File a Belgian nationality declaration (art. 12bis)

Authoritative basis

Treat acquisition by declaration as a federal procedure filed at the commune of residence. The five eligibility routes live under article 12bis §1 of the Code de la nationalité belge (Loi du 28 juin 1984, NUMAC 1984062835); the commune issues a receipt (récépissé), transmits the dossier to the public prosecutor (parquet), and registers the declaration on a positive or silent opinion within four months.

• Code de la nationalité belge — Loi du 28 juin 1984, article 12bis^[1] — the statutory basis. §1 sets out the five sub-categories (1° to 5°); §3 sets the declaration formality (sworn statement of allegiance to the Constitution, the laws and the European Convention on Human Rights); §4 sets procedural detail. §2 was abrogated by the reform of 4 December 2012 and is no longer a route.
• SPF Justice — Déclaration de nationalité / Nationaliteitsverklaring^[2] — the federal procedural page.
• Hague Convention of 5 October 1961 abolishing the requirement of legalisation for foreign public documents^[3] — governs the apostille certification route.
• Regulation (EU) 2016/1191 on the free circulation of citizens and the simplification of public-document presentation^[4] — governs the EU multilingual-form route.
• Schaerbeek commune — Nationalité, devenir Belge^[5] — representative Brussels-Capital procedural source.

Stop at receipt issuance and registration of the declaration. The Crown's decision on naturalisation under art. 19, the parquet's negative-opinion procedure, appeals to the Tribunal de la famille, and oath-taking are out of scope. Other nationality routes — art. 11 (by birth), art. 11bis (transmitted from a Belgian parent), art. 12 (by adoption), art. 19 (naturalisation by the Chamber) — are also out of scope.

Branching layer

Branch by sub-category of art. 12bis §1

Walk the five sub-categories in declaration order. When more than one applies, prefer the route with the lighter evidence burden; surface the alternatives once for awareness, then proceed with the lighter option unless the user objects. A user may have private reasons to prefer a heavier path — for example, not wanting marital status leveraged in the dossier.

Place a spouse-of-Belgian who has not yet reached five years of residence outside §1, 3°. Route a user born in Belgium whose residence was interrupted after birth out of §1, 1° and back to one of the residence-based options.

When §1, 2° and §1, 3° both apply (typical for a spouse-of-Belgian also working in Belgium), prefer §1, 3°: integration evidence is reduced and the spouse or parent link replaces the longer working-days threshold. State the alternative once and proceed with §1, 3° unless the user objects. If the spouse-link evidence (marriage certificate + composition de ménage) is incomplete or the cohabitation history has interruptions, suggest the user confirm with the commune nationality officer whether §1, 3° still applies before locking in the route — wrong sub-category routing means a non-refundable federal fee paid on the wrong path.

When §1, 2° and §1, 5° both apply, prefer §1, 2°: residency is shorter. Choose §1, 5° only if economic-participation evidence is unavailable.

If residence has gaps that fell outside the user's awareness (employer-managed permits, study periods, periods of unregistered residence), suggest the user confirm with the commune that the population-register entry correctly reflects continuous legal residence covering the full 12bis period before booking the appointment. A break in the residence clock will cause refusal of the declaration regardless of which sub-category applies.

Branch by region — language of the declaration and integration provider

The art. 12bis declaration is a federal procedure but filed at the commune, which operates in the regional language(s). Pick the route that matches the commune of registered residence:

• Flemish Region commune — file the declaration in Dutch. Pull integration evidence from the inburgering trajectory (Flemish integration parcours) where applicable; the regional provider is the Agentschap Integratie en Inburgering (AgII).
• Walloon Region commune (excluding the German-speaking communes) — file the declaration in French. Pull integration evidence from the Parcours d'intégration (Wallonia).
• Brussels-Capital commune — pick the language of correspondence and declaration (FR or NL). Pull integration evidence from BAPA (Bureau d'Accueil pour Primo-Arrivants).
• German-speaking community commune (Eupen, Sankt Vith and others) — file the declaration in German. Pull integration evidence from the regional Eingliederungsparcours.
• Communes à facilités — use the commune's working language. Request alternate-language procedural correspondence under the facilités regime if needed.

Acquire the integration parcours through a separate regional skill — bipl-integration-parcours, parcours-d-integration-wallonia, inburgering-flanders, or the German-community Eingliederungsparcours (deferred to v1.1). Assume the integration certificate exists at filing when §1, 2°, §1, 3° or §1, 5° require it.

Source training-hour evidence through the regional training providers — VDAB (Flanders), Bruxelles Formation (Brussels FR), Forem (Wallonia), or ADG (German-speaking community).

