Police organisation
Police Fédérale / Federale Politie
The federal level of Belgium’s integrated police service — one of two levels which, in the words of the statute, together provide the integrated police function.
At a glance
- Official name
- Police Fédérale / Federale Politie
- Commonly rendered in English as
- Belgian Federal Police — a rendering in common use, not the organisation’s own name.
- System
- Belgium
- Level of government
- Federal
- Kind of body
- Federal police force
- Status
- Currently operating
- Facts last checked against sources
- 13 September 2026
What it is
The Law of 7 December 1998 organised Belgian policing into a single integrated service "structurés à deux niveaux : le niveau fédéral et le niveau local, lesquels assurent ensemble la fonction de police intégrée". The Federal Police is that first level. The word "federal" here means something different from what it means in Germany or Brazil: the two Belgian levels are components of one integrated service rather than separate forces, and the same law abolished the former gendarmerie by merging it into that service.
What it covers
The federal level of the integrated service, across Belgium. The local level consists of separately constituted police zones and is not a single institution.
Broad responsibilities
- The federal level of the integrated police function established by the Law of 7 December 1998
Elsewhere on this site
- Who polices what — how Belgium is structured, against other systems
Where this connects
Institutions: National police, Municipal police.
Sources
Belgium — Federal Public Service Justice (ejustice.just.fgov.be / Moniteur belge) · Legislation · 1998-12-07 · link verified 2026-09-19
The official consolidated French text on the Justel database. Verbatim: the title "Loi organisant un service de police intégré, structuré à deux niveaux" (Law organising an integrated police service, structured on two levels), and the operative wording that the police are "structurés à deux niveaux : le niveau fédéral et le niveau local, lesquels assurent ensemble la fonction de police intégrée" (structured on two levels — the federal level and the local level — which together provide the integrated police function). The law also modifies the earlier law on the gendarmerie, confirming that this reform merged the former forces into the integrated service. Establishes the two-level (federal + local) integrated-police structure and its statutory basis; the internal directorates of the Federal Police were NOT verified (its own website was unreachable). LATER ADDITION, read on 2026-10-10: art. 102 gives the federal judicial police "la police technique et scientifique, sans préjudice des attributions de l'Institut National de Criminalistique et de Criminologie" — the forensic police function, without prejudice to the attributions of the national forensic institute. LATER ADDITION, read on 2026-10-10 for the border module: art. 3, "Les services de police sont organisés et structurés à deux niveaux : le niveau fédéral et le niveau local, lesquels assurent ensemble la fonction de police intégrée."; and art. 97, that "Pour l'accomplissement de ses missions de police administrative, la police fédérale est placée sous l'autorité du ministre de l'Intérieur", and that for its administrative-police missions "dans la mer territoriale belge, la zone économique exclusive et sur le plateau continental, sous l'autorité du gouverneur de la province de Flandre occidentale".