Blog: real tips for migrating, traveling and living in Curaçao

The real process, in order, so your company can hire a foreign worker without risking the permit being rejected.

There's no official list of approved professions -- the system works the other way around. And the restriction list changed in June 2025: this is what's in force TODAY.

It's not a degree that decides approval -- it's this. A practical checklist based on the real process.

Detention (bewaring) is the topic with the most cases won by the foreign national: 7 out of 15. Here is what the government must do before and during a detention, according to the courts themselves, and what to do if you are detained.

Curaçao has no classic asylum procedure: protection is requested under Article 3 of the European Convention on Human Rights. 18 rulings show what convinces a judge, what destroys a case, and why the 61% success rate does not mean what it seems.

When the government can remove you, when a court stops it (family matters, but not always), why a pending application does not protect you, and the voluntary departure that avoids the record that closes doors.

Approval is not the end. In the first month there are five chained procedures, a deposit paid after the decision, an appointment that is mandatory since September 2026, and a deadline that makes you lose the permit if you do not collect the document.

Renewing late, not reporting a divorce, spending more than 6 months abroad, a minor fine, a false document: the real grounds for revocation under the law, the 2006 policy and the rulings, with exact deadlines.

The two documents almost every procedure requires are obtained in your home country and take weeks: an apostilled birth certificate (under 1 year) and a criminal record certificate (under 3 months). Where to request them, what they cost and in what order, country by country.

There are two roads to a Dutch passport from Curaçao: option (faster and cheaper, for specific categories) and naturalisation (5 years of residence, a test in Dutch and Papiamentu). Fees valid from January 2026 and where to apply.

The foreign labour law punishes the employer, not the worker: up to 3 months' detention or a 100,000-guilder fine per infraction, plus a legal presumption of 6 months of wages owed. The argument that convinces a boss to do the paperwork.

The tourist limit for most Latin Americans is 30 days. To stay up to 6 months working for an employer or clients abroad there is the short stay as a remote worker: XCG 535, no right to work locally and no accrual of residence.