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Immigration to Belgium
If your husband currently holds a UK a passport he doesn't need a visa but that could change come Brexit. He's entitled under freedom of movement to live or work here. He will need to register with his commune once he's here and they will want to see how he supports himself. I'm unclear about you and unless one of has work confirmed I'm not clear how easy it would be for you to simply get a visa and come.
I believe you can apply for a visa as a spouse, though how that would work with your husband being a British citizen in Belgium, I don't know. You might also like to look in to your US tax obligations once you have left USA and the financial discrimination you and your husband will face outside of the USA. Many are only now finding out the hard way due to FATCA.
Your husband needs to be able to demonstrate that he can support the two of you. This means that he has a pension, or a job, or is self-employed (not easy to set up) to has a small fortune in funds held at a bank in an EU country. Any income has to meet certain minima to ensure that you won't become a charge on Belgian social security funds. You both need to demonstrate health care cover as well, which would be met by having a job or being self-employed and might be met by having a pension (joining a Belgian mutuality of your choice in each case) or by having insurance. You would be eligible as his spouse and would be able to work.
This will all change in March 2019 but it seems unlikely that existing residents would be expelled.
As Mike has said, your American citizenship will bring with it considerable negative implications for the pair of you, particularly in financial matters.
"What type of visa will I need?"
Ask the Belgian Embassy in the US.
If any answer that you get here should be wrong, you could have problems when you arrive. 'But I was told on Q&A' will not actually help at the Zaventem Immigration desk!
Nothing. You arrive in Belgium with marriage docs expect to have translated.
If the girls national has no job you bring proof of self support for 2 of you.
Choose somewhere to live known to be more friendly when registering with Eu nationals.
That s it really.
Check the website for the closest Belgian consulate or embassy to where you live. All the info is there.
if you are of retirement age and can prove that you can support yourselves then you can apply to retire in Belgium which is the easiest.
The fact that your husband has European citizenship (Brexit's going to take a long time and could very well never happen) means that you have a right to be with him here in Belgium, but again, you need to prove that you won't be a financial burden on the Belgian State. Once you have lived here 5 years you can stay forever regardless of any change in your marital state etc.
Just with what you will save in medical costs and medical insurance costs will make the move rewarding (my insurance premium here is €30 a quarter, I pay an additional €30 a quarter for comprehensive dental.
Example: A doctor's visit is €24 and my insurance reimburses $17 of that).
But should you get a decent job, expect to pay more than half your salary in taxes. The cheap things are not cheap due to the waving of a magic wand.
As long as we have a "US person" asking questions about moving to Belgium (or anywhere for that matter) then I will bring up the appalling US tax system and FATCA before they fall foul of it, because 99.9 percent have NO idea what it is and what it means.
It cannot be over stated that if you want any kind of normal financial life outside of the USA, both the USA and your host country are going to make it close to impossible.
You will be living with discrimination here as financial institutions seek to avoid US persons, and privacy and anti discrimination laws have been suspended for any "US person" as Belgian banks send your details to the USA via the Belgian government.
It was that, or the USA shut down our banks.
The USA will expect you to live with an unfathomable, expensive and byzantine tax and reporting regime that treats you as a criminal who must prove their innocence, and will treat much of your overseas financial life as clandestine potential US tax evasion. Your pension, your life insurance.
The fines for errors and omissions are simply monstrous, the chances of errors and omissions almost inevitable.
Penalties for failing to file FBAR to the USA start at $10,000 and quickly rise to $50,000 or 50 percent of the unreported account, and that account can be your pension where no taxes were avoided or evaded.
Millions of US persons around the world have never heard of FBAR, let alone filed one. Keep in mind, this is for failure to report your local tax paid accounts where no tax for the USA was avoided or evaded, the 50 percent confiscation is for a reporting failure.
Now FATCA is routing out these people, they are learning the hard way.
It does not get any better.
This monstrous regime is applied to anything you can sign and anything with your name on it. No company is going to let you in to a signatory role on the books, because the entire company has to report to the IRS. Anybody marrying an American needs his/her bumps felt as the IRS gets it's grubby paws in to any joint assets and requires reporting of the husbands income and assets on a joint account. Business is close to impossible unless you are a part of a US corporation with a legal team.
Heck, you can't even pass on your Belgian estate to your British husband because guess what? The IRS does not allow you to pass that estate to an "alien spouse" tax free.
Sell your joint home in the UK? Your husband will discover the IRS want capital gains and as far as the IRS is concerned, it's all your capital gain. Even if that gain is a phantom gain caused by currency exchange rates.
I have a had a couple of people think I get far too excited about this, but both proved that they have no idea how this is playing out with ludicrous claims that this was simply a couple of hours of paperwork, no biggie. They are either lying or are not reporting as they should, and many fall in to the latter category.
Of course, some claim it's nonsense because it sounds ridiculous and impossible. It does, and I wish it was.
If I can prevent one person falling in to the trap that I have seen ruin lives, then let them ridicule me all they like.
I am one of the people that Mickey thinks is a liar and knows nothing about the US tax system. So just a word of advice, if you are planning to move outside the US, you should take proper financial advice before you leave to get your affairs in order. Done properly it will save you a lot of angst later on.
Clearly Mickey got his affairs all wrong, and rather than listen to actual experience and reason, spends his time searching the depths of the internet to find crazies like himself to justify his situation.
Fortunately, life isn't really like that and there are millions of US citizens happily living abroad without any additional problems more than taking an afternoon and perhaps an appointment or two with an accountant every year to stay in order.
@anon
I'm not from the US but I'm aware of the rules which Mike regularly rants over.
What I don't understand is 'taking an afternoon and perhaps an appointment or two with an accountant every year to stay in order.' Why do US citizens accept this and do they question why the US is one of only a couple of countries in the world which impose this regime on their citizens?
I'm British and have spent half of my life working outside the UK. What I have earned outside the UK whilst living and working outside the UK has nothing whatsoever to do with the UK tax authorities.
And BTW, I don't think Mike is from the US - I'm sure that he has said on a previous post that he is British.
Kasseistamper: the IRS is all powerful in the US (for instance they were the guys who got Al Capone when no else could) and it is outrageous that the US expects its citizens living abroad to pay taxes twice, once to the host country and once to the US, on the same income (especially for services which they are not receiving since they are not living there), but there's not much anyone can do to change it.
However this is something that expat Americans have to deal with anywhere in the world, not just in Belgium.
If one is really perturbed by this, one can always renounce one's American citizenship (in Belgium once one has lived here 5 years one can apply for Belgian citizenship).
