Belgium Cohabitation Visa: Step 1

So I’m back in Leuven and completing my application to co-habitate legally with my Belgian boyfriend!  This gives me Belgian citizenship along with the ability to work very quickly.

In my last post, I described how confusing it can be, but in the last few days I have gone through pretty much all of the steps.  I’ll fill you in in separate posts.

I’ve done all the sorting work (been to city hall about 8 times – only 3 of them actually served a purpose!) so consider the research done.  Here’s what you need to do.

The first step was for me to register myself as a tourist (aka – a stay of less than 3 months in Belgium) as is quite normal for most countries (I’m from Canada for reference).  The documents I brought with me included everything I already had in hand for this visa – my Search of Marriage document, legalized; my proof of relationship with Milan for up to 2 years; my passport; passport photos; proof of funds from Milan’s work; and my rent agreement.  I didn’t have to hand over any of these documents besides the passport.

When I arrived at City Hall in Leuven to do this procedure, I ran into a problem – I had already overstayed my tourist days, as I had already been in Belgium for 3 months between this Feb – May.  I technically wasn’t allowed to come back to Belgium till October.  Whoops.  Iceland let me through without even checking through my passport, so I made it here.  Unfortunately, this meant I couldn’t register as a tourist as I was meant to do.  I was reassured, however, that I would still be able to apply for cohabitation as I had meant to – I just wasn’t able to complete this first step.

When you do this, and when you do it successfully, you will be registered in the Belgian system and I think they will also give you a paper that states that you’ve registered.  For me, I didn’t get that paper, but they did add me in the system along with a note that stated that… I was illegal!  Sounds worse than it actually is, as they were all unphased by it.  The only thing that I needed to know about overstaying my tourist days was that I would not be allowed to leave Belgium for the next 6 months.  I’m unsure if this was due to my cohabitation visa being processed within that time, or due to my illegal status at the moment.  I was told later though that I would be allowed to travel in the Schengen zone by car, as long as long as there is not any passport control.

Anyway – my registration as a tourist was unsuccessful, but still got the thing that I needed to get, which was registration in the Belgian system.  I was told that the next step would be for me to make an appointment to sign cohabitation papers.  Milan, my boyfriend, would need to be present.

Let’s see what happens!