Indians in Ghent (Gent): the 2026 guide to studying, working and settling in

Ghent — Gent in Dutch, Gand in French — is Flanders' second city and Belgium's largest student town: 273,790 residents on 1 January 2026, 88,000 students across Ghent University and the two university colleges, a medieval centre of canals and towers that is largely car-free, and a cycling share that has passed a third of all trips. It is a Dutch-speaking city in the Flemish Region, forty minutes from Brussels by train, with a port and a car plant on its north side and Europe's densest biotech cluster on its south side.

The Indian and South Asian community is small, young and academic. Ghent University reports India among its five largest non-EU student origins, with roughly two hundred Indian students at any time, most of them in engineering, bioscience engineering and the sciences, and nearly half of its 5,700 PhD researchers are non-Belgian. Around them are a growing number of engineers and researchers at the Tech Lane science park in Zwijnaarde, at argenx and the VIB institutes, at Volvo and ArcelorMittal, and at the software companies that have made Ghent Belgium's second tech city. Nepali families run night shops and restaurants across the centre; the Sikh community has a gurdwara on Kortrijksepoortstraat; and the city's largest Indian grocer sits a few streets from the main station.

This page covers what is specific to Ghent — arriving, renting, the university, work, getting around, where the community and its food are — and points to the Belgium guide for the national rules on permits, tax, health insurance and driving, which are the same in every Belgian city.

Ghent is a ring of former villages around a compact centre, and the tram network and the cycle paths make almost all of it liveable. Rents are the CIB barometer's 2025 averages where published; Numbeo (September 2026) puts a one-bedroom at €1,056 in the centre and €798 outside it, a three-bedroom at €1,375–1,618.

Ghent is a safe city — total recorded crime fell 12% in 2024 and again in 2025 — but bicycle theft is its signature crime, with most of it around Sint-Pietersstation. A good lock is not optional.

Renting, the Flemish way

The Flemish lease decree applies: a nine-year main-residence lease or a short lease of up to three years, a deposit of up to three months' rent on a blocked account in your name (an interest-free loan from the Vlaams Woningfonds exists for lower incomes, and the OCMW can advance it), the tenant's three months' notice with a break fee of 1.5, 1 or 0.5 months in the first three years, indexation once a year on the anniversary at the landlord's written request, and a valid energy certificate. Landlords in Ghent report fifty to a hundred candidates per listing: bring your contract, pay slips and annexe 15 to the viewing. Immoweb, Zimmo and Immovlan carry most listings; the City's own Huuringent agency lets private homes at fair rents, and Woonwijzer (09 266 76 40) gives free housing advice in every neighbourhood.

Students

About 42,500 students rent in Ghent and the city's November 2024 survey put the average room at €544 a month all-in, with university residences cheapest (€423) and the big private developers dearest (€621); a studio runs about €700. The official listings platform is Kot@Gent (kot.stad.gent); Ghent University's housing office allocates residence rooms with places reserved for internationals. Secure a room before you fly — listings peak in spring for the following September.

The national sequence — arrive, register within 8 working days, annexe 15, police check, A card, national number, health fund — is described step by step in the Belgium guide. Ghent's particulars:

Two things Ghent does differently from Brussels: the city runs a single central appointment system rather than nineteen commune desks, and the residence-card fee is published — no guessing. What is the same: the annexe 15 is your proof of status and right to work for the first weeks, so photograph it; the police officer will ring the doorbell, usually within a few weeks; and until the national number arrives, the health fund and the bank will ask for the annexe.

The Flemish integration programme

Ghent's integration office is Amal (formerly IN-Gent), Kongostraat 42, by appointment (09 265 78 40). If you came on a single permit or as a student you are not obliged to follow the inburgering programme — labour migrants and students on a temporary residence purpose, and their family members, are exempt — but you are entitled to, and it is the cheapest route to Dutch and to understanding how the city works. Family members who join a Belgian or a settled non-EU resident are obliged. Since September 2023 the social-orientation course and test cost up to €180 (pass mark 70% from February 2026) and the Dutch course up to €180; guidance and the work track are free.

Ghent University (UGent) is one of Europe's top hundred universities, with 7,400 international students (15% of the total), a research hospital of 6,000 staff, and a reputation built on engineering, bioscience engineering, photonics, biotechnology and the life sciences — which is exactly where its Indian students are. India sits in the university's five largest non-EU student origins alongside China, South Korea, Iran and Turkey; the embassy's undated count is about two hundred Indian students, and the number of Indian PhD researchers is higher than the master's count suggests. The India Platform, a consortium headquartered at UGent, runs Europe–India academic collaboration, and the Ghent Centre for South Asian Studies is on campus.

Fees for 2026–27

Scholarships: the Flemish Master Mind grant (€10,225 plus a tuition waiver), faculty scholarships, Erasmus Mundus joint programmes. Show the €1,062 a month of means the visa needs (usually a blocked account of €12,744 for the year) — the university's international office explains the accepted forms.

