Descent Stops at a Parent, and a Parent Born Abroad Has Five Years to Claim It
Answer
The general rule applies to you
No exception is recorded for citizens of Grenada on this topic. That is the answer, not a gap - everything below is the rule you get, unchanged.
116 exceptions recorded across 45 countries · none match Grenada to Belgium · Residency through ancestry
Belgian descent is written in article 8 of the nationality code, and it stops sooner than most readers expect. A child born in Belgium to a Belgian parent is Belgian. A child born abroad is Belgian if the Belgian parent was born in Belgium - but if that parent was also born abroad, the child is Belgian only where the parent made a declaration claiming it within five years of the birth, or where the child would otherwise hold no nationality at all by eighteen. There is no grandparent route: the article reaches a parent and goes no further. What the Act of 15 December 1980 does carry is a route back for people who lost Belgian nationality, and it is generous in one specific way - a foreigner who meets the conditions to recover it is admitted to stay as of right, without needing the twelve months of residence that recovery itself requires.
At a glance
- Born in Belgium to a Belgian parent
- Belgian
Article 8, § 1er, first paragraph, 1°, of the Code de la nationalité belge.
- Born abroad to a Belgian parent who was born in Belgium
- Belgian
Article 8, § 1er, first paragraph, 2°, a).
- Born abroad to a Belgian parent who was also born abroad
- Belgian only on a declaration made within five years of the birth, or if the child would otherwise hold no other nationality
Article 8, § 1er, first paragraph, 2°, b) and c). Limb c) is conditional: the nationality is kept only until it is shown, before eighteen, that a foreign one is held.
- A Belgian grandparent
- Not a route in the Code, which reaches a parent and stops
- Recovering a Belgian nationality you lost
- A declaration, after twelve months of principal residence in Belgium on uninterrupted legal residence, and holding an unlimited residence right
Article 24 of the Code de la nationalité belge.
- Residence while you do that
- Admitted of right, and without the twelve months
Article 10, § 1er, first paragraph, 2°, of the Act of 15 December 1980 waives both the twelve-month residence and the declaration itself for the purpose of being allowed to stay.
- Women who lost Belgian nationality by marriage
- Admitted of right to stay more than three months
Article 10, § 1er, first paragraph, 3°, of the Act of 15 December 1980, which is still on the statute book in those words.
What applies to you
Nothing changes for a citizen of Grenada
We have no rule recorded that treats your citizenship differently here, so the general rule above is the one that applies to you. That is an answer, not a gap.
What the law says
«Sont Belges: 1° l'enfant né en Belgique d'un auteur belge; 2° l'enfant né à l'étranger: a) d'un auteur belge né en Belgique ou dans des territoires soumis à la souveraineté belge ou confiés à l'administration de la Belgique; b) d'un auteur belge ayant fait dans un délai de cinq ans à dater de la naissance une déclaration réclamant, pour son enfant, l'attribution de la nationalité belge; c) d'un auteur belge, à condition que l'enfant ne possède pas, ou ne conserve pas jusqu'à l'âge de dix-huit ans ou son émancipation avant cet âge, une autre nationalité.»The whole of descent, in one paragraph. The difference between limb a) and limbs b) and c) is where the Belgian parent was born, which is not something the parent could change.
Read it at the sourceAbout this source
Belgium's consolidated federal legislation, served from the Moniteur belge site at two stable address forms: an ELI of the shape /eli/<type>/<yyyy>/<mm>/<dd>/<numac>/justel, and the older /cgi_loi/change_lg.pl query carrying the dossier number. Each record prints the date the consolidation is updated to, lists its archived versions, and marks in the body which amending Act inserted which words, with the Act identified in footnotes under the article.
