The notifications and filings people forget when they move

Moving abroad generates a set of obligations towards the country you left. Each is small and none is difficult. Missing them produces penalties out of proportion to the effort of complying, and they are missed because nobody sends a reminder.

To the tax authority you are leaving

• Notification of departure, where required, on the form that country uses. In several systems your residence does not end until you tell them.
• A final or split-year return, which is frequently required and frequently forgotten in the year of the move.
• Continuing returns where you retain source income there — rental income from a property you kept is the usual case.
• Exit tax filings, where they apply.

To the country of your citizenship

• Registration with the consulate, which is optional in most countries and useful in all of them.
• Notification of a second citizenship, where the law requires it, on a deadline with penalties.
• Military registration obligations, which do not lapse on emigration in the countries that have them.
• Civil registrations: a marriage or a birth abroad recorded with your home registry, frequently within a window.

To institutions

• Banks and brokers — new address, new tax residence, new self-certification.
• Pension providers, which lose people more often than any other category.
• Insurers, whose policies frequently lapse or become void on a change of residence.
• Property registries and management companies, so that notices reach you.

To the country you have arrived in

• Registration of residence, tenancy and address, on the local deadline.
• Tax registration, and the first return, including for the part-year.
• Foreign asset reporting, which several countries require of new residents on a detailed form with heavy penalties — Spain's is the well-known example.

The practical method

Write the list on one page in the month before you move, with a date against each. It is an afternoon of administration that replaces a year of correspondence with authorities who have already applied a penalty.