Branch by EU vs non-EU origin

EU/EEA-citizen applicants benefit from two carve-outs that affect document handling, not eligibility:

• Attach the EU 2016/1191 multilingual form via eu-2016-1191-multilingual-form to the foreign public document at issuance to remove the apostille and sworn-translation requirements for covered document types (birth, marriage, criminal record, residence, name, parenthood, civil status, nationality, absence of criminal record). Request the form from the issuing authority in the EU member state of origin.
• Skip the regional integration parcours. The parcours regimes target third-country nationals; EU citizens are exempt from the parcours obligation in every region. For routes that require integration evidence (§1, 2° and §1, 3°), demonstrate integration via the alternative options (diploma, professional training, employment), not via a parcours certificate.

Route EU citizens through any of §1, 2°, §1, 3° or §1, 5° depending on residency and family configuration — no EU-specific paragraph exists.

Residency-clock probe

Population-register inscription alone does not establish the qualifying clock. Before declaring eligibility under §1, N°, walk the applicant through the triggering-indicator list. The full eligibility framework — formal Objectif test, radiation codes, special-permit exclusions, the parquet's centre-des-intérêts inquiry — lives in nationality-residence-clock-exceptions.

Surface each indicator in plain language and ask whether it applies at any point in the lookback:

• Secondment, posting, or intra-corporate transfer at any point in the 5- or 10-year window
• Foreign payroll during any year of the lookback
• Belgian expat tax status — either the pre-2022 1983 regime OR the post-2022 BIIT / impatriate regime under art. 32/1 CIR92 (these have opposite implications for the centre-des-intérêts test)
• Student status as the route of entry, or any Annex 15 period
• Orange card / attestation d'immatriculation in the early period
• Long absences from Belgium during the lookback (work assignments abroad, family abroad)
• Diplomatic, EU-official, or special-register status
• Residence-card gaps, refused renewals, or any radiation in the population register

On any positive indicator: invoke nationality-residence-clock-exceptions with the applicant's residence-card timeline, fiscal-status timeline, family-location timeline, and absence history. Resume eligibility assessment only after the sub-skill returns its verdict on whether the qualifying clock is intact. When the sub-skill returns proceed, continue under the standard CNB Art. 12bis §1 sub-category routing on the qualifying clock the sub-skill returned. When the sub-skill returns refer-to-legal, pause before paying the non-refundable federal fee and route the applicant to a Belgian nationality lawyer. When it returns confirm-with-commune, route the applicant to the commune nationality officer for case-specific confirmation.

When no indicator surfaces, the standard residence rule applies: continuous legal residence covering the full 5- or 10-year window under §1, N°.

Required documents

Gather the common core for every sub-category, then add the per-sub-category layer.

Common core (every sub-category)

• Birth certificate (full copy with parents' filiation, from the origin civil registry). Apply the certification route by origin country and date of issue (see §Branch by EU vs non-EU origin above and the per-sub-skill requires edges). Provide a sworn translation into FR, NL or DE unless the EU 2016/1191 multilingual form covers the document type. Pull a fresh extract if the commune's freshness window has elapsed — communes typically refuse documents older than 6 months at filing. Bring: original (with apostille or consular legalisation as applicable, plus the sworn translation stapled or accompanying). ^[2]
• Identity card or residence permit (carte A, B, C, F, F+, K, L, etc.) — the current Belgian-issued residence card. Bring: original. The commune photocopies the card on the day of the appointment and stamps the copy. No pre-fetched certified photocopy is needed in typical commune practice.
• Certificate of residence with address history (certificat de résidence avec historique des adresses / bewijs van hoofdverblijfplaats met historiek) — commune-issued from the population register, obtained via . Demonstrates the uninterrupted 5- or 10-year residence required under art. 12bis. Bring: copy acceptable (PDF download from IRISbox or commune extract). ^[2]
• Proof of payment of the federal registration fee (droit d'enregistrement) of 1030 eur. Pay via MyMinfin Mes paiements OR at the regional Bureau de sécurité juridique before booking the appointment. Receipt: fetch the Preuve de paiement demande de nationalité PDF from (filter by filename or by date around the payment date) once the payment has settled; if you paid at the Bureau, keep the paper receipt the desk hands you on the spot. Bring: copy acceptable. The dossier is not deemed complete without this proof. ^[2]

If the applicant holds a foreign passport or origin-country identity document not yet superseded by a Belgian residence permit, confirm with the commune whether it is accepted in place of the carte d'identité.

