The step-by-step plan for Spain

As a Dutch citizen you need no visa for Spain. You get on the plane, you arrive and nobody asks anything. For the first three months you may stay without any conditions. That is exactly why this journey is systematically underestimated.

Stay longer than three months and you're obliged to register. You do that in phase 4, within three months of your arrival. That registration comes with two requirements:

• You can demonstrate income or assets.
• You have healthcare cover that's valid in Spain.

For a country that requires a visa, you prove beforehand that you may come. To Spain you can simply come, and you prove afterwards that you can stay. It's the same proof, just at a different moment.

And nobody reminds you. You only find out when you get stuck at the bank, the school or the traffic authority.

In this step you work out how you'll meet the requirements from the previous step: income or assets, and healthcare cover. Which situation applies to you decides your whole preparation.

Are you going to work in Spain, employed or self-employed? Then this is arranged by itself. You fall under Spanish social security.

Not working in Spain? Say you work remotely for a Dutch employer, you live off assets or you're retired. Then at registration you have to show two things:

• You have sufficient means for everyone who's coming.
• You have health insurance that covers all risks in Spain.

If you're retired, it's easier. For you the S1 form suffices. With it you're entitled to healthcare in Spain at the expense of the Netherlands.

What exactly counts as "sufficient means" is set every year and assessed per person. That's why we don't name an amount here: a figure that no longer holds next year is worse than no figure. You'll find the current threshold via the sources with this step.

This is your first homework, and it belongs now. If you only work this out in Spain, you'll be standing there with a file that can't be completed.

When you choose a region, you're choosing more than a climate. Education, healthcare and part of the taxes are arranged per region in Spain. So the same question has a different answer in Andalusia than in Valencia or Catalonia.

The difference lies in four things:

• How education is set up.
• Which language is spoken at school.
• How healthcare is organised.
• Which regional levies apply.

So choose your region early. It decides which town hall, which immigration office and which tax office you'll end up at. With children, it also decides in which language they'll be taught.

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

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

• The application. For Spain this is almost nothing: fees of tens of euros, plus possibly a gestor (a Spanish administrative agency that handles paperwork for you) and translations.
• The move. From almost nothing to a few thousand euros, depending on your choices.
• The first months. Deposit, rent in advance, and living while no income comes in yet.

So the weight lies in the move, and above all in the first months.

One rule of thumb 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. No forms are involved, 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 Spain? 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 Spain 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. And think about work. The partner who isn't bringing the income needs a working life in Spain too. Check now how that occupation fares in your region, and in which language.

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 Spain 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.

For children, the language at school is the biggest transition. In bilingual regions they're taught in or with the regional language. Young children pick it up surprisingly fast. For teenagers it's harder, and then extra support is no luxury.

Who learns the language, and when? In Spain that's Spanish, and in a bilingual region the regional language comes on top. 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. Unlike a visa journey, with Spain 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.