Reference metadata describe statistical concepts and methodologies used for the collection and generation of data. They provide information on data quality and, since they are strongly content-oriented, assist users in interpreting the data. Reference metadata, unlike structural metadata, can be decoupled from the data.
Immigration Office (Office des étrangers/ Dienst Vreemdelingenzaken).
1.2. Contact organisation unit
Statistics Unit
1.3. Contact name
Confidential because of GDPR
1.4. Contact person function
Confidential because of GDPR
1.5. Contact mail address
Boulevard Pacheco, 44
B-1000 Bruxelles
Belgium
1.6. Contact email address
Confidential because of GDPR
1.7. Contact phone number
Confidential because of GDPR
1.8. Contact fax number
Confidential because of GDPR
2.1. Metadata last certified
25 June 2025
2.2. Metadata last posted
25 June 2025
2.3. Metadata last update
25 June 2025
3.1. Data description
Data collection on intra-corporate transfers is based on Article 24 of Directive 2014/66/EU on the conditions of entry and residence of third-country nationals in the framework of an intra-corporate transfer.
The following datasets are collected under this framework:
Intra-corporate transferee permits issued, renewed and withdrawn by type of permit, length of validity and citizenship (migr_resict1_1);
Intra-corporate transferee permits issued by type of permit, economic sector and citizenship (migr_resict1_2);
Intra-corporate transferee permits issued by type of permit, length of validity, transferee position and citizenship (migr_resict1_3);
Intra-corporate notifications received by length of validity and citizenship (migr_resict2_1);
Intra-corporate notifications received by economic sector and citizenship (migr_resict2_2);
Permits for long-term mobility issued and notifications received by citizenship and first Member State of residence (migr_resict3).
Directive 2014/66/EU was transposed at national level on 26 November 2021 (NB: it was only possible to introduce an application from 16 December 2021).
3.2. Classification system
Similar breakdowns as Eurostat.
See table 3.2. in annex ‘Quality report tables on intra-corporate transfers’.
3.3. Coverage - sector
Migration and asylum – Residence permits statistics, intra-corporate transfers.
3.4. Statistical concepts and definitions
Similar breakdowns as Eurostat.
See table 3.4. in annex ‘Quality report tables on intra-corporate transfers’.
3.5. Statistical unit
As requested in technical guidelines, number of permits/authorisation/ notification (and not the number of single individuals). As a consequence, the double counting of the same person is allowed.
3.6. Statistical population
See table 3.6. in annex ‘Quality report tables on intra-corporate transfers’.
3.7. Reference area
Belgium.
3.8. Coverage - Time
See table 3.8. in annex ‘Quality report tables on intra-corporate transfers’.
3.9. Base period
Not applicable.
Number of authorisations for intra-corporate transfers.
Calendar year.
6.1. Institutional Mandate - legal acts and other agreements
The FPS (Federal Public Service) Home Affairs and its Statistics Unit (located in the DG Immigration Office) was officially designated as Other national statistical authorities (see 1/ “ List of National statistical institutes (NSI) and other national authorities” in the list of links to public documents and 2/ “Letter sent by Statbel to Eurostat to designate the FPS Home Affairs as ONA” in the list of internal documents available on request) in charge of AMM (Asylum and Managed Migration) data collection in line with the mission of FPS Home Affairs (the main actor in charge of the implementation of the legislation related to migration at national level, i.e. “Law of 15th December 1980 on access to the territory, residence, establishment and removal of aliens”). In the specific case of single permit, the Immigration Office grants the residence permit and incorporate the work permit and the residence permit in a single document. More information is accessible on the website of the Immigration Office
Concerning residence permits, the Immigration Office is responsible for the examination of applications for authorisation to stay (introduced abroad or in Belgium), changes of status, acquisition of long-term residence status and ending/withdrawal of stays. In the specific case of intra-corporate transfers, the Immigration Office grants the residence permit and incorporate the work permit and the residence permit in a single document. More information is accessible on the website of the Immigration Office.
The Federal Public Service Home Affairs was officially designated as Other national statistical authority (other-national-statistical-authorities) and was nominated as responsible for the transmission of residence permits' statistics including statistics on intra-corporate transfers.
Statbel, the Belgian statistical office, formalized this by communicating the name of the Statistical Service of the Immigration Office as another producer of European statistics, in particular concerning statistics relating to Asylum and Migration. By this statute of producer of European statistical data, the statistical service of the Immigration Office must therefore be considered as one of the “other Belgian statistical authorities” as defined in Article 4 of Regulation (EC) No 223/2009 on European statistics.
