Affidavit of support for students living outside Canada

When to submit an affidavit of financial support?

Any person who has sufficient resources to support the costs of healthcare, stay, studies and repatriation of a student, during an academic year or for the entire duration of the planned studies, can submit an affidavit of financial support to cover the costs.

Please note: the sponsor can only sign one affidavit of support per year and per student. Moreover, several people cannot be sponsors for the same student. The rule is: one student, one sponsor, one salary.

The affidavit of support begins on the day the sponsor signs the document. 

The sponsor must complete the affidavit of financial support and have his signature legalized in person at the Consulate General of Belgium in Montreal after approval of the file. You will need a file number before you can take an appointment - without file number our services cannot grant you an appointment at the Consulate General. 

Procedure

The sponsor sends his file by e-mail to montreal.visa@diplobel.fed.be

In the interest of efficiency, please title your e-mail as follows: 

PEC / NAME and First name of the sponsor / NAME and First name of the student / Name of the educational institution in Belgium 

and ensure that ALL required documents are attached to a single e-mail. Attachments to your e-mail must be in pdf format. If your e-mail does not include the required information, and if the attachments are not in pdf format, we will be unable to process it. Any incomplete file will be automatically deleted. Finally, please note that e-mails larger than 12Mb will not be received.  

If the file is admissible, the sponsor will receive a form and will be invited to personally make an appointment with the Consulate General to sign the sponsorship (choose student legalization (sponsorship)). If you make an appointment without having received our agreement, the appointment will be automatically cancelled. If you come to the Consulate without an appointment, the file will not be received. 

At this point, the sponsor must indeed present himself/herself in person at the Consulate General with his/her file in duplicate (originals and copies). No copies can be made on site. If your file is finally accepted at the end of your appointment, the originals will be returned to you and the photocopies will be kept by our services. After payment at the counter (by credit or debit card only - see consular fees), the sponsor’s signature will be legalized and the "Annex 32" form will be returned to the sponsor who, in turn, will have to send it to the student. 

Conditions to submit an affidavit of support

The sponsor must  :

• Be a family member of the student applicant up to and including the 3rd degree AND be a Canadian citizen or Permanent Resident in Canada; 
• Prove that he/she has sufficient financial resources to support a student. 

The amount of the NET monthly resources that the sponsor/guarantor must have is calculated as follows:

(*) the spouse of the sponsor is not considered a dependent if he/she is working; however, his/her income is not taken into account when assessing the sponsor’s means of subsistence. 

Processing time for the procedure

The processing time for your application is approximately 2 to 6 weeks depending on the volume of applications. 

Documents to be submitted

Please note: All documents must be less than three months old when you submit your application and, if necessary, be translated and legalized. Please send all following documents in pdf format in such a way that your e-mail comprises only 7 attachments (for point 5, please assemble all requested documents in a single pdf document).

1. The "Affidavit of support" form duly completed and signed;
    
2. The "Annex 32" form, duly completed but not yet signed; Please note: the "Annex 32" form needs to be completed in the language of the city where the student will register:

Dutch form       French form 

For your convenience, you can find unofficial bilingual versions of the form in Dutch/English  and French/English. DO NOT fill these out, since these forms WILL NOT be accepted. The only accepted forms are the ones in French and in Dutch. 

3. Copy of the acceptance letter or proof of enrollment issued by the university or the higher education institution in Belgium;
    
4. Certified true copy of your passport certified by a commissioner of oaths or notarized by a notary and, if you are not Canadian, of your valid Permanent Resident Card ;
    
5. Please also submit a single pdf file with the following documents:
   • Your last 3 bank statements;  
   • Your pay slips of the last 3 months; 
   • If you are self-employed, proof of company registration + last year's tax return + last 3 bank statements: yours and those of the company; 
   • Your tax statement of 2022 (for the year 2021 - if you already received it); 
   • In addition, if you have a partner/wife/husband who works, please provide the last pay slip of this person;  
   • If you have 1 or more properties in your name, please provide the mortgage statement(s). 
      
6. Notarized declaration of your household/family composition drawn up in French. Please note: this document is not available from your province’s Registrar/Vital statistics; it must be established by a notary in the presence of the sponsor and must list all persons who reside at the same address as you (= your household). 
    
7. Proof of parentage between the sponsor and the student : the sponsor must be a family member of the applicant student up to and including the 3rd degree.This means that the sponsor must be exclusively one of the student's parents (father/mother), grandparents (grandmother/grandfather), uncle/aunt, brother/sister or nephew/niece. A recent birth certificate (less than 6 months old) is required for all persons included in the parentage. Foreign (non-Belgian) birth certificates must either be apostilled (if the country of birth is a State party to the Apostille Convention) or legalized by the Belgian Embassy/Consulate General accredited in that country (if the country of birth is not a State party to the Apostille Convention). 
    
8. CAD 30.00 by credit or debit card at the time of your appointment.