Before you start

Registration with the city and a national register number
Your original foreign licence, valid and obtained before you registered in Belgium
For non-EU licences: confirmation your country is on the FPS Mobility recognition list
A recent passport photograph

Step-by-step

1
Check the FPS Mobility recognition list first
Exchange of a non-EU licence is only possible for recognised countries and territories. The list is specific and it changes. If yours is not on it there is no exchange at all, only the full Belgian theory and practical test.
OnlineWho: You
2
Apply at the municipal counter
Driving licences are handled by the city, not by a regional office. Bring the foreign licence, your eID or Bijlage 15, and a photograph. Your original licence is surrendered and returned to the issuing authority — you do not keep both.
In personWho: YouWithin 185 days of registration
3
Check your vehicle against the Ghent LEZ standard before you buy anything
Everything inside the ring road is a low emission zone, checked automatically by camera as you cross the boundary. Diesels at Euro 6 and Euro 5 have free access; a Euro 4 diesel pays; Euro 3 and older diesels need a day pass. Petrol, LPG and CNG vehicles from Euro 2 upward have free access, and only Euro 1 and older need a pass. The Flemish Government decided not to tighten the zone in 2026 and will evaluate the conditions in 2027 — the opposite direction from Brussels, where the Euro 5 diesel ban took effect on 1 January 2026.
OnlineWho: You
4
Register a foreign-plated vehicle before it enters the zone
Foreign number plates always have to be registered, and that applies even to electric and hydrogen vehicles, which are otherwise outside the scheme entirely. The camera matches plates against the Belgian vehicle register, in which a foreign car does not appear — so a perfectly clean car can be fined purely for arriving unannounced.
OnlineWho: YouBefore your first trip into the zone
5
Learn the six sectors before you learn the shortcuts
Since 2017 the centre has been divided into six sectors around a restricted-traffic core, and you cannot cross from one to another through the middle: you come back out to the R40 and go round. The change was made over a single weekend, with about eighty streets altered and 2,500 signs installed. Satnavs have mostly caught up; drivers' habits have not.
In personWho: You
6
Consider not owning a car at all
Ghent is flat, compact and comprehensively cycled — it was named Cycling City 2024 — with trams, a dense bus network and paid parking almost everywhere central. Driving in a pedestrian street between 11am and 6pm carries a fine. For a life inside the ring a car is mostly an expense and an obstacle.
OnlineWho: You

Documents you’ll need

Original foreign driving licence
eID or Bijlage 15
Passport
Passport photograph to Belgian specification
Proof the licence predates your Belgian registration

Things most newcomers don’t know

Ghent and Brussels moved their low emission zones in opposite directions, and a car legal in one can be barred from the other.

The Flemish Government decided not to tighten the Antwerp and Ghent zones in 2026, so Euro 5 diesels and Euro 2 petrol vehicles keep their access here, with an evaluation due in 2027. Brussels went the other way: its Euro 5 diesel ban took effect on 1 January 2026 after the Constitutional Court annulled an attempted postponement. Ghent to Brussels is a thirty-minute train or a fifty-minute drive, and plenty of people do it weekly — which means satisfying the stricter of the two, not the one where you live.

Source: Stad Gent; lez.brussels

The 185-day exchange window runs from registration, not from arrival.

A recognised foreign licence covers you for roughly 185 days from the date you enter the population register. People who spend two months finding a flat before registering misjudge when the clock started; others discover late that their country was never on the recognition list, so the exchange route never existed for them and the only way to a Belgian licence is the full test. Check the list in your first week, not your sixth month.

Source: FPS Mobility and Transport

Even an electric car on foreign plates must be registered with the Ghent LEZ.

Electric and hydrogen vehicles are excluded from the emissions rules, which people reasonably read as meaning the zone does not concern them. It still does, if the plate is foreign: the enforcement cameras match against the Belgian vehicle register, and a car that is not in it is unknown rather than compliant. The penalty for not declaring is separate from the penalty for polluting, so the cleanest possible vehicle can still collect a fine on its first trip in.

Source: Stad Gent — conditions for entering the low emission zone

The circulation plan is not congestion management; it is a deliberate refusal to let you cross the centre.

Six sectors, a restricted core, and no through route between them — you exit to the R40 inner ring and re-enter. The car-free area grew 128% overnight in 2017 and fourteen locations were closed permanently. This is the single biggest practical fact about living in central Ghent with a car, and it makes journeys that look like four minutes on a map take twenty. Choose where you live by cycling distance and tram line, not by driving time.

Source: Stad Gent — circulation plan

Common mistakes to avoid

Assuming a non-EU licence is exchangeable without checking the recognition list.
Letting the 185-day window lapse and losing the exchange route entirely.
Reading Brussels LEZ news as applying to Ghent — the two zones diverged in 2026.
Driving a foreign-plated car, including an electric one, into the zone without registering it.
Picking a flat by driving time across a centre you are not permitted to drive across.

Some of this may be out of date. Spotted something inaccurate? Help us keep it right for the next newcomer.