§1, 1° — born in Belgium, continuous residence

No additional layer beyond the common core. Obtain the Belgian birth certificate via from the commune of birth. Bring: copy acceptable.

§1, 2° — five years residence + integration + economic participation

Add:

• Language proof. Provide one of: a Belgian secondary diploma in an official language; a higher-education diploma in an official language; a certified A2-level certificate from a recognised body; the integration-parcours pass certificate; or another route confirmed by the commune. Bring: copy acceptable (originals may be requested for verification on the day for diplomas; the commune will photocopy). ^[2]
• Social integration evidence. Provide one of: a Belgian secondary or higher diploma; ≥400 hours of recognised professional training (VDAB, Bruxelles Formation, Forem, ADG); the regional integration parcours certificate (BAPA in Brussels-Capital, Parcours d'intégration in Wallonia, inburgering in Flanders, Eingliederungsparcours in the German-speaking community); or five uninterrupted years of employment. Bring: copy acceptable. ^[2]

Region-specific combined attestation (language A2 + social integration in one document). In Brussels-Capital, the BAPA Bon d'intégration (Annexe 3.1 — Attestation BON) is a combined attestation issued by BAPA that satisfies both language A2 AND social integration on a single document — you do not need two separate certificates. In Wallonia, the Parcours d'intégration attestation de réussite plays the same combined role. In Flanders, the inburgering-traject attest issued by AgII attests both. When any of these combined attestations is present in the dossier, treat both the language and the social-integration bullets above as satisfied by that single document and do not request separate certificates for each.

• Compte individuel (Sigedis-administered career record). Federal record of working days per employer per year, fetched via from mycareer.be (Sigedis). The statutory unit for §1, 2° is working days, and this document carries the count — provide ≥468 working-days over the five-year period (employee path); self-employed declarants provide instead an attestation of self-employed affiliation plus 6 quarters of paid contributions to the social-insurance fund. Bring: copy acceptable. ^[2]
• Fiche 281.10 — Rémunérations (annual employer-issued income certification, supporting evidence). Fetched via (filter: Fiche 281.10 - Rémunérations). Distinct from the compte individuel: Sigedis tracks days, Fiche 281.10 attests gross income paid by the Belgian employer for the tax year. Direct counter-evidence to a centre-des-intérêts trigger when the worker was genuinely on Belgian payroll. Bring: copy acceptable. Supporting evidence — not statutorily required, but routinely consulted by communes when secondment or foreign-payroll history is in scope.

§1, 3° — five years residence + spouse-of-Belgian or parent-of-Belgian-child

Add (spouse path):

• Belgian acte de mariage — obtain via (or foreign marriage certificate certified per the certification route by origin). Bring: copy acceptable for Belgian marriage certificates; original (with apostille / consular legalisation + sworn translation) for foreign marriage certificates. ^[2]
• Certificate of cohabitation / composition de ménage — obtain via showing 3 years uninterrupted years under the same roof in Belgium with the Belgian spouse. Bring: copy acceptable.

Add (parent path):

• Birth certificate of the minor Belgian child — obtain via , establishing parentage and the child's Belgian nationality. Bring: copy acceptable.

Add (both paths):

• Language proof. Same options as §1, 2°. Bring: copy acceptable.
• Social integration evidence. Lighter than §1, 2°: a Belgian diploma OR ≥400 hours of recognised professional training combined with ≥234 working-days working days OR a successful integration parcours. Bring: copy acceptable. The working-days count comes from the compte individuel — fetch via ; Fiche 281.10 from is again useful supporting evidence when a foreign-payroll history is in scope. ^[2]

Treat the spouse's second nationality as irrelevant — only the spouse's Belgian nationality matters.

§1, 4° — five years residence + disability, invalidity or pension age

Add:

• Medical attestation of recognised disability issued by the DG Personnes handicapées (SPF Sécurité sociale); OR an attestation of recognised invalidity issued by INAMI / RIZIV; OR proof of having reached the statutory pension age. Bring: original. Communes accept the original on the day and photocopy; some communes operating in another official language may request a sworn translation between Belgian official languages — confirm with the commune before booking. ^[2]

Skip the language, integration and economic-participation layers — §1, 4° exempts them.

