Security Services in Belgium

Belgium’s corporate security market is shaped disproportionately by one fact: Brussels hosts the EU institutions and NATO headquarters, which pulls the whole country’s threat profile upward even though most of Belgium, away from the capital, has a fairly ordinary Western European risk environment.

The Act of 2 October 2017: a modernised framework

Belgium replaced its older 1990 private security law with the Act of 2 October 2017, which restates and updates who may work as a security agent, bodyguard, cash transporter or internal surveillance officer. The FPS Interior (SPF Interieur) administers authorisation. Close protection is not covered by a general security agent licence alone; officers need the specific CPO qualification the law sets out.

For any client hiring in Belgium, that split is worth knowing. A perfectly legitimate general security guard is not automatically qualified to run close protection, and the two credentials are checked separately by Belgian authorities.

Armed protection is the exception, not the rule

Belgium’s Weapons Act of 8 June 2006 puts armed private security behind a specific ministerial permit that is granted sparingly. Unarmed protection, run in close coordination with Belgian Federal Police, is the standard operating model, including for EU institutional principals whose profile might suggest otherwise elsewhere. Teams substitute planning and liaison for firepower: advance route surveys, coordination with institutional security offices, and real-time awareness of the security perimeters Brussels imposes during summit periods.

Brussels versus the rest of the country

OCAM, Belgium’s federal threat coordination body, sets a national threat level but layers higher situational levels onto EU institutions and major transport hubs in Brussels specifically. That posture dates to the March 2016 Zaventem airport and Maalbeek metro bombings, which killed 32 people and remain the reference point for Belgian counter-terrorism planning. Away from that institutional core, Antwerp’s risk is driven more by its status as a major port and diamond-trade centre than by any comparable terrorism concern, and Liege and Ghent sit lower again.

Source: Belgian Federal Police annual report (2025). OCAM national threat level assessments (2025). Act of 2 October 2017 regulating private and special security (Moniteur belge).

Vetted, FPS Interior-licensed operators across Belgium provide executive protection and event security for EU institutional, corporate and diplomatic clients. See our Brussels security briefing or the Antwerp close protection guide for city-specific detail.