With €2,000 a month of passive income, you live modestly in Brussels and comfortably in many countries where the cost of living is lower. Moving abroad can bring the day of financial freedom forward by several years. Provided you understand where you will pay tax, how you will get healthcare and what will happen to your pension.
The cost-of-living effect
Your financial freedom number depends directly on your spending. If you spend 30% less by living elsewhere, the capital you need also falls by 30%. This is the idea of ‘geo-arbitrage’: earning or receiving income from a rich country and spending it in a cheaper one.
But the cost of living is not just rent: include health insurance, trips home to see family, children's education, visas and safety.
How much less capital if you live elsewhere?
Compare your freedom number in Belgium and in a cheaper country.
Where will you pay tax?
- In principle, you are taxed in the country of your tax residence: your home, the centre of your interests.
- Leaving Belgium means deregistering from your municipality and being able to prove a genuine departure: housing, family life and activities abroad.
- Double taxation treaties between Belgium and the host country determine who taxes what: salaries, pensions, dividends, rents.
- Income from property located in Belgium generally remains taxable in Belgium, even if you live elsewhere.
Favourable tax regimes for new residents change often: Portugal, for example, closed its non-habitual resident regime to newcomers from 2024. Never choose a country solely on the basis of a tax advantage of the moment.
Healthcare
- Within the European Union, social security coordination rules allow you, depending on your situation, to be covered in the host country, for example as a pensioner via the S1 form.
- Outside the European Union, private international health insurance is often essential, and its cost rises sharply with age.
Your Belgian pension
The Belgian state pension can in principle be paid abroad, within the European Union and in many other countries. If you leave before retirement age, however, you stop building up Belgian entitlements, which reduces the final amount. Some periods of work abroad may count under agreements between countries. Check your situation on MyPension.be before leaving.
Common mistakes
- Leaving without testing: first spend several months there, outside the tourist season.
- Keeping a home in Belgium ‘just in case’ and unknowingly remaining taxable in Belgium.
- Underestimating currency risk if your income is in euros and your spending in another currency.
- Forgetting to declare foreign accounts and your tax obligations in both countries.
- Cutting all social ties: isolation is the main reason people return.
Many people start by living a few months a year abroad, without changing tax residence, before deciding on a permanent move.
Where to find these services
- FPS Foreign AffairsMoving abroad from Belgium: procedures
- MyPension.beYour Belgian pension if you leave
- FPS FinanceDouble taxation treaties
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Test yourself
3 questions to check what you remember. Click an answer: the explanation appears straight away.
Question 1 of 3In principle, where do you pay tax when living abroad?
Income from property located in Belgium generally remains taxable there.
Question 2 of 3What happens to the Belgian state pension if you move to another EU country?
Check your situation on MyPension.be before leaving.
Question 3 of 3Which mistake should you avoid?
Portugal, for example, closed its non-habitual resident regime to newcomers in 2024.
Frequently asked questions
Can you receive your Belgian pension abroad?
In principle yes, within the European Union and in many other countries. Leaving before retirement age stops you building up Belgian entitlements, however. Check your situation on MyPension.be.
Where do you pay tax when living abroad?
In principle in the country of your tax residence, according to double taxation treaties. Income from property in Belgium generally remains taxable in Belgium.
What is the main trap when moving abroad?
Not genuinely giving up your Belgian tax residence, or choosing a country only for a tax advantage that can disappear quickly.
Sources
This article is educational and is not personal investment, tax or legal advice. Figures change: check them with the sources cited or a licensed professional before deciding. Read the full disclaimer.