Information on the existence of a national policy for (not) releasing data before a certain time after the end of reference period has passed:
All statistical data are published within the regulatory deadlines. No national policy prevents us from publishing statistics before this deadline. Statistics are published when their quality is considered sufficient.
Required confidentiality by law and signed legal confidentiality commitments by survey staff:
All the officials of the Immigration Office have signed a declaration aimed at protecting the confidentiality of data.
Potential micro-data access for research purposes by external users and confidentiality provisions applied:
Access to micro-data is possible while respecting the general data protection regulation (regulation 2016/679). More information on the procedure implemented in this context can be requested from the Data Protection Officer of the Immigration Office. The contact details are available on the website of the Immigration Office:
Statistics on intra-corporate transfers are currently published once a year, within 6 months after the end of the reference year. A monthly publication is developed at national level in the framework of single permits (including intra-corporate transfers).
Annual publications on intra-corporate transfers are accessible from 2021 reference year (year of transposition) on the website of Eurostat. A monthly publication on the website of the Immigration Office has been available since June 2024.
10.3. Dissemination format - online database
No Belgian online database directly accessible to the public. The statistics are available on the Eurostat website.
Some elements are available on the Website of the immigration Office:
This must be agreed upon when signing the memorandum of understanding to access the microdata.
10.5. Dissemination format - other
The metadata are complete and accessible online on the website of Eurostat.
10.5.1. Metadata - consultations
Not applicable.
10.6. Documentation on methodology
This document gives some explanations on the methodology used to produce statistics on single permits. There is also a methodological section at the end of each national publication and at a dedicated methodology section available on the website of the Immigration Office.
The quality assessment is made in this document itself as well at the end of reports that is published at national level and at a dedicated methodology section available on the website of the Immigration Office.
The principles of the Code of Practice, together with the general principles of quality management, form a common quality framework for the European Statistical System. These principles were followed when developing these specific statistics.
The Consultation Committee, where the federal government (including the Federal Public Service Home Affairs) and the governments of the Regions and Communities are represented, approved on Wednesday 31 May 2017 the Belgian Commitment on Confidence in Statistics as required by Regulation n°223/2009 on European Statistics.
The last peer review in the framework of the European Statistical System took place in 2021. Results are accessible on the following website.
Quality guidelines are currently developed by Statbel and Belgian ONAs to complement EU guidelines.
Consistency validation checks are performed at all stages of the process
The statistics collected are used in official publications and by a wide range of users at national, European and International level.
These statistics are used by national administrations, academic researchers and civil society groups working on a wide range of topics including the integration of immigrants, the development and monitoring of national immigration procedures, and the projection of the future population and labour force.
At European level, the main users of these statistics are Eurostat and DG Home.
These statistics are used in several publications of the Commission, as well as in the preparation of regular reports, policy proposals and analysis. The statistics also provide an input to the European Migration Network (EMN) studies and reports that address specific issues of current policy importance.
12.2. Relevance - User Satisfaction
Not available.
12.3. Completeness
See table 12.3. in annex ‘Quality report tables on intra-corporate transfers’.
12.3.1. Data completeness - rate
Not applicable.
13.1. Accuracy - overall
Accuracy is currently considered as good.
13.2. Sampling error
Not applicable.
13.2.1. Sampling error - indicators
Not applicable.
13.3. Non-sampling error
Not applicable.
13.3.1. Coverage error
Not applicable.
13.3.1.1. Over-coverage - rate
There are no discrepancies between the Eurostat and national target population.
13.3.1.2. Common units - proportion
Not applicable.
13.3.2. Measurement error
Data collected in the Population Register, the database on visas, the database of the Immigration Office is confronted each month to measure error. No divergence is observed on this topic.
13.3.3. Non response error
Not applicable.
13.3.3.1. Unit non-response - rate
Not applicable.
13.3.3.2. Item non-response - rate
Not applicable.
13.3.4. Processing error
The main category is linked to the creation of new events / categories without information of the Statistics Unit.
A continuous monitoring of the different modalities of each variable was developed to identify these cases before the statistical treatment.
13.3.5. Model assumption error
Not applicable.
14.1. Timeliness
Number of days (on average) after the end of the reference period at which the country is able to report the first/preliminary data, at the earliest: 15 days
Reasons for possible long production of the first/preliminary data and plans to improve the situation: late registration and limited number of persons/experts who can produce / validate the results.
Number of days (on average) after the end of the reference period at which the country is able to report the final data, at the earliest: Approximately 30.
Reasons for possible long production of the final data and plans to improve the situation: limited number of persons/experts who can produce / validate the results. Additional colleagues are currently being trained to support the production/validation process in the future.
14.1.1. Time lag - first result
Not applicable.
14.1.2. Time lag - final result
Not applicable.