Standing: Maintains the text in force
Cannot be cited for: The site is behind a web application firewall. A direct request from this project is answered with a JavaScript challenge page and a support ID, never the document, and the Bright Data proxy is refused at the CONNECT stage; only the extraction service returns text, and even then it refused two records outright - the French text of the Wetboek van economisch recht and the Code des impôts sur les revenus by its dossier number - while serving the Dutch and ELI forms of the same instruments. It may not be cited for the income tax code at all: the record for the Code des impôts sur les revenus 1992 states that updating was suspended in 2002, shows the text as at 9 April 2010, and carries no text of the Code. Dutch and French are both authentic and a Justel record serves one of them; a quotation from one says nothing about the wording of the other. Several instruments are printed as parallel regional versions of the same article - federal, Flemish, Walloon, Brussels, German-speaking Community - so an article number alone does not identify a text. The consolidations are unofficial: the Moniteur belge as published governs. Nothing regional is here: decrees and ordinances of the Regions and Communities, which decide work authorisations and self-employment, are published elsewhere.
We re-read it every 60 days. More about this source
«Celui qui a perdu la nationalité belge autrement que par déchéance peut, par une déclaration faite \[...\] conformément à l'article 15, la recouvrer aux conditions qu'il soit âgé d'au moins dix-huit ans \[1 , qu'il ait sa résidence principale en Belgique depuis au moins douze mois, sur la base d'un séjour légal ininterrompu, et qu'il soit, au moment de la déclaration, admis ou autorisé au séjour pour une durée illimitée»Recovery, and its three conditions: age, twelve months of principal residence on uninterrupted legal residence, and an unlimited residence right at the moment of the declaration.
Read it at the sourceAbout this source
Belgium's consolidated federal legislation, served from the Moniteur belge site at two stable address forms: an ELI of the shape /eli/<type>/<yyyy>/<mm>/<dd>/<numac>/justel, and the older /cgi_loi/change_lg.pl query carrying the dossier number. Each record prints the date the consolidation is updated to, lists its archived versions, and marks in the body which amending Act inserted which words, with the Act identified in footnotes under the article.
Standing: Maintains the text in force
Cannot be cited for: The site is behind a web application firewall. A direct request from this project is answered with a JavaScript challenge page and a support ID, never the document, and the Bright Data proxy is refused at the CONNECT stage; only the extraction service returns text, and even then it refused two records outright - the French text of the Wetboek van economisch recht and the Code des impôts sur les revenus by its dossier number - while serving the Dutch and ELI forms of the same instruments. It may not be cited for the income tax code at all: the record for the Code des impôts sur les revenus 1992 states that updating was suspended in 2002, shows the text as at 9 April 2010, and carries no text of the Code. Dutch and French are both authentic and a Justel record serves one of them; a quotation from one says nothing about the wording of the other. Several instruments are printed as parallel regional versions of the same article - federal, Flemish, Walloon, Brussels, German-speaking Community - so an article number alone does not identify a text. The consolidations are unofficial: the Moniteur belge as published governs. Nothing regional is here: decrees and ordinances of the Regions and Communities, which decide work authorisations and self-employment, are published elsewhere.
We re-read it every 60 days. More about this source
«2° l'étranger qui remplit les conditions prévues par le Code de la nationalité belge pour recouvrer la nationalité belge, sans qu'il soit requis qu'il ait sa résidence principale en Belgique depuis au moins douze mois et sans qu'il doive faire une déclaration de recouvrement de la nationalité belge;»The interlock. Someone who qualifies for recovery is let in to do it, and the provision says so by disapplying the twelve months.
Read it at the sourceAbout this source
Belgium's consolidated federal legislation, served from the Moniteur belge site at two stable address forms: an ELI of the shape /eli/<type>/<yyyy>/<mm>/<dd>/<numac>/justel, and the older /cgi_loi/change_lg.pl query carrying the dossier number. Each record prints the date the consolidation is updated to, lists its archived versions, and marks in the body which amending Act inserted which words, with the Act identified in footnotes under the article.
Standing: Maintains the text in force
Cannot be cited for: The site is behind a web application firewall. A direct request from this project is answered with a JavaScript challenge page and a support ID, never the document, and the Bright Data proxy is refused at the CONNECT stage; only the extraction service returns text, and even then it refused two records outright - the French text of the Wetboek van economisch recht and the Code des impôts sur les revenus by its dossier number - while serving the Dutch and ELI forms of the same instruments. It may not be cited for the income tax code at all: the record for the Code des impôts sur les revenus 1992 states that updating was suspended in 2002, shows the text as at 9 April 2010, and carries no text of the Code. Dutch and French are both authentic and a Justel record serves one of them; a quotation from one says nothing about the wording of the other. Several instruments are printed as parallel regional versions of the same article - federal, Flemish, Walloon, Brussels, German-speaking Community - so an article number alone does not identify a text. The consolidations are unofficial: the Moniteur belge as published governs. Nothing regional is here: decrees and ordinances of the Regions and Communities, which decide work authorisations and self-employment, are published elsewhere.
