Consular services

A. What services are offered by Belgian consular officers?

• You are Belgian and you are travelling temporarily abroad, consult the section: travelling abroad.
• You are Belgian and you live permanently abroad, consult the section Consular administrative assistance.

B. What services are NOT offered by Belgian consular officers?

• Intervening in private affairs (for example, the payment of hotel bills, medical expenses, customs' transactions, fines or legal fees, legal matters, bail payments, child abductions, the enforcement of a Belgian custody order overseas, or obliging another country to settle a custody dispute, inquiries into crimes or deaths, etc.).
• Hotel bookings, finding accommodation or storing your luggage, providing you with a work permit or employment.
• Ensuring that you benefit from preferential treatment in hospitals, by a doctor, in the case of imprisonment, for excursions or visits, or even ensuring your release from prison or intervening in legal proceedings.
• Obtaining an extension of your visa, your resident's permit or your work permit.
• Intervening for dual nationality holders when they are in the country of their other nationality.

Consular administrative assistance abroad is provided by more than a hundred Belgian general consular posts and career consular posts.

General consular posts and career consular posts are mainly located in the capital [or other cities] of the countries covered by the exercise of their consular duties. These sometimes extend to other neighbouring countries where Belgium does not have consular representation.

They provide public services for Belgians abroad.

Since the entry into force of the consular code on 15/06/2014, administrative assistance is only provided to Belgians who are registered in the consular population register. Administrative assistance to Belgians who are not registered in these registers is limited to the issue of provisional travel documents if the issuing conditions are fulfilled.

As a Belgian domiciled overseas, it is advisable to always contact the Belgian general consular post or the career consular post in your country before contacting the FPS Foreign Affairs in Brussels.