Professional Card in Belgium

No. No Belgian statute and no ranking official page use the terms startup visa or entrepreneur visa. The professional card is the work authorisation a non-EU founder actually needs, and a visa D covers residence where the founder applies from abroad. The two together are the route Google already points searchers toward.

Any non-EEA, non-Swiss national running a self-employed activity in Belgium needs one. Exempt: EEA and Swiss nationals, holders of an unlimited-duration ID card or CIRE, certain settled family members, recognised refugees, the assisting spouse, Ukrainians under temporary protection, and business travellers within the 90-day limit, including a director attending only a board meeting.

The Region is set by your KBO establishment unit address, or by your company's headquarters if it operates across Regions. Brussels also takes the file if your activities will mainly happen there. Once granted, a card from any one Region lets you work throughout Belgium; the choice only affects cost, procedure and speed.

The application fee is EUR 140 everywhere. The issue fee runs EUR 90 per year of validity in Flanders and Wallonia (EUR 180 for a two-year card); Brussels states EUR 90 two different ways on its own page and we report both rather than pick one. Add EUR 111.50 for KBO registration once the card is granted.

Brussels decides in three months once your file is complete. Wallonia averages three months and says the actual time depends on file quality. Flanders decides within 120 days of your file being declared admissible, extendable for a complex file. None of the three publishes a faster guaranteed timeline.

Your card is deemed approved and granted automatically once the 120 days, plus any extension, run out with no decision. This deemed-approval rule exists only in Flanders; Brussels and Wallonia publish no equivalent, so a missed deadline in either of those two Regions carries no stated consequence in the founder's favour.

Yes. The Belgian diplomatic or consular post takes the file and forwards it; the application never goes straight to a Region. Once the card is granted, you apply for a visa D carrying national mention B15. In Wallonia, the grant itself stays frozen until the visa D is obtained and handed to the case officer.

Only Flanders answers this directly: its documents list accepts a provisional deed of incorporation among the application papers, which implies the deed can come first there. Brussels and Wallonia are silent on the sequence, and their own pages describe the card as needed in principle for KBO registration. We do not extend Flanders' answer to the other two Regions.

An identity document, a criminal record extract, the regional application form and a business plan or its equivalent, in every Region. Brussels caps the plan at 20 pages; Flanders prescribes its contents by added-value category; Wallonia runs an economic interest questionnaire instead of a fixed plan format.

Only Flanders publishes a numeric threshold: net subsistence of at least 110% of the GGMMI, EUR 2,456.96 a month from July 2026, and, on the economic track, at least EUR 22,838 held in an account in your own name. Brussels and Wallonia publish no equivalent figure.

Brussels grants up to five years, usually two on a first card. Flanders sets one to three years by added-value category. Wallonia generally grants one to three years. Renewal is due at least two months before expiry in Brussels, three in Wallonia, and 60 days in Flanders for cards issued after 1 January 2022.

You need a new authorisation. Brussels and Wallonia charge the EUR 140 application fee again; Flanders treats a substantive change of activity as a fresh application rather than an amendment. None of the three lets you simply add an activity to an existing card.

The card stops being valid the moment your right of residence ends. The self-employed activity has to stop, and the card has to be returned to the business counter that issued it. In Wallonia the card must be carried at all times, and checks are carried out.

Only Wallonia publishes a decision series: 2019 to 2024 shows grants running 56% to 70% of all applications, a six-year average of 63.5%. The circulating 47.2% approval-rate figure is not supported by this series and we do not publish it as fact. Files fail mainly on the economic-interest test, not on paperwork.

A professional card is your own route as a founder or self-employed director; you apply for it yourself. A single permit is for an employee, and the employer applies on their behalf. See belgium single permit processing time for the employer-applied route and its own timeline.