People of Moroccan origin remain the largest non-European Union community in Belgium, with around three-quarters having acquired Belgian nationality, underscoring the group’s growing integration into Belgian society, according to an analysis based on official migration data.
The study, prepared by migration researcher Hassan Bentaleb and based on annual figures from Belgium’s federal migration center Myria, found that 359,491 residents were originally of Moroccan nationality, accounting for 12% of all people in Belgium whose first nationality was foreign.
About 75% of people of Moroccan origin, or roughly 269,000 individuals, have since obtained Belgian citizenship, one of the highest naturalization rates among foreign-origin communities in the country, the report said.
The naturalization rate among Moroccans was comparable to that of the Turkish community and substantially higher than among Italians, French and Dutch residents of foreign origin.
The figures showed Moroccan Belgians were concentrated in the country’s main urban and industrial regions. Around 109,000 lived in Flanders and a similar number in the Brussels region, while about 50,000 resided in Wallonia.
Belgium recorded the arrival of 7,404 Moroccan migrants in 2024, representing 4% of total immigration and making Morocco the sixth-largest source country for newcomers. The figure was up from 5,291 arrivals in 2014 and 6,696 in 2019, suggesting a continued recovery in migration flows following earlier declines.
Morocco ranked second among non-EU countries for first residence permits issued in Belgium in 2024, with 6,586 permits granted, behind Ukraine but ahead of Turkey, Syria and Afghanistan, according to the analysis.
The report linked a decline in Moroccan migration between 2010 and 2013 to reforms of Belgium’s family reunification rules introduced in 2011, which tightened income requirements for sponsoring family members.
The findings also highlighted the increasingly multi-generational nature of Belgium’s Moroccan community. The average age of Moroccan-origin Belgian citizens ranged between 43 and 46 years across the country’s regions, while naturalization rates were particularly high among those born in Belgium.
