Obligation to cooperate

Any foreigner who has no legal right of residence in Belgium is obliged to leave the territory and cooperate with the competent services to effectively execute the return, removal, transfer or expulsion procedure.

The obligation to cooperate implies that you:

  • Cooperate in your identification and that of your accompanying family members by providing the necessary elements, including surname and first name, nationality, place and date of birth, countries of origin and/or previous residence, itineraries, travel documents and biometric data;
  • ooperate in obtaining travel documents, by going to the appropriate authorities;
  • Communicate the address of effective residence and contact details to the Immigration Office;
  • Appears at appointments with the Immigration Office or other competent authorities;
  • Responds to requests for information from the Immigration Office;
  • Remains contactable and available to the Immigration Office;
  • Hands over identity and travel documents for deposit with the Immigration Office if requested;
  • Transfers medical documents and cooperates with medical examinations when necessary .

Non-cooperation in this procedure will affect the implementation of the return, removal, transfer or expulsion procedure. For example:

  • a preventive measure may be imposed, insofar as it applies to you;
  • the Immigration Office may proceed to detain you because a risk of absconding is identified and it may be suspected that a less coercive measure cannot be imposed effectively;
  • this element may be taken into account for the term of the entry ban, if it is imposed;
  • in the context of a transfer procedure, the transfer period may be extended because you are deemed to have absconded.