The rules for leaving Netherlands
The Netherlands has no departure form and no residency-opinion request. You deregister from the population register, file an M-form for the year you leave, and the Belastingdienst judges where you live from the circumstances. Getting the file right before you leave is what protects you later.
Where you live is judged 'naar de omstandigheden' — by the facts.
Dutch law has no day count. Article 4 of the Algemene wet inzake rijksbelastingen says where someone lives is assessed according to the circumstances. The Belastingdienst's own emigration page lists the questions it asks: at which address do you spend most of your time, where do your partner and family live, where do you work, where are you insured for medical costs, where is your GP, where are you a member of associations, and where do your children go to school.
You emigrate, in the Belastingdienst's words, when you go to live permanently in another country. A departure that leaves a home, a family and a GP behind is not one.
Belastingdienst: do I emigrate if I move abroad? ↗Leave and come back within a year, and you never left.
Article 2.2 of the Wet inkomstenbelasting 2001 deems a person who stops living in the Netherlands and returns within one year — without having lived in another state in between — to have remained a Dutch resident for the whole absence. A trial year abroad that ends early can be taxed as if it never happened, so the move needs to be real and evidenced from day one.
Wet IB 2001, art. 2.2 (wetten.overheid.nl) ↗No certificate on the way out — but vooroverleg exists.
There is no residency ruling request and no exit certificate. What exists is vooroverleg: a written request to the inspector setting out the facts, the question and your own position, in return for a standpunt on your specific situation. It is only as good as the facts you supply — which is why the file comes first. In practice most leavers simply file the M-form with a departure date and carry the evidence.
Belastingdienst: vooroverleg ↗The M-form: one return, two periods.
For the year you leave you file the M-aangifte (migration return) — online in Mijn Belastingdienst under 'aangifte inkomstenbelasting voor belastingplichtigen die een deel van het jaar buiten Nederland wonen', or on the paper M-formulier. It covers the resident months on worldwide income and the non-resident months on Dutch income only. The deadline is the date in your aangiftebrief, often 1 May; the Belastingdienst usually responds within 3 months and officially has 3 years to settle it (2025 by 31 December 2028).
Belastingdienst: filing for the year of emigration ↗The conserverende aanslag,
without the guesswork.
The Netherlands has no general exit tax on your investments — but it has a conserverende aanslag, a protective assessment that follows you out. If you hold an aanmerkelijk belang (at least 5% of a company) you are deemed to have sold it the moment you cease to be a resident, and the box 2 gain is assessed but not collected. The same protective assessment lands on pension rights, lijfrente built up with deducted premiums and a kapitaalverzekering eigen woning. Moving inside the EU or EEA you get automatic deferral; elsewhere you request it and the Belastingdienst can demand security. No collection interest runs during deferral. For pensions and annuities the assessment lapses after 10 years if you play by the rules. For shares it does not: since 15 September 2015 the deferral is open-ended, and a sale, a dividend or a liquidation triggers collection. Each of these is a number that needs to be right before you leave.
Belastingdienst: conserverende aanslag on emigration ↗Why the facts matter more than the flight
Dutch tax obligations depend on residency. Residents are taxed on worldwide income in boxes 1, 2 and 3; non-residents only on Dutch-source income — Dutch employment and pensions, a substantial interest in a Dutch company, and Dutch real estate. The Belastingdienst decides which you are by looking at your whole life, not your departure date.
Where is your home?
Which address you spend most of your time at is the first question the Belastingdienst asks. A Dutch home kept available is the heaviest fact against you.
Where is your family?
A partner or children staying in the Netherlands — and where the children go to school — is listed explicitly among the circumstances weighed.
What does daily life look like?
Work, health insurance, your huisarts, club and association memberships and time in each country tell the story article 4 AWR is asking about.
Read the Belastingdienst's emigration checklist ↗
Official sources checked 8 September 2026. Rules and thresholds change; confirm before you rely on them.
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