Driving Licence in Belgium - Requirements

This post will discuss the basic requirements for non-Belgians to obtain driving license in Belgium. Especially, if you are an English speaking candidate. Many foreigners' ('expats/aliens' as they call) driving licenses from their own country is not valid in Belgium and in that case, one has to go through the complete procedure of driving license exam before they can drive in Belgium.

Citizen's of European Economic Area (EEA; EU plus Iceland, Norway and Lichtenstein) with a valid license are not required to exchange their driver’s license.
Several non-EEA countries have bilateral agreement in this context and hence can simply exchange their license to obtain a Belgian license to drive around. But the person must be above 18 year old and registered to the Belgian national registry. A list of these countries can be found here (in Dutch).
Citizens from other non-EEA countries without a bilateral agreement with Belgium  (India, Columbia, Chili, Mexico, ... and all non-EEA countries not listed here) on driving licenses, should pass the theory and practical exams. However, and international license from their home country will allow them a grace period of one year to get the Belgian driving license (data not verified).
Check out your nearby exam centers here:
Flemish region
Walloon, Brussels region
 
Next post will explain more about the theory exam...

Related:
G O C A (Group of companies approved for vehicle test and licence) website (only in Dutch/French) is the official site for all the information regarding driving license as well as the yearly vehicle control.

Diesel or benzine cars in Belgium?

This is a simple analyses to help you decide on whether to buy diesel or petrol (benzine) cars in Belgium.
The road-tax for cars in Belgium is rated mainly according to the engine capacity, the lowest being 1L engined cars. Up to 2L engine, the tax varies between 120 - 300 €/year. So I wouldn't mind buying a 2L car if everything else goes well according to your criteria (However, this reasoning will be invalid once Belgium move to the CO2 emission based tax system).

But... it is the number of km's that you would drive/year that matters. Recent statistics from Belgian motor drivers organization reports that the diesel cars are not saving you much unless one drive more than 30000 km/year. This if you have to pay 1-3000 more for a used diesel compared to its benzine sibling.

Essentially the technology for diesel particulate filters are not fool proof and hence the probable extra maintenance cost must be taken into account in the above calculation. Moreover the new generation turbo charged benzine/essence/petrol motors are more and more fuel efficient.

Anyhow in Belgium, promotion of diesel cars were high till recently which was found to be less sustainable for the society. This fact brings a lot of diesel cars in the second hand market.
In general, there is a high demand for less driven diesel cars which makes the benzine versions cheaper to buy. So get an idea of how many km's you would drive and if (in a practical limit) you would not cross 20000 km/year; then go for a good benzine engine instead.

What car you need / what car you wish ??

Well.. this is purely personal!

If you have a crush with some particular model/brand; then  its easy.

Or if car is only a mean of mobility, then go for the practical one. We will list these in the next post.

What to avoid!!

In any 'tweedehands' (second hand) website that I mentioned in my first post, there can be enough frauds to fool the beginners.
Tips:
When you see a car for sale ad, with 'too good to be true', the best is to avoid such a deal.
For example, recently there were many posts showing VW Golf mk6 (2010 and later) for sale less than €5000!!!

An example quoted above is a real life sample. Such a car will cost atleast 8000€!!
These are mostly frauds looking for online scams. It's your duty to think twice or ask your colleagues or simply search in the website for similar models and get the market value.

cheers