§1, 5° — ten years residence + language + community participation

Add:

• Language proof. Same options as §1, 2°. Bring: copy acceptable.
• Participation in the life of the host community. Free-form evidence: long-standing employment in Belgium, voluntary or associative work, sociocultural engagement, civic participation. The commune assesses sufficiency — no fixed threshold applies. Provide the most documented examples available. Bring: copy acceptable for employment evidence (compte individuel via , Fiche 281.10 via ); original for one-off attestations from associations and civic bodies where the original is the only signed version. ^[2]

Certification of foreign documents

Pick the certification route for each foreign public document (birth certificate, marriage certificate, criminal-record extract from origin country) by the document's country of issue AND the document's date of issue relative to that country's accession to the Hague Apostille Convention:

Treat Hague accession as country- and date-sensitive. A document issued in Senegal before 23 March 2023 (Senegal's entry-into-force date) takes the consular-legalisation route; a document issued on or after 23 March 2023 takes the apostille route. Apply the same accession-date logic to other recent acceders (Pakistan, Saudi Arabia and others). When the user already holds an authenticated pre-accession document, treat that authentication as grandfathered for the lifetime of the document — but pull any fresh extract through the current route. Confirm the commune's freshness window for foreign birth and criminal-record extracts (typically ≤6 months; verify) — this typically forces a fresh pull.

After certification, sworn-translate the document into FR, NL or DE through a traducteur juré / beëdigd vertaler registered on the federal register, unless the EU 2016/1191 multilingual form removes the translation requirement for that document type.

Source the origin-country acquisition of the document (e.g., a Texas birth certificate from Vital Records, an FBI Identity History Summary, a Senegalese birth-certificate extract) through a separate origin-document skill before returning here — origin-document acquisition is out of scope for this skill.

Process

2. Verify the population-register entry via . Check that the commune's population register records uninterrupted legal residence covering the full 12bis period (5 years for §1, 2° / 3° / 4°; 10 years for §1, 5°). Correct any breaks at the commune before booking the appointment — corrections can take weeks. If the residency-clock probe in step 1 surfaced any indicator, the verdict from nationality-residence-clock-exceptions overrides the inscription record where the two disagree (e.g. inscribed throughout but expat-regime years excluded).

3. Probe the criminal-record question (preparation, not a documents-to-submit step). Ask the applicant: "Is there anything in your criminal record — Belgian or foreign — that might give the parquet grounds for a negative opinion?" The parquet pulls the extrait casier judiciaire model 1 directly; the applicant does NOT submit it. The probe protects the applicant from paying the non-refundable 1030 eur federal fee before discovering a parquet-blocking issue. When the applicant flags anything concerning, recommend a Belgian nationality-and-criminal-law consultation before proceeding to the fee step.

4. Assemble the common-core dossier and the per-sub-category layer. Pull fresh origin-country extracts when the commune's freshness window (typically ≤6 months) has elapsed.

5. Pay the federal registration fee of 1030 eur before booking the appointment. Two routes:

   • Online (preferred): pay via MyMinfin → Mes paiements using the structured reference (communication structurée) given by SPF Justice or your commune. Once the payment settles, fetch the Preuve de paiement demande de nationalité PDF from (filter the Mes documents tab by filename or by date around the payment).
   • Offline: pay at the regional Bureau de sécurité juridique (federal tax-office desk under SPF Finances). The desk hands you a paper receipt on the spot — keep that paper receipt for the dossier; the corresponding PDF will also appear in MyMinfin Mes documents subsequently.

   Keep the proof of payment for the dossier — the file is not deemed complete without it. ^[2]

6. Book the appointment with the Service Population / Bevolkingsdienst of the commune of registered residence. Most communes operate the nationality desk by appointment only. Lead times vary widely (a few weeks to several months) — booking is the user's signal of the current commune workload.

7. Attend the appointment with the dossier. Make the declaration before the officier de l'état civil (the civil-registry officer): use the formal statement per art. 12bis §3 — "Je déclare vouloir acquérir la nationalité belge et me soumettre à la Constitution, aux lois du peuple belge et à la Convention de sauvegarde des droits de l'homme et des libertés fondamentales" (or the NL/DE equivalent at communes operating in those languages). Make the declaration orally if you are unable to write. Bring originals where the [Required documents] section indicates **Bring:** original or **Bring:** commune copies on the day — the commune photocopies originals on the day and stamps the copies. Items marked **Bring:** copy acceptable can be presented as PDF printouts or saved files. ^[1]

8. Collect the receipt (récépissé). Expect the commune to issue the receipt within 35 days of filing when the file is complete and admissible. When the file is incomplete, expect the commune to notify the missing pieces; complete the dossier within 2 months; expect the commune to then issue the receipt within 15 working-days of complete-file confirmation, or refuse the file by registered post within 15 days of the 2-month deadline expiring. ^[2]

9. Compile the filing-ready dossier. Once the document checklist is complete and before the commune appointment, compile the dossier so the applicant arrives with a single bound PDF (with the originals separated for the desk-side photocopy step). bc-dossier-compilation

10. Close the session. Invoke session-close once the applicant confirms the dossier is filing-ready. Session-close runs the per-item observation review, drafts contributions back to the catalogue, and frames the next-time expectation (parquet's four-month opinion window).

