Before you start

Passport or eID for SIM registration
A Belgian address for fixed broadband
A Belgian bank account for direct debit on most postpaid plans
An unlocked or eSIM-capable handset

Step-by-step

1
Buy a prepaid SIM on arrival and register it
Sold in supermarkets and phone shops and usable immediately, but identification is legally required and an unregistered card is deactivated. You can register with a passport before you have an eID, so this is not blocked by the commune queue.
In personWho: YouDay 1
2
Compare the resellers before signing with the big three
Mobile Vikings, hey!, Scarlet and others run on the Proximus, Orange and Telenet networks at much lower prices. Coverage is identical because the towers are the same. The flagship bundles earn their premium mainly when you want mobile and fixed together.
OnlineWho: You
3
Use the BIPT comparison tool
The federal regulator publishes an independent comparison of mobile and fixed offers. It is the only neutral one — commercial comparison sites take commission — and it exists precisely because Belgian bundle pricing is deliberately hard to read.
OnlineWho: You
4
Find out what the building is physically connected to
Ghent is well covered by the Flemish coax network and by Proximus copper, with fibre arriving street by street rather than uniformly. A listing saying 'high-speed internet' tells you nothing. Ask the landlord what is installed and whether there is a live termination point in the flat, especially in the medieval core where cabling old buildings is genuinely awkward.
OnlineWho: You
5
Switch operators with Easy Switch
Belgium's Easy Switch process makes the incoming operator handle the migration and keeps your number with no gap in service. Cancelling the old contract first is the standard mistake and leaves you offline for a week.
OnlineWho: You
6
Book the installation slot early, and avoid September
Fixed-line activation runs one to three weeks out and often needs someone at home. In a city where tens of thousands of students move in during the same fortnight, late August and September are the worst possible time to need an engineer. Arrange a mobile data fallback rather than assuming the line will be live on move-in day.
OnlineWho: You1–3 weeks

Documents you’ll need

Passport or eID for SIM registration
Proof of address for fixed-line installation
Belgian bank account details for direct debit
Landlord permission where cabling work is needed

Things most newcomers don’t know

Anonymous prepaid SIMs were abolished in 2017 and an unregistered card stops working.

Belgian law requires every prepaid card to be tied to an identified holder. You can register with a passport before you have an eID, so this does not block you on arrival — but skipping it does. People who buy a SIM for a partner or a visiting relative and never register it lose both the number and the credit, with no retrospective reactivation.

Source: BIPT

You can walk away from a Belgian telecom contract after six months, penalty-free.

Consumer rules let residential customers end mobile and internet contracts at any point once six months have elapsed, with no early-termination charge. That changes the calculus entirely at signing: there is little reason to trade a long commitment for a discount, and trying an operator carries almost no risk. Providers do not volunteer this, and most customers stay put assuming they are locked in.

Source: BIPT

The resellers use the same towers as the operators charging several times more.

Mobile Vikings, hey!, Scarlet and similar buy wholesale capacity on the Proximus, Orange and Telenet networks. Coverage and speed belong to the infrastructure, not the brand. Belgian mobile prices have been repeatedly flagged as high in EU comparisons, and the gap between a flagship bundle and an equivalent reseller plan justifies an hour of comparison in week one.

Source: BIPT

Coax means your upload is far slower than your download, which the advertised speed hides.

Ghent households are largely served by the Flemish cable network alongside Proximus copper, with fibre laid street by street. Cable advertises a big download figure and a much smaller upload one, and the upload is what matters for video calls, cloud backups and pushing large repositories. In a city where a lot of people work remotely for Brussels or Amsterdam employers, this is the specification to ask about before signing a lease — not the headline number.

Source: community-reported; BIPT

Common mistakes to avoid

Buying a prepaid SIM and never completing the mandatory registration.
Signing a flagship bundle without checking the resellers on the same network.
Cancelling the old contract yourself instead of using Easy Switch, and losing the number.
Assuming symmetric speeds on a coax connection.
Needing an installation engineer in September, when the whole student city is moving in.

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