Access to the territory and push backs

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There are no published reports by NGOs about cases of actual refoulement at the border of persons wanting to apply for asylum.

In French, returning someone at the border without allowing them to access the territory, but after having examined their asylum application on its well-foundedness, is wrongly referred to with the legal term ‘refoulement’. This may add to the confusion between a genuine refoulement (or ‘push back’) and the execution of a return decision.

Border monitoring

In Belgium, no border monitoring system corresponding to the definition set by UNHCR is in place. However, several organisations have formed a coalition active in the field of administrative detention of migrants. Since January 2021, this coalition has been officially in place and known as Move (www.movecoalition.be). Move Coalition is accredited to visit detention centres. The visitors of Move visit all detention centres in Belgium on a weekly basis (see Conditions of detention).

Legal access to the territory

Humanitarian visa

Third country nationals can apply for a humanitarian visa. No exact criteria, definitions or requirements specified in law indicate who can obtain a humanitarian visa.[1] The Immigration Office has a broad margin of discretion and assesses each application on an individual basis. A humanitarian visa is not a right, but a favour granted by the government. Apart from humanitarian visas granted in the context of resettlement operations (see Resettlement), the Immigration Office distinguishes two types of situations in which humanitarian visa are granted:[2]

• ‘Enlarged family reunification’: humanitarian visa can be granted to third country nationals who fall just outside of the scope of the right to family reunification. Examples of this category could be (non-exhaustive list):
  • siblings of an unaccompanied minor who has received international protection in Belgium and who accompany their parents who are reunited with the unaccompanied minor through family reunification;
  • people who have lost their right to family reunification because the age requirement is not fulfilled anymore or because the deadline for application of the visa has expired
• Humanitarian and/or urgent situations: humanitarian visa can be granted to third country nationals who do not feel safe in their country of origin, or for urgent economical or medical reasons. However, one cannot obtain a humanitarian visa with the explicit intention to apply for international protection upon arrival in Belgium.

In 2023, the Immigration Office received a total of 2,083 applications for a humanitarian visa: 275 in the context of resettlement procedures, 1,246 considered as ‘enlarged family reunification’, 32 in the context of the transfer of a child and 251 on the basis of other grounds. In 2023, 1,256 humanitarian visas were granted and 1,357 requests were refused.[3] No data is available yet for 2024.

Source: Immigration Office, Annual Rapport 2023, available in French here (p. 21) and in Dutch here (p. 20).

Although the Immigration Office has a broad margin of discretion, its decision-making cannot be arbitrary, and a thorough examination of each request is required. In a judgment of 24 January 2024, the CALL annulled a decision of the Immigration Office refusing a humanitarian visa to the adult sister of an Afghan unaccompanied minor with international protection in Belgium. According to the CALL, the Immigration Office did not sufficiently consider the country-of-origin information regarding the situation of unmarried single Afghan women and their strongly deteriorated situation after the takeover of power by the Taliban. The CALL considers this information important to assess whether there is a situation of dependency in the sense of Article 8 ECHR between the sister and her family staying in Belgium. Thus, the CALL finds that, by not considering this information, the Immigration Office has violated the duty of care and Article 8 ECHR.[4]

A humanitarian visa needs to be requested by the third country national at the competent Belgian embassy in the country of origin and/or in the country of residence.[5] Remote applications, such as those exceptionally allowed for applications for family reunification (see Family reunification), are in principle only allowed in so-called ‘hybrid cases’, where applications for family reunification are combined with applications for humanitarian visa (e.g. for the adult children of the same family). However, in the context of the war in Gaza, and the absolute impossibility of in person applications in that context, several courts have obliged the Belgian government to accept remote applications for humanitarian visas of applicants in Gaza with family ties in Belgium, based on article 8 ECHR.[6]

The applicant needs to pay an administrative fee of € 236 per adult person.[7] The law does not determine a deadline by which the Immigration Office needs to take a decision. If the humanitarian visa is granted, applicants receive a long-term visa. Upon arrival in Belgium, they are given a temporary residence permit valid for 1 year. This residence permit can be extended annually. The extension can be subject to certain criteria such as proof of cohabitation with the family member in Belgium and proof of work. Third country nationals who arrived in Belgium with a humanitarian visa have the possibility to apply for international protection.

Resettlement

Since 2013, Belgium has a structural resettlement programme based on annual quotas.[8] Fedasil manages the Belgian resettlement programme with several partners. UNHCR identifies vulnerable refugees in third countries. Afterwards, CGRS officials engage in conversations with the selected persons – online or live after travelling to their country of residence – in order to screen the person’s vulnerability and to carry out the required security checks. If a person is eligible to be resettled to Belgium, Fedasil carries out pre-departure medical and social screenings and the third country national receives a humanitarian visa and a pre-departure cultural orientation by Fedasil, ‘BELCO’.[9] IOM is involved for the reservation of flights, some last medical checks and the accompaniment of the person from departure until arrival in Belgium.[10] Upon arrival in Belgium, the person can lodge an application for international protection.

