Health Care

Getting residency on Bonaire has some perks. It would have helped to get a bank account quicker, residency rates for car registration and road tax would apply, our shipment from the states would have been at the residency tax rate and our property tax on the purchase of our house would have been at the residency rate.

The biggest benefit of residency is free health care.  This includes doctor visits, hospital visits, surgery, and prescription medications.  Does not cover dental and we are not sure about optical care. Island health care services also cover travel for you and your spouse when treatment on a different island, like Aruba, is required or they ship you to Columbia for Covid care. 

Once you have residency, you must register for health care at a government office.  You all know of our experiences at government offices getting permits, paying taxes and registrations.  So we were prepared for the worst.

The fog lifted, the clouds parted, the sunshine came out and residency smiled on us.  We went to the government health care office.  There was no one in line, we filled out the application, showed our residency stamp and it was done. We spent 10 minutes in the office with no problems, no additional documents just a quick registration and we have health care. We were speechless and amazed.