Studying in Belgium from Mauritania.

The steps to study in Belgium from Mauritania

1. 1Obtain an admission in a recognised institution in French-speaking Belgium, lodging the application yourself with your own contact details.
2. 2Check the language in which the baccalaureate was issued and have a sworn translation into French drawn up if necessary.
3. 3Have the diploma recognised through an equivalence with the Equivalence Service of the Fédération Wallonie-Bruxelles, at the reduced fee of EUR 150.
4. 4Have the certified true copy drawn up by the municipal administration or town hall, have it legalised by the Mauritanian Ministry of Foreign Affairs, then by the competent Belgian post, which we have confirmed before any lodging.
5. 5Lodge the long-stay visa application on Visa On Web, book the appointment with TLScontact Dakar very early and lodge the file there in person.

Who is competent for a Mauritanian file?

The Mauritanian particularity holds in one sentence: three different Belgian posts are involved depending on the step. For the long-stay visa, the official visa competence table of the SPF Affaires étrangères (Federal Public Service Foreign Affairs), in its version of 2 September 2026, designates Dakar, with TLScontact as external service provider; the Dakar embassy confirms it in its own table, which covers Senegal, Cabo Verde, the Gambia, Guinea, Guinea-Bissau and Mauritania. For the Schengen short stay, Belgium is represented by the French embassy in Nouakchott. For the general consular jurisdiction, it is the Belgian Embassy in Rabat which states that it is competent for Morocco and Mauritania, with an honorary consulate in Nouakchott.

That honorary consulate solves nothing for a student: the SPF recalls that the competences of honorary consulates are more limited than those of embassies and consulates general, that you must approach the embassy in the first instance, and that they do not hold the legalisation competence. A Mauritanian candidate therefore organises their file around a trip to Dakar, and not around a local counter.

Admission, equivalence and language of the diploma

For a first university enrolment, a Mauritanian candidate is a non-resident candidate from outside the European Union: the admission form opens in mid-February and is lodged by 31 March at the latest for an academic year starting in September of the same calendar year, with an application fee of EUR 200, non-refundable, deducted from the registration fee by some universities but not by all. Quota-limited programmes follow a separate procedure and a calendar of their own.

The Mauritanian baccalaureate falls under the Ministry of National Education and of the Reform of the Education System, which described in 2022 an examination divided into five streams: modern literature, traditional literature, mathematics, natural sciences and technical streams. The Equivalence Service does not publish a sheet specific to Mauritania: the country falls under the "countries with reduced fees" sheet, which brings the administrative fees down to EUR 150 instead of EUR 400, non-refundable, paid in the applicant's name. The file includes the diploma and the transcript as certified true and legalised copies, proof of access to higher education, an identity document and a motivation letter in French. Lodging opens around mid-November and closes on 15 July, postponed to 14 September where the results are proclaimed after 10 July (article 5 of the royal decree of 20 July 1971), on official proof of the date of proclamation, dates to be confirmed on equivalences.cfwb.be, for processing of 4 to 12 weeks at the very least.

On the command of French, no decree imposes a level to enter a bachelor's degree, except for the bachelor's degrees in teacher training. Each university remains free to require proof, often at B2 level, when the diploma was not obtained in French. A candidate from an Arabic-speaking stream therefore does not automatically benefit from the exemption based on the language of studies: the question arises institution by institution, and is dealt with when choosing the programme.

The student visa at TLScontact Dakar

The application is prepared on Visa On Web, then lodged in person at the TLScontact centre in Dakar, immeuble Doudou Sène, zone 10, Ngor Almadies, open Monday to Friday from 8:30 a.m. to 2:30 p.m., with so-called Prime Time slots from 8 a.m. to 8:30 a.m. and the return of passports at the same hours. An exception exists for holders of a scholarship from the Belgian State, from Belgian administrations, from international bodies and from Belgian universities, who are received directly at the embassy on Wednesday morning between 8 a.m. and 12 noon, or on the first following working day if the embassy is closed that Wednesday, with the Visa On Web form completed beforehand and the fees paid by transfer before the appointment.

