If you are not a citizen of an EU Member State and you want to work in Belgium, you will most likely require a work visa. There are, essentially, two ways to get this.
The first is to find an employer who will sponsor your visa: in this case, the administrative responsibility falls primarily on them. The second is to apply to work as a self-employed professional: in this case, the administrative burden falls on you.
This article is intended to help those who aim to navigate the latter process. More specifically, it (mostly) offers an overview of how a non-European national can acquire a Professional Card: the document that gives foreign nationals the legal right to engage in self-employed activity in Belgium.
As it turns out, getting the Professional Card is the hardest part of the entire visa application process. Once you have it, getting the actual work visa is relatively straightforward.
It is worth emphasising at the outset that there is little specific advice that one can give to Professional Card applicants. This is because the exact set of required documents, fees, etc. will depend on the details of each particular application. The most obvious of these include the applicant's citizenship and the kind of self-employed activity that they intend to pursue in Belgium.
Nevertheless, the vast majority of these applications can be neatly divided into three distinct stages:
- Online "pre-application" for the Professional Card (assessed by the Belgian embassy in your home country).
- Paper application for the Professional Card (assessed by the relevant Belgium region).
- In-person application for the work visa (conducted either at the Belgian embassy in your home country or at a privately-run visa processing centre).
Before discussing each stage in more detail, two other points are also worth highlighting:
- Each stage takes roughly one month to complete. This means that the application can take up to three months in total – and sometimes substantially longer.
- Stages 2 and 3 usually require the applicant to pay fees which add up to around €500, and sometimes significantly more. Furthermore, some stages require more than one fee to be paid simultaneously (e.g. to the embassy, to the relevant Belgian region, or to the visa processing centre).
1. Online 'pre-application' for the Professional Card
The first stage of the application process involves gathering all of your required documents, scanning them, and then emailing the relevant files to the Belgian embassy in your home country for an "initial verification".
In addition to the obvious documents (e.g. a copy of your passport bio page), the necessary documents typically include:
- An application form. These are different depending upon which Belgian region you intend to work in (namely, Brussels, Flanders, or Wallonia). Usually, they must be filled out in either French or Dutch.
- A police certificate. This is also sometimes referred to as "a certificate of good conduct"; essentially, it proves that you are not a dangerous criminal. (For UK citizens, the required document is a "legalised" copy of your ACRO Police Certificate.)
- A business plan. This can take various forms. In general, it should explain how you intend to contribute to the economic life of Belgium and/or its regions. It should be detailed, and list figures such as annual expected revenue and expenditure. Some specialised companies can help you write this.
- Other relevant documentation. This might include things like university degrees, awards won, or business references from other people. In short, it should include anything that you think would help increase the chances of your application being approved.
After your documents are submitted, you will probably be asked to attend an in-person or, more likely, an online interview with a Belgian embassy official. You will be requested to confirm the information provided and perhaps also answer some more detailed questions regarding your application. You might also be asked to forward some additional documents to the embassy.
2. Paper application for the Professional Card
Once the embassy has carried out its initial screening and is satisfied that all of your documents are in order, they will ask you to send them a paper version of your application. The embassy will then pass on your file to the relevant region (i.e. Brussels, Flanders, or Wallonia).
Some of the requested documents will need to be originals (e.g. your original application form and police certificate), while others will only need to be copies (e.g. your passport bio page). As previously noted, you will also likely have to pay an additional fee (or fees) at this stage.
It is worth emphasising that only the relevant Belgian region has the right to approve your application. This means that if your application is rejected by Brussels, Flanders, or Wallonia, there is nothing that the embassy can do to help you.
This is really the key moment: it is the point at which your application has the highest chance of being rejected. Conversely, if your application is approved, then you are nearly in the clear.
3. In-person application for the work visa
If your Professional Card application is approved, you can now (finally) apply for the work visa – more specifically, the Visa-D (which technically isn't a work visa, but rather a "long-stay visa").
Applying for this visa typically involves booking an in-person appointment at the Belgian embassy or at a private visa processing centre. It also usually requires that you take a medical test conducted by an approved embassy doctor beforehand. Be warned: these can cost several hundred euros, and often have to be booked several weeks ahead.
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In addition, you will have fill out an online visa application form and bring other documents such as your passport, passport-style photos, and proof of visa fee payments. Visa processing times vary, but generally do not take much longer than two weeks.
Once the visa has been added to your passport, you can either pick it up in person or you can choose to have it delivered by a courier service.
And then – at last – you're all set! It's off to the land of Tintin, beer, and, of course, the legendary stoofvlees.
Citizens of Iceland, Liechtenstein, Norway and Switzerland do not require a visa to work in Belgium. There are also other exceptions to this rule (e.g. non-European nationals who are married to Belgian citizens invariably do not require a work visa).
