Working from Bonaire as a Germany resident

At a glance

Rule coverage

What the rules say about Bonaire

The rules below are the ones most likely to shape a stay in Bonaire, in plain words and with the source behind each one. Your own report tells you which of them apply to you.

1. Significant issueMoving your company

   By default, your BES company is deemed established in the Netherlands, not on the BES

   Article 5.2 of the Belastingwet BES starts from the opposite assumption most people expect, a body established on the BES islands is, by default, deemed established in the Netherlands for the purposes of the whole distribution tax chapter. The Dutch side locks this in, a body caught by that fiction is deemed established in the Netherlands under the Wet op de vennootschapsbelasting 1969, and pays ordinary Dutch corporate tax, 19 percent up to EUR 200,000 and 25.8 percent above, plus Dutch dividend withholding, exactly as if it had never left. The same fiction also blocks the BRN's 10 percent dividend withholding exemption and pulls gains on BES property owned by such a company into Dutch tax instead of BES tax. The only way out is winning a beschikking from the inspector on one of three tests.

2. Significant issueImmigration and visa

   Your EU passport gives you no right to live or work on Bonaire

   The BES islands are an EU Overseas Country and Territory, outside the EU customs union and outside the single market. EU free movement of persons simply does not reach them. Nationality, not EU citizenship, is what the WTU-BES tests, so a German, Belgian, Spanish or Polish national is a vreemdeling here with no automatic right of residence, needing a verblijfsvergunning under article 6 just like anyone from outside the EU entirely.

3. Significant issueLeaving home: exit tax and ties

   Moving to Bonaire is a real Dutch emigration, and a substantial interest triggers an exit assessment

   Leaving the European Netherlands for the BES is fiscal emigration for Dutch income tax purposes, and the BRN expressly preserves the Dutch right to tax it. If you hold a substantial interest, 5 percent or more, in a company, the Belastingdienst issues a conserverende aanslag at the box 2 rate on the value growth built up while you were a Dutch resident. Payment can be deferred on written request against sufficient security, and the deferral survives as long as no prohibited act, like actually selling the shares, occurs.

4. Significant issueTax residency

   No tie-breaker treaty means real double taxation risk outside the Kingdom

   BES has almost no tax treaties. Coordination only exists with the European Netherlands and within the Kingdom, Curacao, Aruba and Sint Maarten. For every other destination there is no tie-breaker treaty, only unilateral relief under the Besluit voorkoming dubbele belasting BES, which reduces BES tax on foreign-source income but does nothing to bind or coordinate with the other country. If your destination also claims you as its own tax resident, both countries can tax the same income with no referee to sort it out.

5. Significant issuePersonal income tax

   Past 183 days, Bonaire can tax your workdays even though you are still a Dutch resident

   Once you cross 183 days of presence in a rolling twelve months, the BRN's employment article no longer keeps the taxing right with the Netherlands. The BES may tax the remuneration attributable to your BES workdays, while the Netherlands gives exemption with progression on that same income. This happens while you are still under a year and still Dutch tax resident and Dutch insured, since those clocks run on a full year, not 183 days. Your employer, meanwhile, is now in scope for BES wage tax under Wet LB BES article 2, which in practice means registering as a withholding agent on an island where they were not expecting to run payroll.

6. Significant issueSocial security

   Past a year without BES wages, your insurance lapses

   Once you are outside the one-year return-deeming window and no longer earning BES-taxable wages, you stop being insured under Article 2 and Article 5 of the Wet AOV BES. AOV old-age pension, AWW survivor cover and ZV sickness pay all stop, silently. No notification process for this was found in the sources reviewed.

What tends to surprise people here

• The BES tax system is separate from the European Dutch one
• Its own social insurance (AOV, not AOW) with different rules
• Establishment rights differ from Curaçao

Tax treaty between Germany and Bonaire