The Belgium Country Factsheet 2024, which is based on the Annual report on migration and asylum in Belgium 2024, briefly highlights the key developments for the year 2024 in the following areas:

• Overarching and crosscutting changes, including the establishment of a dedicated chain monitoring unit within the Federal Public Service (FPS) Home Affairs, aimed to inform policy and operational decisions with real-time data and evidence-based insights.
   
• Legal migration, including new legislation on labour migration in all three regions and the German-speaking Community, to address labour shortages, improve legal certainty, and introduce safeguards for foreign employees.
   
• International protection, including additional staff recruitment, fast-track procedures, and new cross-cutting methods to manage the rising number of applications.
   
• Vulnerable groups, including measures to address the backlog of unaccompanied minors waiting for a guardian, through the recruitment of additional guardians and the improvement of their status.
   
• Integration, including a pilot project in Flanders enabling newcomers to begin civic training in their country of origin, with online courses and counselling to support faster integration.
   
• Statelessness, including a new procedure allowing stateless persons to submit a residence permit application directly to the Immigration Office.
   
• Borders, Visa and Schengen, including an expanded role for Frontex within Belgium, allowing deployment at border controls and participation in escorted returns.
   
• Irregular migration, including online information campaigns in Belgium and an awareness campaign in Guinea to inform potential migrants of the risks of irregular migration.
   
• Trafficking in human beings, including a pilot project testing new software to detect suspicious digital exchanges related to prostitution, with a focus on minors.
   
• Return and readmission, including the new law on a proactive return policy, introducing a cooperation obligation and formalising individual case management coaching and ‘open return places’.
   
• Migration and development, including two reintegration projects in Côte d’Ivoire (MIGRET) and Guinea (AMIS) to strengthen institutional capacity for sustainable reintegration of returning migrants.

The statistical annex, organised in ten thematic sections, including legal migration, international protection, temporary protection, unaccompanied minors, integration, citizenship and statelessness, borders, Schengen and visas, irregular migration, trafficking and return, provides the latest available statistics for Belgium on these aspects.

For further information, please read the Belgium Country Factsheet 2024 attached above.