For some months now, since the European Entry/Exit System came into operation (established by Regulation (EU) 2017/2226 of 30 November 2017, in service since 12 October 2025 and completed in Belgium by the new Article 5 of the Law of 15 December 1980 on access to the territory, residence, establishment and removal of foreign nationals, in force since 10 April 2026), some municipal administrations have wrongly required a paper arrival declaration before registering a residence application lodged from Belgium. The file would first have to be submitted to the Immigration Office, which would check the validity of the short stay and issue a paper arrival declaration, before an application could be formalised.
That requirement is not imposed by the Law. It is therefore unlawful.
In practice, it lengthens the procedure in an absurd and ineffective way. It exposes a foreign national who is entitled to apply for a residence permit during a valid short stay in Belgium to the risk of exceeding the ninety days of the short stay and no longer being entitled to lodge the application. This results from the delays of the administrations themselves (the Immigration Office and some municipalities).
In our view, this practice is also difficult to reconcile with the reasoning of the Court of Justice in the Afrin judgment and with the Federal Ombudsman's findings on personal appearance. Neither concerns the arrival declaration, but their logic transposes to it.
What the new Article 5 of the Law of 15 December 1980 provides
The first criticism concerns the idea that a paper declaration, rather than an online one, would necessarily be required to lodge a residence application with the municipal administration. Yet under the very terms of the new Article 5 of the Law of 15 December 1980 on access to the territory, residence, establishment and removal of foreign nationals, both possibilities exist side by side. A third-country national coming for a stay of no more than ninety days, who is not lodging in an establishment subject to the legislation on the control of travellers, "shall communicate his or her address of residence within three working days of entry into the Kingdom, either electronically to the Immigration Office or in person to the municipal administration of his or her place of residence" (our translation).
Only the holder of a residence permit or long-stay visa issued by another Member State must still attend the municipality to make the notification. The arrival declaration formalised by a paper municipal certificate is issued "as proof of the notification" (our translation). That notification must not be confused with a condition for lodging a residence application, which presupposes only a valid short stay.
The lawfulness of a short stay must be capable of being proved by any legal means, whether by an online arrival declaration, at the municipality, or by any other factual evidence. In the latter case, it is for the Immigration Office, to which a residence application registered by a municipal administration has been forwarded, to verify its admissibility before ruling on the merits of the application.
This is the only solution that is lawful and that protects both the rights of foreign nationals and the supervisory role of the administration.
The presumption of unlawful stay is for the Immigration Office
Article 6/1 of the Law on foreign nationals, in force in Belgium since 10 April 2026, presumes that a foreign national covered by the Entry/Exit System for whom no individual file and no entry record exist does not meet the conditions on duration of stay, "unless the foreign national provides evidence to the contrary" (our translation). The request to rebut that presumption is lodged with the municipality, but the decision is taken by the Minister or his delegate, in accordance with Article 12 of the Schengen Borders Code, Regulation (EU) 2016/399. On its website vreemdelingenrecht.be, the Agentschap Integratie en Inburgering recalls that the presumption does not apply where other evidence of lawful entry or stay exists. A municipality may therefore not treat as unlawful, for want of an arrival declaration in the form of a paper certificate, a stay covered by a valid visa or a visa exemption and recorded in the European system.
EU law requires flexibility at the lodging stage
The new Belgian practice is reminiscent of the Afrin judgment of the Court of Justice of the European Union, whose lessons can be transposed by analogy. In its judgment of 18 April 2023 (C-1/23 PPU), delivered on a reference from a Brussels court concerning Belgian practice of requiring a visa application to be lodged in person at a diplomatic post abroad, the Court of Justice of the European Union ruled that Article 5(1) of Directive 2003/86/EC of 22 September 2003 on the right to family reunification, read with Articles 7 and 24(2) and (3) of the Charter of Fundamental Rights, precludes requiring family members to travel in person to the diplomatic post to lodge their application, including where it is impossible or excessively difficult for them to do so. Member States must show "the flexibility necessary to enable the persons concerned to be able effectively to submit their application for family reunification in good time" (paragraph 51) (our translation). The procedure takes place in stages, personal appearance may be required at a later stage and the number of appearances must be kept to the strict minimum (paragraphs 58 and 59).
