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Belgium (dual) citizenship- before applying
Dear all,
I'm living and working in Belgium (Antwerp) for the past (full 4 years). I'm a EU citizen and married with Belgian citizen for a past 6 months (he is born belgian and living here since ... forever), with whom I lived since I moved in Belgium. Now, I'm starting to think about applying for the dual citizenship.
I've read some posts, info on it (such as info on this website and similar), but I would also like to have your opinion on duration, tips/tricks, approximate costs, level of stress tied to visiting embassies, gemeente and other pleasant intitustions and little things such as is there a test for language (I'm following Netherlands voor anderstaligen by Linguapolis ...)...and of course anything else that might be benefitial to know prior to start the procedure.
Thanks in advance and wishing you great holidays!
IIRC, after 5 years, you can just apply for Belgian nationality at the commune under the accellerated procedure. Ask at your local commune.
For any Belgian citizenship application, the first requirement is to have been a registered Belgian resident for a continuous period of 5 years (so make sure that you renew your E card on time).
Once you meet that requirement, being married to a Belgian citizen is a sufficient condition for being granted citizenship, there are many others, some simple (e.g. having reached the current Belgian pensionable age = 65), others much more complex.
In your case there is no formal language requirement, but, of course, the relevant officials in Antwerp will refuse to speak anything other than Dutch.
