Belgium digital nomad visa & residency (2026)

Flanders overhauled its economic-migration rules: low-skilled jobs excluded, highly-qualified eligibility tied to the function actually performed, a revised bottleneck-occupation list, a new ~€200 per-application fee, and a new online portal. It significantly narrows labour-market access for non-EU workers in the region.

A Brussels Government decision of 16 May 2024 entered into force, transposing the recast EU Blue Card and cutting the period to qualify for an indefinite single permit from four years to 30 months (now counting internships). It eased access to longer-term residence for foreign workers in the capital region.

The Walloon Decision of 6 June 2024 entered into force, implementing the recast Blue Card with shorter required contract durations and new professional-experience eligibility pathways for highly qualified non-EU workers.

A Flemish Ministerial Decision of 8 March 2024 entered into force, making Flanders the first Belgian region to implement Directive 2021/1883 with more flexible conditions for hiring highly qualified third-country nationals.

The recast directive simplifies the single application procedure, strengthens worker rights and allows permit holders to change employers; it repeals Directive 2011/98 from 22 May 2026, with Member States (including Belgium) required to transpose key articles by 21 May 2026.

The Royal Decree of 26 November 2021 implemented the Act of 31 July 2020, finally establishing the EU ICT permit in Belgium for managers, specialists and trainees seconded within a corporate group — a key route for cross-border staff mobility.

The revised Blue Card directive lowered salary thresholds, shortened minimum contract requirements and broadened intra-EU mobility for highly qualified non-EU workers, setting the framework Belgium's three regions later transposed in 2024.

The combined work-and-residence 'single permit' became operational, creating a one-stop-shop for non-EEA nationals staying and working more than 90 days — the central legal route for foreign employees, replacing the separate work-permit/residence process.

Because residence is federal and work permits are regional after the 6th state reform, federal and regional authorities concluded a cooperation agreement to operate the single permit jointly; the federal approving Act was published in the Official Gazette on 24 December 2018.

After a 2014 formal notice and a 2015 reasoned opinion, the Commission referred Belgium to the CJEU for failing to fully transpose Directive 2011/98 — pressure that ultimately drove the 2018 cooperation agreement and the single permit's 2019 launch.

The directive introduced a single application procedure for a combined work-and-residence permit and a common set of rights for non-EU workers, the foundation Belgium was obliged to transpose (deadline 25 December 2013) and eventually implemented in 2019.

The Act of 19 February 1965 established the professional card requirement for non-EEA/Swiss nationals exercising a self-employed activity — the legal basis still used today by freelancers and digital-nomad-type remote workers seeking residence in Belgium.