Civil status

1. Documents

The following documents must be provided:

Important, except copies of travel/identity documents, all the requested documents must comply with the requirements described in point 2 below.

For a marriage:

• true certified copy of your marriage certificate; if you were married in Israel, copy of your marriage certificate certified true by the Rabbinate (with a sticker on the back confirming the true certified copy), the Church (certificate then to be legalized by the Patriarchate) or the Sharia Court depending on where you were married;
• copy of the passport/identity card of the spouse and their birth certificate which shows the date and city of birth (not just the country).

For a divorce:

• true certified copy of your divorce certificate/judgement;
• if applicable, proof of when the divorce has become definitive;
• If you were divorced in Israel, copy of the divorce certificate certified true by the administration that registered your divorce (Rabbinate, Sharia Court, Patriarchate) or a true certified copy of the divorce judgement (for a civil divorce);
• If you were divorced in Belgium and the divorce was not registered in the Belgian national register, true certified copy of the divorce judgement + attestation of the administration services of the tribunal that pronounced the divorce, which shows when the divorce became definitive;
• IMPORTANT: If you were married in Belgium, no matter where you were divorced, we advise you to register your divorce at the Belgian municipality which registered your marriage.

For widowhood:

• true certified copy of your spouse’s death certificate.

Please pay attention to the names: the names of the Belgian citizens that appear on the documents or their translations must be spelled the same way as on Belgian identity documents. However, if you are Belgian and Israeli, and have a different name on your official Israeli documents than on your official Belgian documents, it is normal that your Israeli name (and not your Belgian name) appears on official Israeli documents. In this case you must prove that you have changed your name in Israel by giving the Consulate a certificate of name change, which must be apostilled. Women who took their husbands’ name after marriage will normally only be required to produce this certificate if they changed their name on or after 01.01.2018, except in special cases.

Additional documents may be required.

2. Requirements which the requested documents must meet

Documents must be:

• original: photocopy; the marriage/divorce certificate must be issued by the administration that registered the marriage/divorce;
• recent: the documents cannot be older than 6 months when provided to the Consulate;
• legalized and translated (see explanation below).

Legalization and translation of official Israeli documents

1. The legalization procedure of an Israeli document is done by obtaining an apostille stamp at the Ministry of Foreign Affairs Jerusalem (9 Yitzhak Rabin Blvd; Kiryat Ben-Gurion; Jerusalem 9195022; tel: +972.2.5303176; e-mail: Apostille@mfa.gov.il; website: http://mfa.gov.il 
2. Documents need to be translated into one of our national languages (French, Dutch, German). Documents that were issued in English can generally be accepted without a translation (check with the Consulate)
3. Translations need to be legalized as well, NOT by the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, but by the Ministry of Justice (Bet Mishpat HaShalom- + 972.2.65.45.900).

Legalization and translation of official documents from other countries

Documents that were not issued in Israel, must be legalised in the country/region where they were issued. You can verify which procedure is required (depending on the country and the type of document) on the website of the Belgian Foreign Affairs.