Bonjour,

I hope it does not bother anybody that I write in English; if it does - I will re-type this in French... It's just that English is quicker for me and I'm troubled enough for the moment, without watching out for the accents and sujonctif...

Don't know if anybody here can help me, probably I will get a lot of "please go to service population in your commune" answers, which is exactly the problem - those guys are not particularly willing to help.

The situation is as follows:

I'm a foreigner (Polish) living in Belgium for years now. I just got hired by ICRC (International Comitee of Red Cross) and am going to leave Belgium for God only knows how long. From now on, after some training in Geneva, I will be sent out on one-year missions all over the world where people tend to fight with each other, probably in Africa most of the times.
What's my problem?
Red Cross doesn't arrange any paperwork on my side, I have to inform myself how to organize my departure, be ok with the administration here etc. All of you know that dealing with Belgian administration is a pain.
My biggest issue, is the address. I rent an appartment with a flatmate (he actually owns the appartment), so obviously I'm not going to do it from the time of my departure not to continue to pay any rent. However, I would like to remain the resident in Belgium (got my 5-year card), since I have my life here, my bank account, my pension plan, my documents, everything. This is the place I would most likely come back to after my ICRC adventure.

I thought I could just drop by my commune, explain them the situation and tell them to deviate my post to a postbox address, but it's not that easy. I need either the domiciliation address (other than a po box) or I will get "radiée" from Belgium. The first option would mean getting inscribed at friends' place, they would receive any mail coming to me. I would like to avoid that, simply because I don't like to be any kind of burden for anybody. However, at this point, I think it would be the easiest option and I guess I would just have to acknowledge the fact that I cannot do it on my own...
I suppose I could also get the address at some domiciliation service, like for companies. I'm afraid though, that I would be overpaying, and most of the internet sites dealing with such services seem extremely dodgy and half-legal.
I don't want to get "radiée" either. Getting inscribed in Poland at my parents place for instance, would not be advantageous for me from my salary point of view. ICRC pays according to the country of residence, taking Swiss salary as the basis. They pay Belgian residents 92% of Swiss salary, for Polish residents it would be much less.


If I get "radiée" and my address would have to be adapted each time I move, it would be just crazy. I would change the adress quite often from now on, I would quite probably have limited access to communication means, staying in war zones, do they want me to give them a call each time I move?

And what about the taxes in both cases?
As far as I was told, staying abroad and having residency in Belgium I do file my tax statement in Belgium, but put a round 0 in the revenue section, attaching a document confirming my job overseas. I hope the same applies for the local taxes etc. I have no idea how would the tax issue look like in case of "radiation" , probably it would be something straight out of hell, so I want to avoid this option.

I will be calling tax authorities to ask them for some advice, but probably they will just keep their minds in the box, like the people at the commune..They are not there to give people advice, you see... :/

For now I'm just very confused, the whole thing just adds up to all the problems with millions of vaccines, doctor visits, insurance cancellations etc, very frustrating.


Thanks in advance for any pieces of advice/information