How to plan a family move abroad: a 12-month checklist

What are the steps to plan a family move abroad?

A family move is a year-long project with a fixed end date. These ten steps, in roughly this order, cover it from the first conversation to the first week in the new country. They overlap in practice; a short weekly or monthly check-in holds them together.

• 1. Decide together: reasons, hopes, worries, non-negotiables and stop triggers on one page.
• 2. Compare destinations on weighted criteria and shortlist two.
• 3. Read the official government pages and check any adviser on the official register.
• 4. Work out one-off costs, monthly costs, the funds that count and your arrival cash number.
• 5. Build a document vault: one row per document per person, with apostille, attestation and expiry dates.
• 6. Count a 12-month timeline back from departure day, with one owner per task.
• 7. Decide what to ship, sell, store or carry.
• 8. Search for housing, schools and pet rules together.
• 9. Compare money transfer costs and take tax residency questions to advisers in both countries.
• 10. Plan departure week, travel day and a calm first week.

How do you decide as a family whether to move?

Research without an agreed purpose turns into comparing everything with everything, and the person who did the research quietly makes the decision. Start instead with one unhurried meeting. Ask three questions: why are we thinking about moving, what would a good life look like two years after we arrive, and what would make us say not now.

Hear every person and ask the children last, writing their words down exactly. Agree the non-negotiables (conditions that rule an option out whatever its score), the stop triggers (a refused application, a health change for a parent, a funds gap still open on a set date) and a money floor you will not go below. Put it on one page and sign it. If one adult does not want to go, slow down: a move one person is dragged into tends to break in the first hard winter.

How do you choose which country to move to?

Use a weighted scorecard rather than a gut feeling. Pick up to nine criteria that matter to your family, such as work and income prospects, cost of living, schools, safety, how clearly the official pages describe a route you might use, healthcare access, climate, community and distance to family. Weight each from 1 to 3, score each option from 1 to 5, and divide the weighted total by the sum of the weights.

Discuss every score of 1 before you go further; it may be a non-negotiable in disguise. Keep a second choice warm in case the first route closes. If two options are within a few tenths of each other, talk to a family who lives there before you decide.

How do you avoid immigration and job offer fraud?

Use two rules every time. First, read the official government page for the destination before anything else, and note the date you read it. Second, check every paid adviser on the official register before you pay or send documents. In Canada, the College of Immigration and Citizenship Consultants publishes a public register; only consultants shown as active and entitled to practise may provide services. In the UK, the regulator was renamed from the OISC to the Immigration Advice Authority on 16 January 2025. New Zealand requires anyone giving advice about its immigration matters to be licensed or exempt.

Test any job offer by finding the employer's main phone number yourself and asking HR to confirm it. India's Ministry of External Affairs gives the same advice for offer letters and lists registered recruiting agents on its eMigrate portal.

• Red flag: a guaranteed visa, job or approval.
• Red flag: a fee for a job offer, training or processing paid to a recruiter.
• Red flag: an adviser whose details do not match the register.
• Red flag: payment to a personal account, in gift cards or crypto.
• Red flag: pressure to pay today, or contact only through a messaging app.

How much money do you need to move abroad, and how do you move it?

There is no single figure: it depends on your route, household and destination. What you can work out is your arrival cash number. Add up every one-off cost from the first adviser fee to the first month's furniture, add a contingency, then add several months of destination living costs as a reserve. Compare that with the funds that genuinely count, and treat gifts, loans, investments and recent deposits as uncertain until a licensed adviser confirms how your route treats them.

Here is a worked example for an illustrative family of four moving from Mumbai to Toronto, using a sample rate of 62 rupees per Canadian dollar. The figures are sample amounts for teaching, not official fees.

A transfer costs you in two ways: a visible fee and a margin hidden in the exchange rate. The honest comparison is what arrives against the mid-market rate on the same day. Divide the total that left your account by the amount that arrived to get your effective rate, then divide that by the mid-market rate and subtract one to get the hidden cost as a percentage.

In the illustrative example, INR 500,000 sent by bank wire on a day when the mid-market rate was 61.8 delivered CAD 7,950: an effective rate of about 62.89 and a hidden cost of about 1.8%. A later transfer of INR 1,000,000 through a specialist provider at a mid-market rate of 62.0 delivered CAD 16,050, a hidden cost of about 0.5%. Some countries also limit how much residents can send abroad each year or collect tax on some transfers, so ask your bank and a tax adviser before large transfers, and take written questions about tax residency to advisers in both countries.

Which documents do you need, and what is an apostille?

List every document for every person: identity, civil status, education, employment, money, medical, driving, pet and property. The body receiving each document (an immigration department, an employer, a school or a licensing body) decides what it needs: an apostille, attestation or legalisation, a notarised copy or a certified translation. Follow its own list.

An apostille confirms a public document is genuine for use in another country that has joined the Hague Apostille Convention. The Hague Conference's status table shows, for example, that the Convention entered into force for Canada on 11 January 2024; countries outside the Convention usually use attestation or legalisation. Type every expiry date and compare it with your departure date: children's passports often run for shorter periods. Scan everything twice and carry originals in hand luggage.

How do you find housing and schools from another country?

Treat housing, schools and pets as one search, because they limit each other. Many school systems assign places by address, so read the school board's official newcomer page first: how registration works, which documents it needs, and whether places depend on where you live. Then shortlist homes only inside the areas that fit the school rules, your maximum rent and any pet you are bringing.

From abroad, insist on a live video viewing, ideally with someone you trust in the room, and check whatever ownership or licence records exist for the landlord or agent in that place. Never pay a deposit before a live viewing, a verified landlord and a signed agreement, and pay only to a traceable account. Many families book a few weeks of furnished temporary housing and sign a long lease only after an in-person viewing in their first week. For pets, start with the destination's official import page and plan the vet visits and airline booking backwards from it.

What does a 12-month moving abroad timeline look like?

Count backwards from departure day. The order of the application phase depends on your route and adviser, but the overall shape is steady.

What are the most common mistakes when moving abroad?

• Choosing the country before the family has spoken.
• Trusting a video, a forum or an AI answer for a visa rule instead of the official page.
• Counting money that may not count for your route.
• Budgeting only for the application and forgetting the arrival months.
• Booking non-refundable travel before a decision arrives.
• Leaving slow documents to the last month.
• Paying a rental deposit for a home nobody you trust has seen.
• Packing the first week with errands and no rest.

How should you plan the first week after you arrive?

Give each day one or two jobs and follow the destination's official newcomer page for the order. A common shape is local SIMs and numbers, any tax or social insurance number, a bank account, public health cover registration and school registration, then the long-term housing search. Keep both document folders with you, and expect a dip in week three or four: plan one familiar thing that week.

If you would like the whole method in one place, The Move Abroad Master Plan from Bodhih Training includes the workbook, checklists, letters and calendar used in this guide. Moving abroad also tests how you handle change; AssessAll's Change Leadership & Adaptability assessment is one way to see your starting point.