departure needs a tax return of its own
If you emigrate part way through the year, you live that year partly inside and partly outside the Netherlands. For that there is the M return: a separate tax return for that year.
It is often forgotten. A letter only reaches you if your address abroad is correct in the RNI, the register for people who live outside the Netherlands. So put it in your planning for the year after your departure.
Source: Filing a return for the year of emigration — the M form — checked on 2026-08-27
Read the whole storyFor inheritance and gifts the Netherlands counts you in for ten more years
The Inheritance Tax Act (Successiewet), the law on inheritance and gift tax, pretends an emigrated Dutch national still lives in the Netherlands for ten years. That applies on death and to gifts.
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, to your children for example, falls under Dutch gift tax. So review your will and your gift plans before you leave. For a gift in the first year after you leave, this even applies to everyone who lived in the Netherlands, also without Dutch nationality.
- deemed residence
- 10 years
This is not tax advice
These are the rules that apply to your situation, not the outcome of them. What they add up to for you depends on your own facts. With Spain that holds all the more. Where you are resident for tax is judged on your circumstances. And whether the Netherlands may still tax your occupational pension depends on three conditions and a threshold that differs per treaty. On exactly those questions your answer can differ from your neighbour's. Take this list to a tax adviser who knows both systems. 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 Spain: 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 Spain 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.