Benefits of a Student Permit
Before you transition to a search year permit, there are some benefits to being on a student permit. For example, you may want to utilize your student status to apply for student internships. KU Leuven’s career zone portal includes many internship positions exclusive to students due to the financial benefits for employers. If you graduate in June and your residence permit is valid until October, you can continue working in a student job. You can find the rules for summer student jobs here. Internships are one way to strengthen your odds of finding work after your studies. You can also use KU Leuven’s Stuvo services to attend job info sessions and workshops to prepare for a student internship. I’d recommend inquiring to your university to about career transition information, as many universities have a variety of resources available.
Another tip to consider is that as a student, you can take advantage of heavily subsidized Dutch courses with ILT, the language institute of KU Leuven. If you’re looking to prepare for the labor market, learning Dutch is a crucial and valuable skill. There are summer courses available as well, but they fill up quickly, so be sure to check ahead of time. While you can receive subsidies for language courses on the search year permit, it can be difficult to find employment without knowledge of Dutch or juggle searching for a job while enrolled in Dutch classes.
What is a Search Year Permit?
As of 2021, the Belgian government rolled out a search-year permit to provide a twelve-month grace period for recent graduates and researchers to find work in the labor market in Belgium without salary thresholds or additional permit requirements. Ideally, the search year allows you to boost your job profile through relevant work experiences, give an employer time to sponsor you for a single permit, or find another suitable alternative to stay in Belgium.
Here are several things to consider for your search permit application, while you’re on the search year, and how to establish more permanent residency.
How do I Prove My Financial Means?
Once you’ve decided to apply for the search year permit, the most time-consuming step will be proving your financial solvency, or that you can support yourself financially during your search year. For most international students without a financial sponsor or substantial income, this is through a blocked bank account with a fixed amount of money deposited monthly into your account. A blocked account is a bank account held by a third party that deposits a fixed monthly sum of money into your existing Belgian bank account. To initiate a blocked account as a student, you send the required amount to the third party to hold the funds for you, and then your funds are dispersed in monthly increments. This is to prove that you have the means to support yourself while staying in Belgium.
If you’re an international student at KU Leuven, the easiest way to prove financial solvency is to initiate or renew a blocked account with KU Leuven, which as of 2024 costs 12,100€ (1,000€ per month, with a 100€ administrative fee).
If you are an international whose home currency is not in euros, you may want to consider the timing of your currency exchange. For a conversion as large as 12,100 euros, the currency exchange rate can have a substantial impact on how much value you get for your home currency, not including any possible bank fees.
Some digital banks, such as Wise or Revolut, offer services such as auto conversions, where you can set your exchange to trigger at a preferential rate. The more time you allow to exchange your currency, the better your chance of getting a good rate.
Do I Need to Change My Residence?
Are you currently living in a student residence? If so, you will need to confirm whether your accommodation allows you to stay during your search year permit period. Many accommodations are only available to students, so inform your landlord ahead of time that you will transition to a search year permit.
While housing websites like Kotwijs.be are exclusively for student rooms, Facebook Marketplace groups often include housing for students and non-students. If you are required to move, report your new address no earlier than two weeks before your move, and no later than eight days after your move.
When moving, it may be a good idea to find a flexible contract in case you must relocate for work. Some contracts allow tenants to move with a few months prior notice, or to find a subleaser.
I’m on the search year permit. Now what?
There are several paths you can choose to work toward a more permanent residency status. Here are three of the most common paths.
1. Find an employer to sponsor you on a single permit. A single permit is the combined work and residence document that allows non-EEA nationals to work and live in Belgium. Make sure to do your research on the permit conditions, including the minimum salary threshold for a single permit, the duration of the application process, and the paperwork required. The better informed you are of the requirements, the less potential stress for an employer to sponsor you.
For many recent graduates, their work experience, resume, and language skills may not be strong enough for some employers. The search year gives you not only time to build these skills but also the resources and assistance.
In Flanders, VDAB, the public employment service, is one valuable tool to strengthen your job profile. You can meet with a VDAB mediator before you have officially graduated to prepare for your search year permit. Once you are officially on a search year permit, you can apply for a voucher to receive personalized job coaching, which includes resume workshops, interview training, assistance finding Dutch classes, and access to an exclusive job portal with openings in Belgium.
2. Apply for the Professional card, an option for freelancers. A professional card allows you to stay in Belgium for a maximum of three years as a self-employed person. Resources to help you start your own freelance business are available as well, including Vlaio, the agency for Innovation and Entrepreneurship in Flanders, or via the Freelancers in Belgium community, where you’ll find peer support and informative events.
3. Apply for a family reunification or legal cohabitation permit. If you have family in Belgium and will live with them, or in a legally registered partnership, you can apply for a family reunification permit. Under this permit status, you can also work in the Belgian job market as long as your partner is an EEA national, but are subject to certain restrictions, such as your family remaining in Belgium or your partner keeping their job.
Remember, each one of these applications takes time to complete, so while a year might seem like a long time, it’s in your best interest to start your long-term paperwork as early as possible. For example, a single permit can take 3-4 months to process!
Final Tips
While you’re looking for work, it can be easy to fall into doom scrolling on Linkedin. However, because internationals face unique hurdles in finding employment, here are a few common strategies that internationals find work best.
- Attend networking events and reach out to people in your field to schedule career interviews - a great place to start is networking on LinkedIn to find people you’d like to connect with - perhaps they have your dream job and you’d like to ask them how they got there.
- Do your research on permit requirements: make sure you know the minimum salary threshold for a single permit, the duration of the application process, and the paperwork required. Take the stress out of permit sponsorship for the employer by informing yourself.
- Make friends with locals! Many employment opportunities come from within your existing network. Speak about your skills and passions to your friends and see if they have connections.
- Start early with your Dutch practice! It will multiply your chances at the job market. Don’t let the unavailability of Dutch classes stop you from learning. Utilize resources such as KU Leuven’s online learning platform Nedbox or language exchanges through Pangaea’s language tables or IHL’s “Bite of Dutch” sessions. But above all, my best advice is to pay attention to your surroundings! Use context clues to decipher the train’s conductor’s announcement, the advertisement in the shop, or the song on the radio. Speak as frequently as possible and embrace the miscommunications. Don’t be offended if locals speak English back to you; they’re often trying to accommodate you.
While the job market can be demoralizing at times, there are many people and resources to support you in your pathway to finding suitable employment. The International House of Leuven is here to support you through various events, so don’t hesitate to reach out for help when you need it. Good luck out there, and try your best to enjoy the process!