Beyond UGent

HOGENT (17,000 students) and Arteveldehogeschool (14,000) are the applied-science colleges; KU Leuven's Technology Campus in Ghent teaches engineering technology, in Dutch. The university's language centre, UCT, offers Dutch for speakers of other languages including a preparatory year.

Working while studying, and after

Up to 20 hours a week in term and full-time in the holidays, without a separate permit; then the 12-month search-year permit after graduation, to be applied for before the student card expires. The biotech park, the port employers and the software firms recruit heavily from the university — many Indian graduates never leave the city.

Ghent has three economies that hire internationally, and English works in all of them.

• Biotech and life sciences. The Tech Lane Ghent Science Park at Zwijnaarde — ten university labs, eight research institutes, eleven corporate R&D centres and more than 3,500 people — anchors a cluster of about 9,000 highly qualified staff: argenx (scaling toward 1,400 people at its Ghent headquarters), Ablynx (Sanofi), the VIB institutes and their spin-offs, and the university hospital. It is the single largest source of Indian professional jobs in the city.
• Software and technology. Showpad (450+ staff, headquartered in Ghent and Chicago), Robovision, and the Belgian consultancies with Ghent offices — delaware at Amelia Earhartlaan 10 in Sint-Denijs-Westrem, Cegeka at Sluisweg 1 — plus a start-up scene that made Lighthouse (born here, now London-based) a unicorn. The Indian IT majors have no Ghent office that we could verify; their Belgian work is run from Brussels and Zaventem.
• Industry and the port. Volvo Car Gent (6,300–6,600 employees, the largest industrial employer in Flanders), Volvo Group's truck plant (4,000), ArcelorMittal's steelworks (5,800) and the North Sea Port hire engineers and technicians.

Rules and money

Ghent is in Flanders, so the Flemish single-permit rules apply: €48,912 a year for a highly qualified worker (€39,129.60 for under-30s, nurses and teachers), a 2026 reform that abolished low-skilled permits, requires the contract to state the function class, and sets a fifteen-day working target for highly qualified files, and a Flemish application fee of around €200 being introduced. The full explanation is in the Belgium guide. VDAB is the employment service and publishes 227 shortage occupations for 2026; the median gross salary in East Flanders was about €3,595 a month in early-2026 data, below Brussels but so are the rents. Working without Dutch is feasible in the tech and biotech firms and much harder in the hospital, the schools and the public sector.

Working for yourself

A professional card is needed to be self-employed on a limited residence permit; the Flemish procedure runs through the Department of Work and Social Economy. Nepali and Indian entrepreneurs in Ghent are concentrated in night shops, restaurants and IT consulting.

Ghent is cheaper than Brussels and Leuven and dearer than the rest of East Flanders. Numbeo's September 2026 basket puts a single person's spending at €992 a month before rent and a family of four's at €3,575; the average net salary reported is about €3,200.

A single professional in a one-bedroom outside the centre is therefore looking at roughly €1,800–2,100 a month all-in, a couple in the centre about €2,600, and a family of four in a three-bedroom around €5,000 before school fees. The health fund, tax brackets, the expat regime and the treaty with India are national and covered in the Belgium guide.

Trains

Gent-Sint-Pieters is one of Belgium's busiest stations: IC trains to Brussels take 35–40 minutes and run several times an hour, Antwerp is about an hour, Bruges 25 minutes, Kortrijk half an hour, and Brussels Airport a little over an hour with one change or on the direct airport trains. Dampoort is the second station, handier for the east of the city. A commuter season ticket is reimbursed in full by most employers.

De Lijn: trams and buses

Ghent's trams are being rebuilt: three long lines have become four shorter ones (T1–T4), the busiest (T2, from Melle through Zuid, Korenmarkt and Rabot to Van Beverenplein) runs eight times an hour, but works suspend sections for long stretches — the T3 to Zwijnaarde is replaced by a shuttle bus from September 2026 to spring 2027, and the tram 1 stretch between Sint-Pieters and Korenmarkt has been closed for years. Check the De Lijn app before relying on a tram. Fares from 1 February 2026: single €3, day €9, ten-ride card €22, annual pass €499; 18–24-year-olds pay €165 a year. Contactless bank cards work on board.

The bike

A third of all trips in Ghent are by bicycle and the 2017 circulation plan pushed cars out of the centre; a bike is the fastest way across the city and the norm for students and researchers. De Fietsambassade rents, repairs and teaches; second-hand bikes are cheap; and theft is the price — 2,000–3,000 a year, mostly at Sint-Pietersstation. Two locks, and register the frame number.

Driving

The centre is largely car-free with a low-emission zone (in 2026: diesel Euro 5 and petrol Euro 2 or better enter free; older cars need a day pass or a temporary permit; foreign plates must register; the planned tightening was cancelled and will be reviewed in 2027), park-and-ride on the ring and paid parking inside. The driving-licence answer for an Indian licence is national — theory and practical exams, no exchange — and is explained in the Belgium guide.