We re-read it every 60 days. More about this source
«3° la femme qui, par son mariage ou à la suite de l'acquisition par son mari d'une nationalité étrangère, a perdu la nationalité belge;»A separate, older category, kept in the Act for women who lost Belgian nationality by marriage or by a husband's naturalisation.
Read it at the sourceAbout this source
Belgium's consolidated federal legislation, served from the Moniteur belge site at two stable address forms: an ELI of the shape /eli/<type>/<yyyy>/<mm>/<dd>/<numac>/justel, and the older /cgi_loi/change_lg.pl query carrying the dossier number. Each record prints the date the consolidation is updated to, lists its archived versions, and marks in the body which amending Act inserted which words, with the Act identified in footnotes under the article.
Standing: Maintains the text in force
Cannot be cited for: The site is behind a web application firewall. A direct request from this project is answered with a JavaScript challenge page and a support ID, never the document, and the Bright Data proxy is refused at the CONNECT stage; only the extraction service returns text, and even then it refused two records outright - the French text of the Wetboek van economisch recht and the Code des impôts sur les revenus by its dossier number - while serving the Dutch and ELI forms of the same instruments. It may not be cited for the income tax code at all: the record for the Code des impôts sur les revenus 1992 states that updating was suspended in 2002, shows the text as at 9 April 2010, and carries no text of the Code. Dutch and French are both authentic and a Justel record serves one of them; a quotation from one says nothing about the wording of the other. Several instruments are printed as parallel regional versions of the same article - federal, Flemish, Walloon, Brussels, German-speaking Community - so an article number alone does not identify a text. The consolidations are unofficial: the Moniteur belge as published governs. Nothing regional is here: decrees and ordinances of the Regions and Communities, which decide work authorisations and self-employment, are published elsewhere.
We re-read it every 60 days. More about this source
Practical notes
Article 8 is about who is Belgian, not about who may move to Belgium. The residence consequence is in the Act of 15 December 1980 and is quoted beside it here for that reason.
The declaration under article 8, § 1er, 2°, b) is made within five years of the birth and takes effect when the act of nationality is drawn up, so a family that misses the window does not simply file late.
- consolidatesCode de la nationalité belge, consolidated text
Justel, Service public fédéral Justice (Moniteur belge) · consolidated to 2026-03-10
About this source
Belgium's consolidated federal legislation, served from the Moniteur belge site at two stable address forms: an ELI of the shape /eli/<type>/<yyyy>/<mm>/<dd>/<numac>/justel, and the older /cgi_loi/change_lg.pl query carrying the dossier number. Each record prints the date the consolidation is updated to, lists its archived versions, and marks in the body which amending Act inserted which words, with the Act identified in footnotes under the article.
Standing: Maintains the text in force
Cannot be cited for: The site is behind a web application firewall. A direct request from this project is answered with a JavaScript challenge page and a support ID, never the document, and the Bright Data proxy is refused at the CONNECT stage; only the extraction service returns text, and even then it refused two records outright - the French text of the Wetboek van economisch recht and the Code des impôts sur les revenus by its dossier number - while serving the Dutch and ELI forms of the same instruments. It may not be cited for the income tax code at all: the record for the Code des impôts sur les revenus 1992 states that updating was suspended in 2002, shows the text as at 9 April 2010, and carries no text of the Code. Dutch and French are both authentic and a Justel record serves one of them; a quotation from one says nothing about the wording of the other. Several instruments are printed as parallel regional versions of the same article - federal, Flemish, Walloon, Brussels, German-speaking Community - so an article number alone does not identify a text. The consolidations are unofficial: the Moniteur belge as published governs. Nothing regional is here: decrees and ordinances of the Regions and Communities, which decide work authorisations and self-employment, are published elsewhere.
We re-read it every 60 days. More about this source