Belgium is set to tighten residency checks on around 120,000 low-income pensioners from 1 November, a move that elderly and anti-poverty organisations have criticised as placing an “administrative ankle monitor” on beneficiaries, Het Nieuwsblad reports.
The measures concern the Income Guarantee for the Elderly (IGO/GRAPA), a federal benefit that tops up the income of people whose pensions are particularly low. The scheme costs the federal government around €1 billion per year.
Federal Pensions Minister Jan Jambon (N-VA) has informed the Federal Advisory Council for Older People that checks on approximately 120,000 beneficiaries will be significantly tightened.
“With these stricter rules, pensioners are effectively being fitted with an administrative ankle monitor,” elderly and anti-poverty organisations said, according to the newspaper.
Under the new rules, IGO recipients will be allowed to spend a maximum of 21 days abroad per year, down from 29 currently. Beneficiaries will also have to notify the pensions service of every overnight stay abroad, rather than only trips lasting five days or more.
Checks extended to over-80s
The reform will also change how authorities verify whether beneficiaries actually reside in Belgium, one of the conditions for receiving the allowance.
Currently, unannounced checks can involve a postal worker delivering a registered letter. If the beneficiary is not at home, they must personally collect and sign for the letter at the post office, providing evidence that they are in Belgium.
Until now, people over the age of 80 were exempt from this form of control, an exemption that will now be abolished. “Even 100-year-olds may soon have to rush to the post office if, for example, they happened to miss the postman because they had gone to the bakery,” Herman Fonck of senior citizens' organisation Okra told Het Nieuwsblad.
Jambon defended the stricter checks, arguing that the benefit is financed entirely through taxpayers' money and that compliance with residency requirements therefore needs to be verified.
He pointed to checks conducted by the pensions service in 2024 and 2025. Of 143 IGO beneficiaries who died abroad, 86% had not declared their stay outside Belgium, according to figures cited by the minister. Among beneficiaries over 80, the proportion reached 94%. “The rules are therefore frequently not being followed,” Jambon said.
However, the minister stressed that very elderly beneficiaries staying in hospital or residential care homes, as well as people with severe disabilities, will not be subject to checks through the postal service. He also clarified that short holidays abroad will not count towards the 21-day annual limit.