The Dakar embassy displays a warning that it would be dishonest to pass over in silence: all the information and all the forms are free, you should not pay for information or forms, nor work with agencies or intermediaries, nor rely on facilitators around the embassies, and you should always check the required items yourself on the official website. That warning targets a precise and very real practice: the resale of appointments, information, forms and paid guarantors. We take it on board rather than getting around it. In practice, the candidate books their own appointment on the service provider's website, lodges their application with their own contact details and appears in person; the only sums paid to the authorities are the visa fee, the administrative fee and the service fees; we sell neither appointments, nor guarantors, nor a promise of result. The embassy also recalls that the websites of the Immigration Office, of the embassy and of TLScontact are the only official sources on Belgian visas: those are the sources we work from too.

Legalising your Mauritanian documents

Mauritania is not party to the Hague Apostille Convention, unlike neighbouring Senegal, which acceded to it in 2022. The official legalisation tool of the SPF Affaires étrangères (Federal Public Service Foreign Affairs), when asked about Mauritania, answers that the document must be legalised and that you must contact the Belgian embassy or consulate competent for the region of issue. The first step, for its part, is certain: legalisation by the Mauritanian Ministry of Foreign Affairs, a prerequisite to any Belgian intervention. The Equivalence Service sets out step zero: the certified true copy must be drawn up by an official of the municipal administration or town hall, whose signature is then legalised by Foreign Affairs. Copies certified true by a school, the police, a notary, the post office or the Belgian embassy are refused.

As a benchmark, the procedure followed in Dakar gives the format to expect: prior legalisation by the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of the country of origin, online appointment with the embassy, lodging of the original document, payment in advance, about ten days of processing and a rate of 16,500 CFA francs per document, that is the EUR 25 of the Belgian federal tariff applied since 1 August 2026. A remote procedure exists, with the documents and the proof of payment sent by express courier. These elements give the order of magnitude, not the answer: it is the competent post that gives it.

How much do studies cost for a Mauritanian student?

The 2026-2027 enrolment fees in the Fédération Wallonie-Bruxelles are set at a full rate of EUR 1,194 (decree of 5 June 2026, published in the Moniteur belge on 24 June 2026). Non-assimilated students from outside the European Union add in principle a supplementary contribution of EUR 4,175 per year. Mauritania appears in annex 1 of ARES circular no. 2026-001 of 12 February 2026, the list of least developed countries: its nationals are exempt from it and still owe the enrolment fee of EUR 1,194. The circular applies to universities, from 2026-2027 onwards, and the ARES may update its annexes from one year to the next.

Mauritania, on the other hand, is neither among the ARES project partner countries nor among its scholarship partner countries for the 2022-2027 programme: those scholarships are not open to Mauritanian candidates. The financing of the stay therefore rests in practice on the blocked account of EUR 12,744 for twelve months or on a commitment to take charge, the guarantor having to justify EUR 2,217.47 net per month for themselves, plus EUR 1,062 per student taken in charge, amounts indexed on 1 September 2026. According to the latest breakdown published by the Conseil des rectrices et recteurs (CRef, table 1.3.1, 2021-2022), 10 students of Mauritanian nationality were enrolled in the six universities of the Fédération Wallonie-Bruxelles: the procedures are therefore rarely passed on from one student to the next, and each file is built on the texts rather than on a neighbour's experience.

Why get support from Mauritania

As for the many international students we support, our work here consists in bringing together what the administration has separated: one post for the visa, another for the consular jurisdiction, a third for the short stay, a legalisation chain to be confirmed, a possible sworn translation to be built in, and an appointment in Dakar that may come three months later. The candidate remains the author of their own steps, with their own contact details and their personal appearance; we prepare, check and orchestrate.

• Institution choice and building of the admission file before 31 March
• Equivalence steered through to the decision, language of the diploma and sworn translation included
• Belgian legalisation post confirmed with the embassies before any document is sent
• Back-planning set against the appointment waiting time in Dakar and the validity of the documents
• A single point of contact, in French, until your arrival in Belgium