In Belgium, what is considered a 'long-form' birth certificate?

In Belgium, what is a 'long-form' birth certificate?

The long-form version of a birth certificate contains the name of the child and parents.

In Belgium, the long-form birth certificate or complete birth certificate is referred to as an 'Afschrift van een akte – Geboorten / Geboortakten' (NL) or 'Copie d'acte de naissance' (FR).

In most cases, multilingual versions of Belgian birth certificate (with text in Dutch, French, German and English) can be obtained from your local municipality.

Translation of certificates

If your municipality does not issue multilingual birth certificates, a certified translation must be provided in addition to the original birth certificate.

You can search for translators here.

Certificates with electronic signatures / barcodes

Many Belgian municipalities issue certificates that contain an electronic signature / barcode. If you have been issued a certificate of this type, please be aware that that these documents expire 3 months after the date of issue.

If the certificate you have is older than 3 months at the time of application you will need to acquire a replacement certificate as documents older than 3 months cannot be authenticated.