Studying in Belgium from Syria.

What are the steps to study in Belgium from Syria?

1. 1Secure an admission in a recognised institution of the Fédération Wallonie-Bruxelles (university, haute école or higher arts school): for universities, the form opens in mid-February and must be lodged by 31 March at the latest.
2. 2Have your school documents certified as true copies, have them translated by a sworn translator, then go through the four-stage legalisation chain that ends at the Belgian Consulate General in Beirut.
3. 3Apply for the equivalence of the baccalaureate with the Equivalence Service of the Fédération Wallonie-Bruxelles, between mid-November and 15 July, for EUR 150, with a translation into French.
4. 4Lodge the long-stay visa application (type D, study purpose) on VisaOnWeb, transfer the EUR 251 fee to the Immigration Office, then file the application in person at the TLScontact centre in Beirut, with biometrics, a long-stay application also being possible to lodge in Istanbul or in Amman.
5. 5Plan the first-year budget: a registration fee of EUR 1,194, without the supplementary fee of EUR 4,175 from which Syria is exempt at university.

How do you enrol at university and get your Syrian baccalaureate recognised?

For a first university enrolment, the Syrian applicant (non-resident, non-EU) lodges their admission application online themselves, with their own contact details: the form opens in mid-February and closes by 31 March at the latest for the September start of the year (31 March 2026 for the 2026-2027 year). Non-refundable application fees of EUR 200 apply: some universities deduct them from the registration fee when the admission is accepted, others do not. No decree imposes proof of French for a bachelor's programme, apart from teacher training courses; each university may nevertheless ask for one, often at B2 level, when the diploma was not obtained in French, which is the case of a Syrian diploma. Master's programmes taught entirely in English do exist in French-speaking Belgium: the language of instruction is checked programme by programme before targeting an institution.

The Syrian baccalaureate diploma must be recognised through an equivalence issued by the Equivalence Service of the Fédération Wallonie-Bruxelles. Syria comes under the sheet for countries with reduced fees and with translation: the fees are EUR 150 instead of EUR 400, non-refundable, and documents in Arabic must be translated into French. No specific case is provided for Syria: the file is the standard file, namely the baccalaureate diploma and the transcript as a certified true copy, proof of access to higher education, an identity document, a motivation letter in French and the original proof of payment. Filing opens around mid-November and closes on 15 July (from 15 November 2025 to 15 July 2026 for the 2026 start of the year; the 2027-2028 dates are to be confirmed on equivalences.cfwb.be), for processing announced as 4 to 12 weeks at the very least. For a non-EU file, an equivalence carrying restrictions remains frequent; those restrictions are lifted by passing the DAES examination.

Where and how does a Syrian national lodge a student visa application?

The Belgian Consulate General in Beirut is competent for Syria, and Syrian nationals apply there for all types of visas through TLScontact, the embassy's official service provider since 15 September 2021. For the long-stay visa alone, the official competence table also provides for filing in Istanbul or in Amman: the choice of place is decided case by case. The centre is on the ground floor of the Opera Building, Martyrs' Square, in the centre of Beirut; filing takes place by appointment from Monday to Friday from 8.30 am to 1 pm, and passports are collected from 8 am to 3 pm. The application is first lodged on VisaOnWeb, then the appointment is booked online and the applicant attends in person for the filing and the biometrics, before tracking the progress of the file online. TLScontact publishes a warning about appointment booking fraud, and the embassy points out that no entity other than TLScontact is mandated to receive or process visa applications, any person claiming otherwise acting in bad faith. The appointment is booked only on the service provider's website.

Two points deserve to be prepared in advance. First, payment: at the Beirut centre, the only accepted method is cash in US dollars, with the exact change and with new, unmarked banknotes, the fees being non-refundable. Second, language: only documents written in Dutch, French, German or English are accepted for the visa. Documents to be legalised by the Belgian post, once legalised by the Lebanese Ministry of Foreign Affairs, are filed at TLScontact at the same time as the long-stay visa application. The EUR 251 administrative fee is paid exclusively by transfer in euros to the account of the Immigration Office, by the applicant or by a third party; without proof of payment, the application is inadmissible.

Do you need to apostille or legalise your Syrian documents?

Syria is not party to the Hague Apostille Convention: the apostille does not exist for Syrian documents, which follow a classic four-stage legalisation, the longest chain among the countries served from Beirut. The order is mandatory: Syrian Ministry of Foreign Affairs, then the Syrian embassy in Beirut, then the Lebanese Ministry of Foreign Affairs, then the Belgian Consulate General in Beirut, whose filing goes through TLScontact since January 2023. A translation into French or Dutch is compulsory. The processing of Syrian documents by the Belgian post is announced at seven calendar days, but that time frame covers only the last stage of the chain. The post publishes this procedure for Syrian civil status documents; for school documents, we have the applicable route confirmed before starting the chain.

Translation follows the general rules for countries not party to the Convention: a local sworn translator whose stamp and signature straddle the original and the translation, the translator's signature legalised by the competent authority, then the translation itself legalised by the Lebanese Ministry of Foreign Affairs, whose stamp must be in French, before going to the Belgian post; it is the original translation that is handed to the Equivalence Service. Certified true copies follow the same four-stage chain as the original document, starting from certification by an officer of the municipal administration. The number of documents to be moved around and the cost per legalisation make the initial sorting decisive: we draw up the list of the items genuinely needed before starting the chain.

How much do studies in Belgium cost for a Syrian student?

Syria is listed in annex 2 of ARES circular no. 2026-001 of 12 February 2026, which lists the countries ranked at the bottom of the human development index. Its nationals are therefore exempt, at university, from the supplementary fee of EUR 4,175 from 2026-2027. That exemption does not remove the registration fee: the student remains liable for it, set at EUR 1,194 for 2026-2027 by the programme decree of 5 June 2026, published in the Moniteur belge on 24 June 2026. In a haute école, the applicable regime is checked with the institution.

The regime is different for Syrians already in Belgium under subsidiary protection. The decree of 11 April 2014 assimilates to a Belgian student any person recognised as a refugee or stateless, or benefiting from subsidiary or temporary protection, and the supplementary fee does not target assimilated students: they pay the ordinary registration fee, according to the same scale as a Belgian student, including its reduced rates (EUR 835, EUR 374 or free of charge for holders of a Fédération Wallonie-Bruxelles grant) where the household's economic situation warrants it and where they meet the residence conditions for study allowances, that is residing in Belgium or having a family working there. As a benchmark, according to the most recent breakdown published by the Council of Rectors (CRef, 2021-2022), 99 students of Syrian nationality were enrolled in the six universities of the Fédération Wallonie-Bruxelles.

Why get support from Syria?

As for the many international students we support, our role is to secure the sequence from end to end. The applicant lodges their own admission application and their own visa file, with their own contact details and their personal attendance at the Beirut centre: we prepare, we check and we orchestrate, we do not lodge in their place, and we sell neither appointments nor guarantors. On a Syrian file, what is at stake is the four-stage legalisation chain and the status applicable to the student, which changes the cost of the studies.

• Institution choice and building of the admission file within the window from mid-February to 31 March
• Equivalence of the Syrian baccalaureate steered through to the decision, including the route provided for people recognised as refugees or applying for refugee status
• Exact order of the four legalisation stages and of the sworn translations, between Syria, Lebanon and the Belgian post
• Preparation of the appointment at the TLScontact centre in Beirut and check of the documents before attending, accepted languages included
• Check of the applicable status, exemption under annex 2 or assimilation, and a costed first-year budget with a single point of contact