I am US citizen living in Belgium with a residence permit since May 2006. I am thinking to apply for a Belgian Citizenship later this year as it will be little over 3 years of legal stay in Belgium, which is the time required before applying for a Belgian citizenship.

I also understand that I can retain both a US and a Belgian Citizenship and both countries recognise Dual Citizenship (Belgian started to recognise it since April 28, 2008).

My questions is: I read sometimes back, probably on this site, that if the application process is started at the Belgian Embassy or Consulate in the US, the process is comparitively easier and speedier compared to starting the process in Belgium. Is this true?

In my personal experience, Belgium is quite fair and helpful but bureaucratic matters are still tedious and govt. officials are snobbish, compared to the US at least. I would like your opinion on this matter and correct me if I'm wrong anywhere.
Thanks

 

Thank you alyehoud for taking the time to clarify this.

I was always of the notion that it needs to be only 3 years of legal stay and then you can apply for nationality. Reason was because the belgian federal public service website says that for 'naturalisation' one must have lived for 3 years prior to applying for nationality. To be fair with you, at another place they also do mention that one needs to live for 7 years to apply for nationality.

Two conflicting answers from the same source and that being the most reliable source!

Do you have any ideas?

These are the links for the different answers from the same site:

http://www.diplomatie.be/en/services/na ... XTID=42519 and http://www.diplomatie.be/en/services/na ... XTID=42523

But thanks nonethelss for providing the info that you did.