Australian citizen immigrating to Belgium

[channey]

Hello,

I have recently been offered a position with a Belgium firm. I am an Australian citizen, and a holder of a current 5 year UK ancestry visa.

With that said, I have to questions:

1. Can I apply for a Belgium visa from the UK, or do I have to be in Australia?

2. Will my UK visa be okay to work in an EU state, such as Belgium?

[Christophe]

To attempt to answer your questions:

1. As you are currently *living* in the UK (albeit not as a permanent resident - I presume), I should imagine that you can apply from the UK. The Belgian authorities would be the ones who could answer that question definitively, I guess.

2. No. your ancestry visa is applicable to the UK only.

[channey]

Thanks Christophe,

I'll continue to try and find out further information from Belgium.

[JAJ]

Hello,

I have recently been offered a position with a Belgium firm. I am an Australian citizen, and a holder of a current 5 year UK ancestry visa.

With that said, I have to questions:

1. Can I apply for a Belgium visa from the UK, or do I have to be in Australia?

2. Will my UK visa be okay to work in an EU state, such as Belgium?

Do you plan to become a British citizen in due course? Moving to Belgium will ensure that doesn't happen for a long time.

[channey]

I'm only going for a few years, For the time being I'm quite happy with my Australian citizenship.. though, you may have a good point! thanks

[JAJ]

I'm only going for a few years, For the time being I'm quite happy with my Australian citizenship.. though, you may have a good point! thanks

Your choice, of course. Bear in mind that you would likely have to re-start on the ancestry visa from scratch if you returned to the UK. And if the ancestry visa is ever abolished, that particular door will be closed.

Unless you could get Belgian citizenship, which is another question.

People who "hop" from one EU country to another without getting citizenship often encounter problems when their plans don't work out and they can't go back to their former country of residence.

[Christophe]

I'm only going for a few years, For the time being I'm quite happy with my Australian citizenship.. though, you may have a good point! thanks

And don't forget that you would keep your Australian citizenship if you became a British citizen.

[channey]

Consequently, would I have to surrender my Australian Citizenship to become a Belgium citizen?

[Christophe]

Consequently, would I have to surrender my Australian Citizenship to become a Belgium citizen?

I think not - you would have to find out what the laws of Belgium say about requirements for people naturalising as Belgian.

Australia would not require to surrender your Australian citizenship; Belgium might, but I think it wouldn't. A Belgian citizen who naturalises as a citizen of another country is stripped of Belgian citizenship, but I don't think that Belgium demands renunciation of first citizenship to become Belgian. In any case, you couldn't lose your Australian citizenship without knowing it, since the only way you could lose it is to renounce it according to the forms prescribed by Australia (not Belgium).

But if you plan to go down that route I shouldn't take anything on hearsay - you'd need to find out for certain.

[Christophe]

It seems my thinking was right - according to the Belgian website of Foreign Affairs, Foreign Trade and Development Cooperation:

If you are a Belgian citizen and you voluntarily obtain another nationality you will automatically lose Belgian nationality.

If you hold another nationality and you obtain Belgian nationality, Belgian authorities will not ask you to renounce your original nationality.

See http://www.diplomatie.be/en/services/nationality.asp, where the requirements for naturalisation are also outlined - click on 'Nationality' under 'Services' at the top, near the right.