Your first weeks in Belgium: the complete file, the neighbourhood officer within fifteen days and the six months for the care fund

The first weeks in Belgium revolve around one visit to the municipality, which succeeds or fails on the file you bring. Since 1 September 2025 the municipality only issues the declaration of registration, the annex 19, if you immediately submit all the evidence that as an EU citizen you have a right of residence; sending things on later is over. What it costs: the application itself nothing. What it yields: on the day of the application you are in the waiting register and have a national register number, and after that the municipality comes in principle within fifteen days to see whether you really live there. The trap lies not in the municipality but in the counters around it: the driving licence you have registered for free, the low-emission zone that wants to know every foreign plate, the dog that must be in DogID within eight days, and in Flanders the care premium for which you have six months.

What do you take to the municipality?

Proof of your EU citizenship plus proof of your EU status, and the latter differs per situation. As an employee: an employment contract or a declaration of engagement showing employment of more than three months; with several temporary contracts you bring them all, and payslips help if the number of hours is unclear. As a self-employed person: your registration in the Crossroads Bank for Enterprises and the certificate of affiliation with a social insurance fund, which the fund sends directly to the municipality. As a pensioner or economically inactive person: proof of sufficient means of subsistence, for which the law names no fixed amount and may never demand more than the living-wage rate, plus health insurance, which you prove among other things with your European Health Insurance Card.

If something is missing, that is not a refusal: the municipality tells you which documents are missing, gives you a notice of presence (annex 3ter) for your short stay of three months, and can give you a BIS number if another service asks for a national register number. But your application is then not yet filed, and the three-month clock is running. The whole chain is in settling in Belgium.

Which clocks run in the first weeks?

Step	Deadline	Counter
Application for the declaration of registration (annex 19)	within 3 months of arrival, with the complete file	municipality
Entry in the waiting register and national register number	immediately on application	municipality
Residence check after an address declaration	in principle within 15 days	neighbourhood officer or official
Decision of the Immigration Office	at the latest 6 months; no decision counts as recognition	Immigration Office via the municipality
Registering a European driving licence	on registration, free, not compulsory	civil affairs department
Foreign plate in the LEZ	before the first drive, free	Ghent, Antwerp, Brussels
Registering a dog from abroad	within 8 days of arrival	vet, DogID
Paying the Flemish care premium	within 6 months of your move (from age 26)	care fund
Joining a health fund or the Auxiliary Fund	as soon as your national register number is there	mutualiteit or HZIV

Why is your name on the doorbell?

Because the residence check is the hinge of the whole procedure. After your application the municipality enters you in the waiting register immediately and checks your actual place of residence; if it turns out you really live within the municipality, it transfers you to the foreigners' register. If the municipality recognises your right of residence straight away, you get a paper annex 8ter pending the electronic EU card; if the file goes to the Immigration Office, it must decide within six months, and no timely decision equals recognition.

Six months for the care premium, and the care fund doesn't call. Whoever comes to live in the Flemish Region and is 26 or older pays the care premium of € 100 a year to a care fund, and the first time within six months of the move. Whoever doesn't is affiliated ex officio with the Flemish Care Fund, and not paying twice costs a € 250 fine. In Brussels and Wallonia the premium doesn't exist.

What do you arrange with the national register number in hand?

The health fund, because that is compulsory to be entitled to reimbursed care and benefits: a mutualiteit, where you pay a membership fee and get supplementary insurance, or the Auxiliary Fund for sickness and invalidity insurance, a public institution with the same statutory benefits, without membership fee and without supplementary insurance. Which route suits your situation, with or without S1, is in the mutualiteit, the co-payment and the S1. The driving licence you have registered free at the same registration; it is not compulsory, but it saves paperwork in case of loss or theft, and exchanging is only possible after 185 days anyway, as the driving licence article explains. The bank can wait until the EU card is there; your Dutch IBAN may not be refused in the meantime, see bank and payments in Belgium.

And the foreign registration plate?

You register it in every low-emission zone before you drive in, even if the car meets every standard and even if it is electric; the city of Ghent is unambiguous about that. That applies to your own car in the weeks before the Belgian registration, and to the hired removal van. Whoever brings a dog and stays longer than six months has it entered in DogID by a Belgian vet within eight days of arrival. How those clocks fall alongside the municipality is in the step-by-step plan for Belgium.

In Vertrekklaar this is phase 4 of 5 of the journey, step 4.1: the same steps, but for your situation — in your order, tickable, and with the deadlines watched. See the whole journey to Belgium or go straight to step 4.1 in the open plan.