Leaving Luxembourg: the checklist people wish they had used

People plan their arrival in Luxembourg carefully and improvise their departure, which is the wrong way round. Leaving badly produces a specific set of consequences: a deposit withheld, an estimated final utility bill, a tax file left open, and a set of documents that turn out to be impossible to obtain once you are in another country. Almost all of it is avoidable with six weeks of planning and a list.

Three months before

• Check your notice period. Luxembourg residential leases have defined notice requirements, and giving notice late is expensive. Read the clause, count the days, and give notice in writing with proof of receipt.
• Check your employment notice period and how it interacts with any accrued leave.
• If you own the property, start early. Selling an apartment in Luxembourg takes a matter of weeks from offer to compromis, but reaching an offer takes longer, and the notarial deed follows the compromis by a further period. Letting it instead is a genuine alternative worth pricing before you commit to selling.
• Book the removal firm and confirm what documentation it needs for a cross-border move.

One month before

• Arrange the exit inventory with your landlord or agent, and re-read the entry inventory before it. This meeting determines your deposit.
• Deal with the small repairs yourself rather than letting them be charged. Filling and touching up holes with the right paint costs a fraction of what a contractor's invoice will.
• Give notice to your utility suppliers and your internet provider, with the termination date. Note the notice periods; internet contracts in particular can require more warning than you expect.
• Cancel or transfer insurance policies, noting that these frequently renew automatically and have their own notice windows.
• Tell your children's school and request the documents they will need in the next country: certificates, reports and any assessment records.
• Request medical records from your doctors, and a summary of vaccinations. This is far easier to do while you are still here.

The final fortnight

• Declare your departure at the commune. This is the counterpart to the declaration of arrival and it matters: it closes your residence record and it is what other administrations rely on.
• Notify the tax administration and the social security administration of your departure and your new address.
• Set up mail forwarding and update your address with anyone who will still write to you.
• Take final meter readings on the day of handover, photographed with the date, and record them on the exit inventory where possible.
• Hand over every key, including cellar, letterbox, garage, bike store and building entrance, and get a written acknowledgement.
• Return the parking badge or resident permit to the commune if you hold one.

The deposit, and how to actually get it back

The rental deposit is the item that generates most of the complaints we hear from departing tenants, and the outcome is usually decided long before the exit inventory.

• The entry inventory is your evidence. If it was thorough, the exit meeting is straightforward. If it was not, you are arguing from memory.
• Normal wear is not damage. Faded paint after several years and minor marks are the consequence of living somewhere. Holes, stains and broken items are not.
• Agree in writing what is being deducted and why, at the meeting, before you leave the building.
• Expect a delay where charges are reconciled annually. Part of the deposit may legitimately be retained until the building's accounts close, which can be months after you have gone. Agree that arrangement in writing, with a date and an amount, rather than leaving it open.
• Leave a bank account open that can still receive the transfer. This is the practical failure that costs people money: the account is closed, the transfer bounces, and pursuing it from abroad is disproportionate to the sum.

Money, tax and pensions

• Do not close the Luxembourg bank account too early. The deposit, a final salary adjustment, a tax refund and a charges reconciliation may all still be coming.
• Expect to file a final tax return for your year of departure, and to receive correspondence about it afterwards. Leave the administration an address that will still work.
• Keep every pension document. Your social security number, statements and employment dates. Within the EU your periods count toward your eventual entitlement, and Luxembourg pays its share, but only if the record can be found.
• Request a statement of your no-claims record from your motor insurer before you cancel the policy. The next insurer in the next country will want it and it is far harder to obtain later.
• Keep your employment certificate and payslips. They are the evidence of your career here.

If you own property and are not selling

Letting a Luxembourg apartment from abroad is entirely workable and it needs a structure, not good intentions. You will need someone here to hold keys, respond to a tenant, attend the co-ownership assembly or vote by proxy, deal with the syndic and handle a leak on a Sunday. You will also have Luxembourg rental income to declare, and a non-resident tax position to manage.

Decide before you leave whether you are managing it yourself or delegating it, because arranging it afterwards, remotely, in a different time zone, is where absentee ownership goes wrong.

Documents to take with you, and why

The items below are straightforward to obtain while you are still resident and range from awkward to impossible afterwards. Collect them before the removal van arrives.

• Employment certificate and the full run of payslips, plus the annual salary certificates.
• Your social security number and any pension statements, which are what allow your Luxembourg periods to be traced decades later.
• Tax assessments for every year you filed.
• The motor insurance no-claims statement, in writing.
• School records and reports for each child, and any assessment or support documentation.
• Medical records, prescriptions and vaccination history for the whole family.
• The lease, the entry and exit inventories and the deposit release confirmation.
• If you owned property, the notarial deed, the loan documents and the co-ownership records.
• Civil status documents issued in Luxembourg, such as a birth certificate for a child born here, ideally in a multilingual or apostilled form.

Scan everything as well as keeping the paper. Storage costs nothing and the alternative is requesting a document from an administration in a country where you no longer have an address.

Three questions we are asked

How long before I get my deposit back?

Where there is nothing to deduct and no annual reconciliation pending, within a reasonable period after the exit inventory. Where the building's charges are settled annually, part may legitimately be held until those accounts close. What matters is that the arrangement is agreed in writing at handover rather than left to good faith.

Do I have to tell the commune I am leaving?

Yes. The departure declaration is the formal closure of your residence record and it affects your tax and social security position. Leaving without it produces an administrative loose end that is much harder to resolve from another country.

Should I sell my apartment or keep it?

It depends on whether you might return, on the yield the property actually achieves after charges and management, and on your tax position as a non-resident owner. It is a calculation rather than a matter of sentiment, and it should be done with real figures before you leave rather than assumed either way.

Where we can help

If you are leaving and own an apartment here, the two live options are selling and letting, and they produce very different numbers. We handle both, and we will give you the figures for each side before you decide rather than after.

A useful editorial test for three months before is to look at the consequence rather than the headline feature.

When comparing two options on if you own property and are not selling, avoid scoring them only on the feature named in the title. For the question raised by “If you own property and are not selling”, the useful detail is not a generic list of advantages.

For the question raised by “If you own property and are not selling”, the useful detail is not a generic list of advantages.

The long-term test for documents to take with you, and why is maintenance. For the question raised by “Documents to take with you, and why”, the useful detail is not a generic list of advantages. It means pricing the effort honestly. That list can be surprisingly clarifying.

For where we can help, note what you can see, what you can measure, what you need to ask and what would be expensive to change. For the question raised by “Documents to take with you, and why”, the useful detail is not a generic list of advantages.

A stronger reading of three months before starts by asking what would change for the resident on an ordinary weekday.