In June 2026 the Federal Ombudsman published its Report on the Migration Services, devoted to the handling of visa and residence permit applications by the Immigration Office and the FPS Foreign Affairs (104 pages). The findings are nothing new. The report restates, sometimes word for word, recommendations made for years and left without follow-up. What stands out is the accumulation. The Federal Ombudsman describes a system that has become illegible, slow and, in places, contrary to European Union law, whose first victims are people already in a precarious situation. Throughout, it raises once again the question of residence through work.
Recommendations repeated for years, left without follow-up
From its introduction, the report recalls that it has received numerous and varied complaints “for several years” about the functioning of the migration services. The grievances recur unchanged. Information is scattered, fragmented and at times contradictory. Processing times are abnormally long. Reasoning is standardised and fails to address the applicant's actual situation. To this are added instances of authorities exceeding their powers and the complexity of a system that few users manage to decode. The Federal Ombudsman links these failures to the lack of resources allocated to the administrations, without treating this as an excuse. The failure to comply with a statutory deadline, most often imposed by EU law, does not only affect the procedure, it “may also seriously undermine the exercise of the right itself”.
Several findings touch directly on EU law. The report recalls that the six-month period applicable to family reunification is a maximum period, and that the Immigration Office's practice of restarting a full new period after an annulment by the Council for Alien Law Litigation (CCE) is “not consistent” with the Court of Justice's Diallo judgment of 27 June 2018 (C-246/17). The report also condemns the procedural “carousel”, whereby the administration, after an annulment, issues a fresh decision tainted by the same defects, at the risk of escaping judicial review.
Concrete consequences for residence, family, studies and work
The report does not remain at the level of principle. It describes precise human consequences. An application for re-registration in the registers, following an automatic removal, takes on average two and a half years, a period during which the person, deprived of any residence document, can neither work, nor travel, nor borrow. A graduate kept under an annexe 15 while awaiting the renewal of an A card is blocked in all formalities, since this paper document does not offer the guarantees of an electronic residence permit. The Federal Ombudsman indeed finds that this annexe 15 does not comply with Directive 2016/801 for graduates in their job-search year.
Family life fares no better. In 2025, out of 189 complaints concerning short-stay visas, 134 related to a family-visit plan, that is nearly three out of four. The report recalls that the Immigration Office and the diplomatic posts must factor into their assessment the right to respect for family life, as well as the best interests of the child where a minor is involved. The report sets out ordinary situations, not extreme cases, made of loss of residence, separated families, interrupted studies and lost jobs.
Opening pathways to residence through work, even after a loss of residence
One thread runs through the whole report. Many of these situations stem less from a gap in the law than from a failure of organisation. An integrated person, who works and pays contributions, may lose their residence for a purely administrative reason, then be denied any regularisation for want of a workable route. The Immigration Office now gives priority to single permits for newcomers, but nothing is provided for the person who, already present and already economically active, has lost their permit.
It is on this point that the analysis meets a proposal we have already defended. It is time to provide residence through work, including where there has been a loss of residence. We developed it in connection with the end of temporary protection for Ukrainians, advocating a status open beyond a single nationality. The logic applies far more widely. As long as residence through work remains reserved for newcomers, the same files will keep returning, and the Federal Ombudsman's recommendations will keep repeating, year after year, without follow-up.
Céline Verbrouck
Attorney at the Brussels Bar
Specialised in immigration law, nationality law and international family law
www.altea.be
+32 2 894 45 70