Moving to Europe: The Financial Checklist for the 90 Days Before You Leave

Everyone researches the arrival. The school, the neighbourhood, the commute, the health system. Almost nobody researches the departure, and the departure is where the deadlines are.

The pattern repeats often enough that I recognise it now. A senior person takes a role in Amsterdam, Munich, Zurich or Copenhagen. They arrive prepared for daily life. Six months later they find a tax or pension consequence that was entirely predictable and that nobody in the relocation process thought to mention.

This applies whether you are coming from Bengaluru or moving from one European country to another. The rules differ by corridor. The categories of decision are the same, and most of them have to be made before you leave, not after you land.

1. The Date Your Tax Residency Changes

Your new country usually starts taxing you from the day you take up residence, and registration is how it knows. Germany expects you to register your address within two weeks of moving in. The Netherlands issues your citizen service number (BSN) on registration, and almost everything else, from salary to a bank account, waits for it.

Your old country runs on its own clock. India's financial year runs April to March, and an Indian citizen leaving for employment abroad is non-resident for a year only if they spend fewer than 182 days in India in it. Most of Europe runs on the calendar year. The year you move is split across two tax years that don't line up, and the date you leave decides which country treats you as resident for which months.

2. Equity That Vests After You Move

Unvested RSUs and options do not belong to the country you live in when they vest. Most European tax authorities follow the OECD approach: the income is split by the workdays you spent in each country between grant and vest. The country you left keeps a claim on its share, and your new payroll will probably tax all of it anyway.

Before you accept the transfer, ask your employer one question in writing: if my total tax on this equity is higher because I moved, who pays the difference? Tax equalisation policies range from genuine (the company holds you harmless) to cosmetic ("we'll help you file"). The answer belongs in the offer, not in an email after the first vest. The mechanics are in how workdays decide which country taxes your RSUs.

3. The Accounts You Leave Behind

Leaving India: once you become non-resident under Indian exchange control rules, your resident savings accounts have to be redesignated as NRO accounts. Banks don't do it on their own; you tell them. Foreign earnings you send back should go to an NRE account, not the NRO. The difference decides how easily the money can leave India again, which is covered in NRE, NRO and FCNR explained.

EPF can be withdrawn or left to accrue. Withdrawal is tax-free in India after five years of continuous service. What India calls tax-free, your new country may not. Assume it will treat EPF, PPF and your Indian mutual funds as ordinary savings for its own tax, whatever their status at home, until someone shows you a rule that says otherwise.

Moving within Europe: an occupational pension usually stays with the scheme you leave. The EU's supplementary pensions directive (2014/50/EU) caps vesting periods at three years and protects dormant rights, but it does not move your pot for you. What you get is a scheme in each country you worked in, each with its own statement, retirement age and paperwork.

4. Banking on Arrival

Opening a bank account usually needs proof of registration, which needs an address, which needs a deposit paid from a bank account. EU law gives anyone legally resident in the EU the right to a basic payment account (Directive 2014/92/EU), which helps if a bank refuses you. It does not make the first month faster. Arrive with an account that already works across currencies, and keep enough in it to pay a deposit and two months of rent.

5. What the Tax Treaty Does and Doesn't Do

A treaty between your old and new country decides who taxes which income when both have a claim. It prevents double taxation of the same income. It does not prevent high taxation, and it does not make filing in two countries go away.

What treaties tend to handle: employment income in the year you move, pensions once you retire, property gains, withholding on interest and dividends. What they handle poorly or not at all: social security (which has its own agreements), income from a third country, and wealth taxes. If you are moving into Dutch Box 3, Swiss cantonal wealth tax or the Norwegian wealth tax, assume the treaty gives you little or no relief on the wealth side.

6. Social Security: One Country at a Time

Inside the EU, the EEA and Switzerland, Regulation (EC) No 883/2004 means you are insured in one country at a time, and periods in each country are added together when you claim a pension. Each country then pays its own share.

India has social security agreements with most of Western Europe, including Germany, the Netherlands, France, Belgium, Switzerland, Denmark, Sweden, Norway and Austria. If an Indian employer is posting you, get the certificate of coverage before you leave. Without it you pay into both systems from your first payslip, and getting the European contributions back later is slow where it is possible at all.

7. The Insurance Gap

In the Netherlands, basic health insurance is compulsory and must be taken out within four months of the day you become obliged to have it, usually when you start living or working there. Do it in time and cover is backdated to that day. Switzerland gives you three months from arrival, also backdated. Either way you pay for the gap whether or not you were covered during it. Corporate cover from your old employer usually ends at the end of your last month.

Life insurance is the other one. Policies written in your old country can require you to notify a change of residence, and some restrict cover abroad. Read the terms before you move, not when you need them.

8. The Currency You Now Hold Without Choosing To

From your first euro payslip, you hold currency risk somewhere. Savings in rupees, a flat in Bengaluru, an EPF balance, a pension promise in the currency of a country you've left. None of it needs hedging. All of it needs a decision about which currency your future spending will be in, because that is the currency your plan should be measured in.

Money moving home is its own leak. Banks typically take 2 to 4% on a transfer once the exchange rate markup is counted, which adds up faster than people expect.

The 90 Days Before You Leave

Most of this list has to happen in the three months before departure. Residency timing, account redesignation, pension choices with deadlines, the equity conversation, the certificate of coverage. Every one of them is tied to your last working day or your departure date.

Relocation firms and HR teams are excellent at logistics. They are not set up to tell you that your RSUs are about to be taxed twice, or that your Dutch ruling has a four-month clock, or that your bank in India still thinks you live there. The decisions you make deliberately before you leave stay made. The ones you discover afterwards cost more to fix.