Stop after step 10. The commune transmits the file to the public prosecutor (parquet); the prosecutor has 4 months from the date of the receipt to issue an opinion. Treat silence at the four-month mark as a positive opinion — on a positive (or silent) opinion the commune registers the declaration, and the user becomes Belgian on the date of registration. ^{[1] [2]} Refer a negative opinion to the Tribunal de la famille via a separate appeals skill — out of scope here.

Some communes apply a local surcharge on top of the federal fee — Schaerbeek charges 100 eur; other Brussels and Wallonia communes charge €0–€30; some charge nothing. ^[5] Confirm the surcharge amount with the commune at booking time.

Known surprises

• The five routes live under §1, not as five separate paragraphs. The pre-2012 statute had a different paragraph structure that older online guides (and some legacy citation patterns including §1bis) still echo — the current statute is §1, 1° to §1, 5°; §2 is abrogated. Verify any external advice against the JUSTEL text. ^[1]
• The federal registration fee is paid before booking, not at the desk. The commune does not collect the federal registration fee directly — pay it to the Bureau de sécurité juridique (regional federal-fee desk under SPF Finances) or via MyMinfin and bring the proof of payment as part of the dossier. ^[2]
• The SPF Justice declaration page and fiche still show €150 as of 2026-05-16. Stale — the fee was raised by the loi-programme du 18 juillet 2025 and then indexed to €1,030 on 1 January 2026 (catalogue VV cnb-federal-registration-fee-eur is canonical). Do not adopt the €150 figure if it appears on public pages; cite the primary law and the indexation source instead. ^[2]
• Population-register inscription is not the whole eligibility test. Inscription is the document-side proof, but the formal-test exclusions (orange card, Annex 15 student period, ICT cap, etc.) and the parquet's parallel centre-des-intérêts inquiry can refuse a period even when the inscription record is clean. Walk the [Residency-clock probe] explicitly; on any indicator invoke nationality-residence-clock-exceptions before declaring eligibility under §1, N°.
• The commune surcharge varies. Some communes levy a surcharge for nationality declarations on top of the federal fee — Schaerbeek charges 100 eur; other Brussels and Wallonia communes charge €0–€30; some charge nothing. Verify with the commune. ^[5]
• Communes refuse stale foreign-issued extracts. Communes typically refuse foreign-issued birth certificates older than 6 months at filing, even when the document was authenticated years earlier for a previous procedure (carte F, marriage). Pull fresh extracts before booking. ^[2]
• Senegal's 2023 Hague accession cuts the certification route mid-stream. A Senegalese birth certificate issued before 23 March 2023 takes consular legalisation; one issued on or after takes apostille. Apply the same date sensitivity to other recent acceders (Pakistan, Saudi Arabia). ^[3]
• The working-days count under §1, 2° is statutory. Plan on 468 working days over the 5-year period for the employee path; 6 quarters of paid social-insurance contributions for the self-employed path. The §1, 3° spouse path is lighter (234 days when combined with 400h training). Treat thresholds as volatile until further reform. ^[2]
• Parquet silence is positive. Read four months without a parquet opinion as deemed favourable; the commune then registers the declaration. Do not prompt the commune at the four-month mark — the user will be invited to collect the registration document. ^[1]
• §1, 4° has no language requirement. Skip the language, integration and economic-participation evidence for disability, invalidity and pension-age routes. Users in these categories often default-assume the §1, 2° conditions and over-prepare; reading the commune fiche corrects this. ^[2]
• Acquisition does not strip origin nationality automatically. Belgium permits dual or multiple nationality; whether the origin country recognises the dual-nationality status is for the origin country to determine. Out of scope for this skill.

Community observations

Requests for contributions

Help complete this skill by contributing what only first-hand experience can supply:

• §1, 5° community-participation evidence accepted in practice. The statute is open-ended ("participation in the life of the host community"); commune nationality officers exercise judgment on what evidence suffices. Contribute a first-hand account of what your commune accepted (volunteering, associative work, sociocultural engagement, civic participation) — including any evidence the commune refused. This shapes routing advice for users on the §1, 5° path.
• §1, 4° medical attestation cross-commune acceptance. Practice varies on whether DG Personnes handicapées / INAMI attestations issued in one regional language are accepted at communes operating in another, and on whether sworn translations are required between Belgian official languages. Contribute your experience if you filed under §1, 4°.