Moving to Belgium from Canada
Canadian passport holders can visit Belgium visa-free for up to 90 days, but living there takes a residence permit. The self-funded residency routes we track start at an income of about $1,740 a month or an investment of about $232k, and our residency index rates Belgium 55/100 for Canadian citizens (possible, with conditions). We estimate €3,419 a month for a couple living centrally in Brugge and €3,748 in Brussels. Belgium is in our high tax tier. Check the official requirements before you apply.
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- Short stays
- Visa-free 90 days
- Canadian passport
- Residency
- 55/100
- Possible, with conditions, our index
- Tax tier
- High
- High personal income tax
- Est. cost for two
- From €3,419/mo
- Brugge, our estimate
Living there long term
Our residency index: 55/100, possible, with conditions. It is our own rating of how realistic long-term residency in Belgium is for Canadian citizens, based on the routes Belgium publishes. Belgium grants long-term residence mainly through employer-sponsored work permits, the EU Blue Card, a self-employed professional card, and a discretionary retirement/sufficient-means Type D visa, with no formal golden-visa or codified passive-income program; figures converted at 1 EUR = 1.16 USD (June 2026).
The cheapest self-funded routes we track:
- Income: about $1,740 a month (Belgium Type D retirement / sufficient-means visa, consulate-expected EUR 1,500/mo lower bound (no official published threshold; assessed case by case); as of June 2026)
- Investment: about $232k (Belgium investor route via the professional card (business investment, no formal golden visa, reviewed case by case), typically EUR 200,000 to establish or run a Belgian company; as of June 2026)
Check the official requirements before you apply: amounts, conditions and exchange rates change, and what a couple needs can differ from a single applicant's threshold.
For short visits, Canadian passport holders can visit visa-free for up to 90 days, according to the passport-index dataset. Short-stay entry covers visits; living there takes a residence permit.
Source: OurNextCity residency dataset, hand-reviewed approximations researched against published immigration rules, figures as of June 2026. Not legal advice: check the official source before you apply. Short-stay entry from the passport-index dataset (ilyankou, MIT).
Where in Belgium to start
Ranked by our match model for a typical couple who both hold Canadian passports, using the preset answers of our best places to live list. Your own answers would change the order. We pick the cities, up to five, by how often English Wikipedia readers looked them up over the past year.
Cost of living for two
Our estimate for a couple living centrally runs from €3,419 a month in Brugge to €3,748 in Brussels. For comparison, we estimate €3,991 a month in Toronto. Use these figures to compare places rather than to set a budget.
Source: our cost model: a country-level cost-of-living index scaled for city size, from our city dataset (last rebuilt June 2026). An estimate, not a survey of current prices.
Taxes
Belgium is in our high tax tier (high personal income tax); Canada is in our high tax tier (high personal income tax). Tiers describe each country's own income tax. They do not cover tax you may still owe in Canada after you leave, or the treaty between the two countries, so check both with a tax adviser before you move.
Source: OurNextCity tax tiers, assigned by hand from each country's top marginal personal income tax rate and overall tax reputation, with no fixed rate cut-offs. Coarse by design; not tax advice.
Compare cities in Belgium
Lists with cities in Belgium
Moving to Belgium from elsewhere
How we built this page
Every figure here comes from the datasets behind our city and country pages:
- Short-stay entry: the passport-index dataset (ilyankou, MIT license), which records the entry rule for short visits on each passport.
- Residency index, routes and thresholds: the OurNextCity residency dataset, hand-reviewed against published immigration rules, figures as of June 2026. It is a summary, not legal advice.
- City ranking: our match model, the one behind the quiz, run with a typical couple's preset answers and both partners holding Canadian passports. It ranks up to five of the country's best-known cities: of the cities in our quiz (100,000 people or more, capitals and a few towns movers seek out, such as Faro), the five most read about on English Wikipedia over the past year. It folds suburbs into their main city and leaves out countries with a residency index under 40 and areas under a US State Department Level 4 advisory, as our best-cities lists do.
- Costs: our cost model, a country-level cost-of-living index scaled for city size, from our city dataset (last rebuilt June 2026).
- Tax tiers: three coarse bands we assign by hand from each country's top marginal personal income tax rate and overall tax reputation.