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 Single Permits statistics based on Article 15 of Directive 2011/98/EU on a single application procedure for a single permit for third-country nationals to reside and work in the territory of a Member State.
The following dataset is collected under this framework:
Single Permits issued by type of decision, reason and length of validity (migr_ressing).
Directive 2011/98/EU was transposed at national level on 24 December 2018.
3.2. Classification system
Similar breakdowns as Eurostat.
See table 3.2. in annex ‘Quality report tables Single Permits’.
3.3. Coverage - sector
Migration and asylum – Residence permits statistics, Single Permits.
3.4. Statistical concepts and definitions
Similar breakdowns as Eurostat
See table 3.4. in annex ‘Quality report tables Single Permits’.
3.5. Statistical unit
As indicated in the specific guidelines, "residence permits statistics refers in general to the number of “persons” receiving the “residence permit”". Following this approach, the double-counting of the same person in the same table and for the same reference period should be avoided. In specific and rare situation, double counting is allowed (e.g. if a first single permit is issued in the beginning of the year, and it is followed by a renewal or a “change of status”, the double counting is allowed in the total of single permits issued (first single permit + change of status or renewal)).
3.6. Statistical population
See table 3.6. in annex ‘Quality report tables Single Permits’.
3.7. Reference area
Belgium.
3.8. Coverage - Time
See table 3.8. in annex ‘Quality report tables Single Permits’.
3.9. Base period
Not applicable.
Number of persons.
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 are accessible on the website of the Immigration Office (Permis unique | IBZ).
The Federal Public Service Home Affairs was officially designated as Other national statistical authoritiy (Other-national-statistical-authorities) and was nominated as responsible for the transmission of residence permits' statistics including statistics on single permits.
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.
7.1. Confidentiality - policy
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:
No press releases on the topic of asylum statistics.
10.2. Dissemination format - Publications
Annual publications on single permits are accessible from 2018 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.
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 a dedicated methodology section available on the website of the Immigration Office.
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 a dedicated methodology section available on the website of the Immigration Office.
Compilation of data is performed following the guidelines and instructions provided by Eurostat at EU level and Statbel at national level.
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 quality of these statistics increased dramatically in 2022 due to the creation of a new application to register applications for single permit in the second part of 2021.
12.1. Relevance - User Needs
The statistics collected are widely used in official publications and by a wide range of users at national, European and International level.
The Single Permits statistics produced are regularly 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 asylum and immigration procedures, and the projection of the future population and labour force.
At European level, the main users of Single permits 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.
At national level, the following national institutions and administration entities can be mentioned in this context: Immigration Office, Cabinet Ministers, Federal Migration Centre, regional administrations, academic researchers...
12.2. Relevance - User Satisfaction
Not available.
12.3. Completeness
See table 12.3. in annex ‘Quality report tables Single Permits’.
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, the database on Single Permits are confronted each month to measure error.
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. In addition, statistics on flow and stocks are confronted to identify missing elements.
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
Single Permit data are delivered on time.
See table 14.2. in annex ‘Quality report tables Single Permits’.
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 Single Permits’.
15.2.1. Length of comparable time series
Not applicable.
15.3. Coherence - cross domain
These statistics are related to statistics on first residence permit for work and coherence of both is checked.
15.3.1. Coherence - sub annual and annual statistics
Not applicable (no sub annual statistics).
15.3.2. Coherence - National Accounts
Not applicable.
15.4. Coherence - internal
First permits, renewals and changes of status are coming from the same source and are therefore coherent.
Single Permit statistics 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:
error of transmission (wrong reference period, errors in data compilation…),
methodological improvements or introduction of new data sources,
negative assessment of data quality after transmission (normally, the assessment is performed before transmission, but, exceptionally, new elements appear after transmission).
Due to the development of a new dedicated application for registering applications for single permit during 2021 and the recent development of statistical procedures using these data, some data were revised recently for 2022 and 2023 reference years.
17.2. Data revision - practice
See table 17.2. in annex ‘Quality report tables Single Permits’.
17.2.1. Data revision - average size
Not applicable.
18.1. Source data
See table 18.1. in annex ‘Quality report tables Single Permits’.
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 first permits, changes of status and renewals;
checking the consistency between single permit data and data on residence permit for work and study;
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 from the listed sources are imported in a data warehouse where they are linked at individual level (when possible/necessary). Data are subsequently treated using a statistical software (SAS).
Data collection on Single Permits statistics based on Article 15 of Directive 2011/98/EU on a single application procedure for a single permit for third-country nationals to reside and work in the territory of a Member State.
The following dataset is collected under this framework:
Single Permits issued by type of decision, reason and length of validity (migr_ressing).
Directive 2011/98/EU was transposed at national level on 24 December 2018.
25 June 2025
Similar breakdowns as Eurostat
See table 3.4. in annex ‘Quality report tables Single Permits’.
As indicated in the specific guidelines, "residence permits statistics refers in general to the number of “persons” receiving the “residence permit”". Following this approach, the double-counting of the same person in the same table and for the same reference period should be avoided. In specific and rare situation, double counting is allowed (e.g. if a first single permit is issued in the beginning of the year, and it is followed by a renewal or a “change of status”, the double counting is allowed in the total of single permits issued (first single permit + change of status or renewal)).
See table 3.6. in annex ‘Quality report tables Single Permits’.
Belgium.
Calendar year.
Accuracy is currently considered as good.
Number of persons.
Data from the listed sources are imported in a data warehouse where they are linked at individual level (when possible/necessary). Data are subsequently treated using a statistical software (SAS).
See table 18.1. in annex ‘Quality report tables Single Permits’.
Immigration Office publishes data relating to on single permits monthly and annually.
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 Single Permits’.
