Tax residence: the 12 criteria the Tax and Customs Administration checks when emigrating to Dubai

You have located the apartment, chosen a free zone, and informed your boss that you are leaving. Then a friend points out that the Belastingdienst could still regard you as a Dutch tax resident next year. He is not being sarcastic.

Most guides on tax residence in Dubai begin by looking at the UAE side; this one does so by starting in the Netherlands, since that is where the debate takes place. Just because you land in Dubai does not mean that your Dutch tax residence comes to an end. Dutch law does not have a day limit and does not rely on a visa check; instead it looks at where your real life is based.

Let me start by making one thing clear: the Tax and Customs Administration does not release a clean list of 12 criteria. Instead, according to article 4 of the General Act on State Taxes (AWR), it considers all the relevant facts and circumstances without assigning them a priority order. We have grouped the points that frequently appear in the Administration’s guidance, in court decisions and in actual cases into 12 factors. Treat them as a kind of guide showing where an inspector would look, not as a checklist to go through. Remember that this is general information and not personal tax advice.

Key takeaways

• You remain a tax resident of the Netherlands as long as you maintain a lasting personal connection with the country, and that connection does not need to be stronger than your connection with Dubai.
• Dutch homes which are still available and cases where a partner or children live in the Netherlands are the ones that carry the greatest weight.
• The act of deregistering with the BRP is a legal obligation, but it by itself does not establish your tax residence.
• When you own 5 per cent or more of a company then emigration involves an additional step known as the conserverende aanslag.

Tax residence Dubai vs the Netherlands: how the Belastingdienst decides

According to Dutch law, the place where you live is determined by the circumstances; case law has reduced this to a single criterion, namely whether you have a lasting personal connection (“duurzame band van persoonlijke aard”) with the Netherlands.

People are often confused by three things.

There is no official hierarchy among the facts. In reality, however, considerable importance is attached to a home that is firmly available to you and to the place where your family lives. It isn’t necessary for the link with the Netherlands to outweigh your connection with Dubai. You can be tied to two places at the same time and the Dutch tie can still be the winning one. The term ‘durable’ refers to the strength of the tie, not to how long it lasts.

The yearly facts are important; the inspector may send you a letter containing questions or make an information decision, and in reality the Dutch aspect of your life is examined first. Courts do not simply count boxes, since in one case (that of the district court in Zeeland-West-Brabant) it was held that the Dutch connections listed by the inspector were not sufficient to prove a lasting personal link. In other instances, the inspectors have compiled a file from the family home, a Dutch house, and debit card transactions.

The 12 factors, roughly from heavy to light

Approximately, since as I mentioned there is no official list.

1. A Dutch home that’s still yours to use

This is generally the most important point. The Belastingdienst places great importance on a permanent home, regardless of whether or not you own it, since a rented flat is acceptable. It is a red flag if you have let out a house but are still able to move back into it. In certain situations, a hotel room has even been regarded as a home.

What makes it real control is whether you have the possibility of moving in and living there tomorrow. If your intention is to hold the property as an investment, then you should arrange a long-term lease with a third party who has no right to use it. A straightforward sale will eliminate any doubt. When considering property on the Dubai side, our guide on buying property in Dubai details the costs and rules.

2. Where your partner lives

Even if you move out and your partner remains in your Dutch home, that single fact can outweigh all the things you’ve arranged in Dubai. A good apartment in Marina won’t cancel it.

A gap is often caused when couples move in different years and this leads to questions. If such a gap cannot be avoided, then the timeline should be planned and evidence should be kept to show why it exists.

3. Where your children live and go to school

Children form the family situation. When a child stays at a Dutch school while you’re in Dubai, this tells a story and it’s not the one you’d like; so have the child enrolled in Dubai and sort out the paperwork.

4. Where you actually live, day to day

Not at your registered address, but where you sleep, eat, and carry out your regular weekly activities. Although spending most of the year in Dubai is helpful, it doesn’t by itself win the argument since Dutch law does not use a day count. The 183 days that people refer to are from a different kind of test, which we will deal with later.

5. Where you work and earn

The employer, the clients, the office, and the place where the actual work is carried out. When you have moved yet continue to carry out your work from your home office in the Netherlands for Dutch clients, an inspector will regard that as an example of a Dutch working life. Working in Dubai under a contract drawn up in Dubai or via a company based in Dubai is quite different. If that is the approach you intend to take, here is an explanation of how Dutch entrepreneurs can set up a company in Dubai.

6. Where your BV is really run (if you’re a dga)

Your business visa has a separate residence history from yours. The management concerned may move with you or simply remain in your kitchen in the Netherlands. Board decisions signed in Amsterdam while you are living in Dubai give rise to questions regarding you and the company.

A building in Dubai can be used, for example through the use of a virtual company in Dubai. But the actual operations have to be genuine. Where are the decisions taken, who gives the signatures, and where are the accounts kept?

7. Where your money lives and where you spend it

Your bank accounts—these are where your income, your assets, and your daily expenditures come from. An inspector could look at your credit card statements as if they were a diary. Unless your groceries, coffee, and petrol are still in Utrecht, a tenancy agreement in Dubai won’t contradict that.

It helps to know what daily life costs in Dubai so you can move your spending for real, not on paper.

8. Friends, family, clubs and habits

The Belastingdienst also inquires into your social contacts, for example your membership of the sports club, your regular doctor, the Friday drinks with the same group of people, and your parents’ Sunday dinners. These alone won’t determine a decision, but together they do indicate whether your social life has changed or has merely acquired a Dubai postcode.

9. Your Dutch registrations and admin

Registration with the BRP, having health insurance, possessing a DigiD, having a Dutch postal address, the car, and the driving licence—although formal requirements are less important than material ones, careless administration can still spoil an otherwise straightforward exit.

Deregistration is a legal duty if you’ll be abroad more than eight months within a year, and those months don’t need to be consecutive. You report it in the five days before you leave, and in person if family members stay behind. The municipality passes the change to bodies like the Belastingdienst. The Nederlandwereldwijd guide to deregistering from the BRP explains the process. Remember it doesn’t settle your tax residence by itself.

10. A real home and life in Dubai

It is important for your Dubai address since it indicates where people’s lives have actually relocated. Even though UAE law does not require a permanent place of residence to be owned, it must be accessible to you at all times. Evidence for this claim can include a signed tenancy agreement, a residence visa, an Emirates ID and utility bills. We look after the documentation needed for applications for an Emirates ID and a residence visa via our PRO services.

The Dutch courts have also taken into account the situation overseas, so the matter is not only concerned with the UAE aspect of the file.

11. How often and how long you’re back in the Netherlands

Being at your parents’ house for three weeks in the summer is one matter; spending every second weekend at your old flat is something else. When the inspector asks where you regularly stay, you must say Dubai.

12. Whether the whole story hangs together

Each year must be evaluated in light of its own facts, and a tax-safe exit depends on making a consistent move together with a yearly file of evidence, so that all aspects—living, working, family, money, and stays—point in the same direction.

Choose a date on which to leave and then arrange all the relevant matters around it, such as your residence, your family, your job, and the process of deregistration. Keep copy of your flight records, tenancy agreements, school documents, invoices, and bank statements. It is worse to have paperwork that goes against your actual life than to have no such paperwork.

Quick reference: what gets flagged and what to do instead