For a residence application that may be lodged in Belgium during a lawful stay, lodging must likewise be possible in good time. The checks will necessarily be carried out afterwards. The lodging date matters not only to prove that the residence application was registered during a lawful short stay, but also to fix the period within which the administration must decide. For family reunification with a third-country national, which falls under Directive 2003/86, the lodging date has a precise effect. Under the Commission guidelines of 3 April 2014 for the application of that Directive, COM(2014) 210 final, the nine-month period "runs from the date on which the application is first submitted, and not from the date on which the Member State notifies receipt of the application" (our translation). The guidelines are not binding, but Article 5(4) of the Directive itself sets the period at "nine months after the date on which the application was lodged" (our translation). In Belgian law, Article 12bis(3) of the Law starts that period from the acknowledgment of receipt issued by the municipality. If the municipality is slow to issue it, the Belgian period therefore starts later than the one described by the Commission and the Directive.
The Federal Ombudsman found no legal basis
In recommendations 2025/09 to 2025/14 of November 2025 on the obligation to appear in person to apply for a visa, the Federal Ombudsman finds that this requirement "is firmly established in the administrative practice of the FPS Foreign Affairs and the Immigration Office (IO) but has no legal basis" (our translation). He notes that at some diplomatic posts it takes several months to obtain an appointment. He asks the Immigration Office and the FPS Foreign Affairs to study alternatives to lodging in person, and Parliament to draw up without delay a legal framework for remote lodging of family reunification visa applications. In an opinion of 1 August 2025, Myria considers that "a relaxation of the arrangements for lodging family reunification visa applications is urgently needed" (our translation).
These findings concern diplomatic posts. Their logic also applies at the municipal counter. Article 12bis(3) and (4) of the Law provides that the foreign national attends the municipality to lodge the application, but it does not mention the arrival declaration. Requiring it beforehand often means several successive appointments, which can be hard to obtain in some municipalities: one to report that an arrival declaration is being requested, another to receive the reply of the Immigration Office instructing the municipality to issue it and, often after a third appointment, a last one to finally lodge the residence application. This succession of steps rests on a document whose production is not a condition for registering the application. It needlessly delays a check that the Immigration Office carries out in any event.
The compliant practice
Article 12bis of the Law allows an application based on Article 10 to be lodged in Belgium in the cases it lists. During a short stay, these include a person who has concluded in Belgium, under a visa issued for that purpose, the marriage or partnership on which the application is based, certain family members authorised to stay for up to three months, and a person whom exceptional circumstances prevent from returning to apply for a visa. A person who meets the conditions to recover Belgian nationality, referred to in Article 10(1), first subparagraph, 2°, may use this route if already admitted to stay for more than three months or if relying on such circumstances. Depending on the case, the municipality issues an acknowledgment of receipt or checks the admissibility of the application with the Immigration Office. None of these provisions makes a paper arrival declaration a condition for lodging.
It is true that, in the cases covered by paragraph 3, the municipality issues the acknowledgment of receipt "on the basis of the documents required for his or her entry and stay" (our translation). A municipality may see this as grounds for first requiring an arrival declaration. That is not the only possible reading. The text refers to the documents that establish the foreign national's entry and stay. It does not name the arrival declaration, which is only one means of proof among others: a valid visa, proof of a visa exemption and of lawful entry, or registration in the Entry/Exit System also establish that the stay is lawful. The Law also entrusts the decision on admissibility to the Minister or his delegate (Article 12bis(3), second subparagraph) and requires the municipality to forward the application to him without delay (paragraph 3, first subparagraph). The same applies under paragraph 4 (exceptional circumstances, certain family members): the municipality checks admissibility with the Immigration Office, which itself assesses those conditions, including the exceptional circumstances. The legislator therefore does not ask the municipality to assess the substantive conditions or admissibility itself, which supports the reading proposed below.
We therefore suggest a pragmatic interpretation. The foreign national presents to the municipality the documents available to prove his or her lawful stay, and the municipality takes all of them into account without requiring any particular document. If those documents establish, prima facie, a lawful stay, the municipality registers the application and forwards it without delay to the Immigration Office. The Immigration Office then examines the lawfulness of the stay and the admissibility of the application in depth. This reading adds no preliminary step. It prevents each additional appointment or check from eating into the ninety days of the short stay, at the risk of depriving the foreign national of the possibility of lodging the application.
On its pages on change of status during a short stay, the Agentschap Integratie en Inburgering advises asking the municipality for proof of timely lodging, or sending the residence application by registered letter (possibly even with acknowledgment of receipt), where the certificate cannot be issued in time. It considers that, where there is no doubt as to the lawfulness of the short stay, the person is entitled to lodge the application on the day he or she attends the municipality.
Altea likewise takes the view that the municipality must register the application, carry out the residence check and forward the file to the Immigration Office, which is responsible for verifying whether the application was lodged during a lawful stay. Lodging by registered letter must be accepted where the municipal appointment cannot take place before the end of the short stay. Requiring a prior arrival declaration adds to the Law a condition it does not contain and causes a right to be lost for a reason of administrative organisation.
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