Paper residence card for Kid

Well you cannot travel on any residents' cards so the fact it is not an electronic one is not relevant. You must travel outside Belgium on your national passports, or if you are EU, on your national ID cards.

Thanks tervurener!

Hello Vinit,

I live in Belgium as an expat for the last 5 years. Me & my wife have electronic cards (Residence Permit A) which is renewed yearly. My kid was always given a paper ID card during our yearly renewal process.

I sent you a PM with my experience so far traveling with those documents.  Hope it helps you.  (that is also the experience of numerous of my friends who are also expats here, who are traveling inside & outside of EU with these documents).

And as said above, it is always your passport + the resident card that makes your travel document.

Your passport is your identification and residence permit (electronic for adults, paper version for kids under 12) is the replacement of your long-stay visa.

BR
Aneesh

Hi everybody,

I would advise you to put the source of your information here on the forum, so that everybody can verify if the information shared are reliable or not.

Thank you,

Priscilla

My response was based on my experience the last 5 years traveling to India and entering back in Belgium and my study of the documentation available in official websites.


The paper ID cards for kids (which are called Certificat d'identité provisoireare) may not be considered as valid documents by some airlines or airports (may be they are not used to that type of card). You may want to point them to the below documentation from Belgian government.

Here is the official info: http://www.ibz.rrn.fgov.be/fileadmin/us … belges.pdf   

(If you open and read the PDF, there is a list of countries that accept the paper ID card)

There is also a provision to get an electronic ID: http://www.ibz.rrn.fgov.be/fr/documents … e/kids-id/

Associated laws: http://www.ibz.rrn.fgov.be/fr/documents … mentation/

Some info in English (how to obtain e-card): https://www.brussels.be/artdet.cfm?id=5436

You can see that the electronic ID (kids-id) has more acceptance than the paper ID (Certificat d'identité provisoireare). But that does not imply that the paper ID + passport is not a valid travel document. It is definitely valid in the countries that marked as accepting "Certificat d'identité provisoireare" in the pdf that I pointed to.

Having all these said, do keep in mind that this is just a discussion forum, answers are based on our experience and what we find in official documents - sometimes official website information can also be outdated.

So, for an official statement (if you need one or if you expect problems with some airline or airport - because you heard someone had issues or you yourself faced issues with that airline/airport), pro-actively contact the embassy/consulate of your destination (may be send them a picture of the document) and get an official email response or so stating the document you have (+your passport) is accepted as a travel document in their border controls / checkin counters.

Some more info on this.. I checked with the commune further on this subject..

Kids e-ID is only for Belgian (nationality) kids and not for expats.

For all expat (non-EU) kids who has residence permit here, the white card (paper one) is provided as the permit (as we all know this is like 1 year visa - for adults it is electronic card). According to commune officer, the paper-card is accepted all across the world (outward immigration) as a valid visa to travel to Belgium. In all schengen entry points (inward immigration) this is accepted as a valid visa too. If some officer does not accept it, they should check the official documentation or consult their seniors, as per what I am told.

In my experience (last 5 years) it was always accepted. We take BRU - Dubai/AbuDhabi/Doha - India and back twice a year. I never had issues in Indian airports while departing for the final destination of Brussels. Also no issues faced in Dubai/AbuDhabi/Doha while we boarded our connection to Brussels (Airline agents check documents before boarding). In Brussels border control, of course no issues at all.

Additionally you may keep a family composition and a printout of http://www.ibz.rrn.fgov.be/fileadmin/us … belges.pdf this with you.

Some airline agents / immigration officers are inexperienced and they may not have seen such a paper residence permit yet and that may be the reason they are not sure to allow or not. In all the cases I heard from my friends, they were allowed after consulting with a senior officer or so.

IMPORTANT: As of now, only exception is while transiting through London (or any other airport in UK) where they have different policy - the concept of transit visa. They don't accept the paper residence permit for kids. And I don't know what is the solution for this.

@aneesh and others,

any experience with transit through London heatrow (british airways) with paper residence cards for kids? as it is not mentioned under expections list for transit visa.

Is it allowed or british airways denies boarding for the kid?

Thanks in adavnce for your response.

Well, since the Brexit is done, the ID card is not enough anymore to travel to the UK, we need to use our passport (EU included) to cross the border... but here you're talking about a transit...

I guess it would be a good idea to contact the embassy of England in Brussels to make sure or consider doing a passport for your kid, I can't find much info on https://www.gov.uk/ about that specific case

@Aj@y

We are in similar situation. were you able to travel with kids paper id ?.

Regards,

Damodar

Ravi