14.2. Punctuality
Intra-corporate transfers data are delivered on time.
See table 14.2. in annex ‘Quality report tables on intra-corporate transfers’.
14.2.1. Punctuality - delivery and publication
Not applicable.
15.1. Comparability - geographical
Data are comparable over the national territory.
15.1.1. Asymmetry for mirror flow statistics - coefficient
Not applicable.
15.2. Comparability - over time
See table 15.2. in annex ‘Quality report tables on intra-corporate transfers’.
15.2.1. Length of comparable time series
Not applicable.
15.3. Coherence - cross domain
Not applicable.
15.3.1. Coherence - sub annual and annual statistics
Annual statistics are equal to the sum of monthly statistics.
15.3.2. Coherence - National Accounts
Not applicable.
15.4. Coherence - internal
Issued permits, renewals and withdrawals are coming from the same source. No issue in terms of coherence was detected.
Intra-corporate transfers are based on administrative data. Their production does not require any special costs or burden.
17.1. Data revision - policy
Exceptionally, data are corrected / revised due to: 1/ error of transmission (wrong reference period, errors in data compilation…), 2/ methodological improvements or introduction of new data sources.
17.2. Data revision - practice
See table 17.2. in annex ‘Quality report tables on intra-corporate transfers’.
17.2.1. Data revision - average size
Not applicable.
18.1. Source data
See table 18.1. in annex ‘Quality report tables on intra-corporate transfers’.
18.2. Frequency of data collection
Data is collected monthly and is consolidated annually.
18.3. Data collection
Data are integrated by the IT department of the Federal Public Services Home Affairs into a Data Warehouse from which the data is imported and examined in SAS. Data are processed, validated and the results are transmitted annually to Eurostat.
18.4. Data validation
The following controls are performed:
checking of totals consistency
checking of magnitude of changes over time
visual validation
checking the data integrity over each processing step
checking if the double counting cases are excluded
checking the consistency between issued first permits, renewals and withdrawals
checking the consistency between annual and monthly statistics
analyse the statistics reported by other countries
checking the consistency between statistics transmitted to Eurostat and statistics published at national level
18.5. Data compilation
Data is processed by the Immigration Office of Belgium, according to the rules for validation and control of the technical guidelines by Eurostat.
Data collection on intra-corporate transfers is based on Article 24 of Directive 2014/66/EU on the conditions of entry and residence of third-country nationals in the framework of an intra-corporate transfer.
The following datasets are collected under this framework:
Intra-corporate transferee permits issued, renewed and withdrawn by type of permit, length of validity and citizenship (migr_resict1_1);
Intra-corporate transferee permits issued by type of permit, economic sector and citizenship (migr_resict1_2);
Intra-corporate transferee permits issued by type of permit, length of validity, transferee position and citizenship (migr_resict1_3);
Intra-corporate notifications received by length of validity and citizenship (migr_resict2_1);
Intra-corporate notifications received by economic sector and citizenship (migr_resict2_2);
Permits for long-term mobility issued and notifications received by citizenship and first Member State of residence (migr_resict3).
Directive 2014/66/EU was transposed at national level on 26 November 2021 (NB: it was only possible to introduce an application from 16 December 2021).
25 June 2025
Similar breakdowns as Eurostat.
See table 3.4. in annex ‘Quality report tables on intra-corporate transfers’.
As requested in technical guidelines, number of permits/authorisation/ notification (and not the number of single individuals). As a consequence, the double counting of the same person is allowed.
See table 3.6. in annex ‘Quality report tables on intra-corporate transfers’.
Belgium.
Calendar year.
Accuracy is currently considered as good.
Number of authorisations for intra-corporate transfers.
Data is processed by the Immigration Office of Belgium, according to the rules for validation and control of the technical guidelines by Eurostat.
See table 18.1. in annex ‘Quality report tables on intra-corporate transfers’.
Statistics on intra-corporate transfers are currently published once a year, within 6 months after the end of the reference year. A monthly publication is developed at national level in the framework of single permits (including intra-corporate transfers).
Number of days (on average) after the end of the reference period at which the country is able to report the first/preliminary data, at the earliest: 15 days
Reasons for possible long production of the first/preliminary data and plans to improve the situation: late registration and limited number of persons/experts who can produce / validate the results.
Number of days (on average) after the end of the reference period at which the country is able to report the final data, at the earliest: Approximately 30.
Reasons for possible long production of the final data and plans to improve the situation: limited number of persons/experts who can produce / validate the results. Additional colleagues are currently being trained to support the production/validation process in the future.
Data are comparable over the national territory.
See table 15.2. in annex ‘Quality report tables on intra-corporate transfers’.
