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Civil birth registration and status of children
A child born in Belgium needs to be registered at the commune of the place of birth within 15 days, regardless of the residence status of the parents. In some places a civil officer will come to the hospital to facilitate registration. In other places the parents will need to go to the commune.
A child whose descent with both parents is established follows the residence status of the parent with the strongest residence status. The child will be registered in the same national register and will receive a residence title with the same period of validity.
When a child is born during the asylum procedure of (one of) the parents, they need to be added to the ‘Annex 26’ of a parent. This is usually the Annex 26 of the mother, unless the father is the only parent involved in the asylum procedure. After registration of the child at the commune, the commune will add the name of the child to the annexe 26 and forward the birth certificate to the Immigration Office, which will modify the waiting registry and inform the CGRS and/or the CALL.
Children born in Belgium after their parents have been recognised as refugees will not automatically be granted refugee status. Depending on the situation, the parents need to direct a request for their children born in Belgium to be granted refugee status to different services, after which refugee status will be granted:[1]
- If both parents have been recognised as refugees in Belgium, the request needs to be sent to the ‘Helpdesk Recognised Refugees and Stateless Persons’ of the CGRS;
- If one of the parents is not a recognised refugee in Belgium, the request needs to be addressed to the Immigration Office by e-mail;
- If paternity has not been legally established and the mother wants to ask for her child, born in Belgium, to be granted the refugee status, she needs to apply via the ‘Helpdesk Recognised Refugees and Stateless Persons’ and must submit a recent copy of the child’s birth certificate.
Children born in Belgium after their parents have been granted subsidiary protection and who want to obtain the subsidiary protection status should apply for international protection in their own name.
Civil registration of marriage
A beneficiary of international protection can marry in Belgium if one of the following criteria is met: one partner is Belgian at the time of marriage, one has an official residence address in Belgium, or one has been habitually residing in Belgium for over three months. The applicable legal framework is determined by international private law. To determine the basic requirements for marriage, one has to consult the national law of each partner. Therefore, different requirements may apply to each partner individually. If both partners are recognised refugees, Belgian law fully applies. If one partner is not a recognised refugee, the legal framework of their country of residence prevails. An exception exists for same-sex marriages: if the country of residence prohibits such marriages, Belgian law applies instead. The legislator wanted to avoid that same-sex marriage become impossible due to the application of international private law. The marriage can be solemnised by the registrar of the commune where one of the future spouses is a resident. If neither spouse has residence in Belgium or if the habitual residence of one of the spouses does not correspond to the place of residence, the marriage can be solemnised in the commune of habitual residence.
Certain documents may be needed for concluding a marriage in Belgium.[2] Recognised refugees can contact the CGRS for the issuance of documents that they can no longer obtain from the authorities of their country of origin: birth certificates; marriage certificates if both spouses are in Belgium; divorce certificates; certificates of widowhood; refugee certificates; certificates of renunciation of refugee status. However, due to a high volume of requests and a shortage of staff, there have been significant delays in processing these requests. As a result, the CGRS has prioritised the timely issuance of refugee attestations, meaning that other documents may take longer to be processed. When contacting the CGRS ‘Refugee Helpdesk’, an automatic reply is sent with an average processing time for the request.[3] Because the CGRS does not have this competence for beneficiaries of subsidiary protection, they need to contact their embassy to obtain such documents. For some procedures such as marriage or naturalisation, an ‘act of notoriety’ (acte de notoriété) can substitute a birth certificate.[4] This can be requested from the justice of the peace (Civil Court) of the beneficiary’s place of residence.
A foreign marriage certificate may be recognised in Belgium if the basic conditions for marriage applicable in the country of origin of the spouses and the official formalities of the country where the marriage was solemnised have been respected and the document is legalised and translated to one of Belgium’s official languages. The registering official will also verify whether the marriage is not contrary to Belgian public order (e.g. child marriage, polygamy, marriage of convenience).
[1] CGRS, ‘Refugee status for children’, available in English here.
[2] List of required documents, available in English here.
[3] CGRS, ‘Contact Meeting International Protection’, 19 March 2025.
[4] Article 5 Belgian Nationality Code.