Over the period 2013-2024, Belgium resettled 5,275 refugees. Belgium initially pledged to resettle 1,250 persons in 2022, 1,400 in 2023 and 1,500 in 2024. The pledges for 2023 and 2024 were afterwards lowered to 500 in both years, due to the reception crisis. For 2025, Belgium pledged to resettle 1,000 persons. However, due to the ongoing reception crisis (see Constraints to the right to shelter) the resettlement programme is severely impacted. During 2022, only 71 out of 1,250 resettlements (6%) were effectively carried out.[11] In 2024, 487 persons were resettled to Belgium, mainly Congolese refugees from Rwanda and Syrian refugees from Türkiye.[12]

In 2023, Fedasil opened a reception centre dedicated to the reception and support of resettled refugees.[14] It also started to invest in a Community Sponsorship programme in collaboration with Caritas International,[15] as an alternative reception model to secure the effective implementation of resettlement programmes in the future.

At the start of 2025, the new Minister of Asylum and Migration has announced a stop to the Belgian resettlement program. The reasons provided for this measure are the lack of reception places and high backlog of cases at the asylum institutions.[16]

Relocation

Up until 2021, Belgium had an annual relocation policy in place. The highest number of relocated asylum applicants were registered in 2016 and 2017 (200 and 895, respectively) but significantly decreased in the following years, reaching only 18 in 2020 and 43 in 2021. After the fire in the Moria camp in Greece on 9 September 2021, the Belgian government pledged to relocate 117 persons in 2021. Due to administrative issues in Greece and the reception crisis in Belgium, only 43 persons were effectively relocated. The remaining 74 persons would be relocated in 2022.[18] Of this remaining group, 6 persons (1 family) was relocated in 2022. The remaining 68 persons were taken of the Belgian relocation list, so they could be relocated by other Member States. In 2023, 32 persons were relocated from Cyprus and in 2024 another 18 persons from Cyprus. These relocations from Cyprus took place in the context of a voluntary pledge linked to the negotiations on the EU Migration Pact.[19] No further data on relocations in 2024 are available.

No pledge was made for 2023, as the Belgian government indicated it does not consider relocation as an effective solution to structural issues of the European asylum system.[20] After European Commission president Ursula von der Leyen called on other EU Member States for solidarity with Italy during her visit to Lampedusa, Secretary of State Nicole de Moor announced Belgium would not reply positively to a request of relocation from migrants having arrived on Lampedusa, stating that the reception crisis Belgium is facing makes it impossible to agree to ad-hoc relocation requests. Unofficially, this position was also prompted by Italy’s refusal to take back applicants for international protection for which it is responsible under the Dublin regulation[21].[22]

[1] Articles 9 & 13 in the Aliens Act provide the only legal basis for humanitarian visa.

[2] Immigration Office, Activity report 2022, available in French: https://bit.ly/3TCCTMU, 18-19.

[3] Immigration Office, Annual Rapport 2023, available in French here (p. 21) and in Dutch here (p. 20). The numbers on the applications and the decisions granting/refusing a visa do not correspond, because a decision is not necessarily taken in the year of the application.

[4] CALL, Decision N° 292036, 17 July 2023.

[5] Article 9, Aliens Act.

[6] Brussels Court of First Instance, Decision 2023/323/C of 2 February 2024, available in French here; Brussels Court of First Instance, Decision 2024/24/C of 15 March 2024; Brussels Court of First Instance, Decision 2024/26/C of 15 March 2024.

[7] Article 1/1 Aliens Act; Website Immigration Office, Frequently Asked Questions, available in Dutch here and in French here.

[8] www.resettlement.be

[9] Fedasil, BELCO – Belgian cultural orientation, available in French at: https://bit.ly/3xdmC9y.

[10] Fedasil, ’10 years of resettlement in Belgium’, 5 October 2023, available in French at: https://bit.ly/43D2mKs.

[11] Fedasil, ‘Resettlement 71 refugees in 2022’, 5 January 2023, available in Dutch via http://bit.ly/3ZPGBop. Statistics available via https://bit.ly/3Js9jpq; Standaard, ‘For refugees who want to come to Europe via legal pathways, there is no place in Belgium’, 24 January 2023, available in Dutch at: http://bit.ly/3ZALJfS.

[12] Fedasil, ‘487 resettled refugees in 2024, 11 February 2025, available in English here.

[13] Fedasil, Resettlement of refugees (2013-2023), available in English at: https://tinyurl.com/3z5z3yc9.

[14] Fedasil, ‘Resettlement of 287 refugees in 2023’, 2 February 2024, available in English at https://tinyurl.com/ysm34ek9.

[15] Information available at: http://bit.ly/3ZBB0Sr.

[16] VRT, ‘Minister Van Bossuyt (N-VA) stops resettlement, the only legal way to come to Belgium’, 26 March 2025, available in Dutch here.

[17] This was valid until 2021, while no pledge for relocation was made in 2022 and since 2022 relocation programme stopped.

[18] Myria, Contact Meeting, 19 January 2021, available in French: https://bit.ly/3HQ18z7.

[19] Information provided by cabinet of the Secretary of State for Asylum and Migration, 25 March 2024.

[20] Chambre des représentants de Belgique, Policy note on asylum and migration, 3 November 2021, available in French: https://bit.ly/3rKjJH4.

[21] The Immigration Office, in the context of their right of reply to the 2024 AIDA Belgium country report update, notes that, in agreement with the European Commission, no additional persons were relocated from Cyprus in 2023 or 2024 (or other frontline Member States) because of Belgian migratory pressure.

[22] De Standaard, ‘Despite Von der Leyen’s call, Belgium is not helping Italy’, 19 September 2023, available in Dutch at: https://bit.ly/3PBFp4A.