Belgium document photos online

In 2022 Belgium did something no other country had dared: it turned its passport into a comic book. Flip through the new biometric document and Tintin's moon rocket, the Smurfs, Lucky Luke and the Daltons leap from the pages, some hidden in ink that only glows under ultraviolet light. The artwork was no gimmick. Produced with the federal police's anti-forgery office and the comics' rights-holders, the intricate illustrations double as security features that counterfeiters struggle to reproduce. It is fitting for a nation with more comic-strip artists per square mile than anywhere on Earth, where a passport is also a cultural statement.

• Passport Belgium's 2022 passport is illustrated with national comic-strip heroes including Tintin, the Smurfs and Lucky Luke, with some scenes printed in UV-reactive ink that doubles as an anti-forgery feature.
• Passport power On the Henley Passport Index for 2025 the Belgian passport ranks among the world's strongest, granting visa-free or visa-on-arrival access to roughly 188 destinations.
• Security tech Belgian travel documents use a photo-engraving technique combining laser etching and perforation that is unique to Belgian eIDs, and the passport number is engraved across the hinge between pages.
• Identity Every Belgian receives a unique National Register number at birth, and since 2003 the country has issued an electronic identity card whose fingerprints live only on the card's chip, not in a central database.
• Currency Before the euro Belgium used the franc, introduced in 1832 just two years after independence, and in 1865 it co-founded the Latin Monetary Union with France, Switzerland and Italy to make their coins freely interchangeable.
• Currency When Belgium joined the euro the conversion was locked forever at one euro to 40.3399 Belgian francs, and the franc lost legal-tender status on 28 February 2002.
• World record Belgium holds the Guinness World Record for the longest peacetime stretch without an elected government: 541 days, ending when a new cabinet was sworn in on 6 December 2011.
• History Belgium declared independence on 4 October 1830 and crowned its first monarch, Leopold I, in 1831, making it one of Europe's younger nation-states.
• Comics The Franco-Belgian comic strip was effectively born in Brussels in 1929 when Herge drew the first Adventures of Tintin, and the capital now calls itself the comic-book capital of the world.