Hospitals and doctors

UZ Gent (Corneel Heymanslaan 10; 09 332 21 11) is the university hospital; AZ Sint-Lucas (Groenebriel 1), AZ Maria Middelares (Buitenring Sint-Denijs 30, in Sint-Denijs-Westrem) and AZ Jan Palfijn are the general hospitals, all with 24-hour emergency departments. Join a health fund in your first week (the how and why is in the Belgium guide); a GP with a global medical file costs €4 a visit; the out-of-hours GP line is 1733; the university's own medical service serves students.

Childcare

Ghent runs one central application point for all childcare from 0 to 3, the Kinderopvangpunt (Woodrow Wilsonplein 1; 09 323 59 99; kinderopvang.stad.gent). Apply as soon as the pregnancy is confirmed: processing starts nine months before the desired start date, demand exceeds supply, and the providers contact you — there is no guarantee. Fees in subsidised crèches are income-linked.

Schools

Ghent is Dutch-language. Nursery and primary registration for the following September runs through meldjeaan.stad.gent in a fixed window (for 2026–27: 24 February to 17 March 2026, results on 31 March, enrolment 27 April to 12 May); siblings and staff children register in an earlier October phase and latecomers enrol directly at schools with places. Speed does not matter and you can list as many schools as you like. A child arriving without Dutch goes into an OKAN reception class (secondary) or gets extra language hours (primary) before joining the mainstream. The International School Ghent (Gaspar De Craeyerstraat 2, in the Leopoldskazerne) is the city's only English-medium school, for ages 3–16 and fee-paying; the international schools of Brussels and Antwerp are an hour away.

Energy, water, waste

Fluvius is the grid operator (notify a move at fluvius.be/verhuizen with the meter readings and choose a supplier), Farys supplies water, and IVAGO collects waste: residual waste in the city's own bags (a roll of ten 50-litre bags is €22.40 in 2026), PMD in blue bags, food and garden waste in green bags or containers, paper tied in bundles, with the collection calendar per street in the Recycle! app. Sorting is enforced.

The weather

Mild and wet: an annual mean of about 11 °C, a January high around 8 °C and a July high around 24 °C, with roughly 786 mm of rain spread evenly through the year. A rain jacket lives on the bike.

For a city of its size Ghent eats a surprising amount of Indian and Nepali food, most of it within five minutes of the Vrijdagmarkt. Addresses were checked in September 2026; hours change, so look before you go, and treat these as pointers rather than endorsements — the live directory beneath this section is where the community rates them.

Groceries

• Himalaya Exotic Market — Koningin Astridlaan 211 (older listings give Brusselsepoortstraat 110; check before travelling), +32 484 69 33 41. The largest Indian grocer in the city: rice, atta, dals, spices, frozen goods, fresh vegetables when a shipment lands; cash or Bancontact only.
• Tevhid Supermarkt at Dampoort and the shops along Sleepstraat and Wondelgemstraat (Odra, "African & Asian Foods") — Turkish-run supermarkets with halal meat, pulses, rice and a South Asian shelf.
• Nepali-run night shops across the centre stock the basics late; Maa Nachtwinkel is one of several.
• Online: Dookan delivers a full Indian catalogue to Ghent in three to five days; Sree Krishna Groceries ships from Belgium; Sahota Brothers in Brussels for larger orders.
• Colruyt, Delhaize, Carrefour and Lidl cover rice, chickpeas, coconut milk and basic spices; the Sunday market at Sint-Jacobs and the Vrijdagmarkt stalls for coriander and chillies.

Restaurants

Vegetarian and vegan eating is easier in Ghent than almost anywhere in Belgium — the city has run a weekly veggie day since 2009 and every Indian kitchen above has a full vegetarian menu. There is no dedicated mithai shop; packaged sweets are at Himalaya Exotic, and fresh ones appear at the festival stalls.

Ghent has no Hindu mandir. The Shiva Temple in nearby Oudenaarde, opened in 2020, closed in October 2024 and survives only as a small shrine at the Shiva Forum Europe's offices in Eine — so the nearest full temple is the Brussels Mandir in Evere (Rue Colonel Bourg 123–125; Sundays 11:00–13:00), about an hour by train and tram, and Antwerp's BAPS mandir is a similar distance. ISKCON holds a "local get-together" programme in Ghent whose venue moves; the main ISKCON temple, Radhadesh in the Ardennes, is a two-hour drive. Many Indian and Nepali families keep puja at home and travel for the festivals, and the Satya Sai bhajan groups meet in Leuven, Antwerp and Ostend rather than Ghent.

The Sikh community has its own place: Gurdwara Mata Sahib Kaur Ji, Kortrijksepoortstraat 49, in the centre (09 311 51 50), with langar and the Sunday diwan — open to everyone, and for many Indian students the warmest room in the city in their first winter. Belgium's largest gurdwara is an hour and a half away in Sint-Truiden.

South Asian Muslims use the city's mosques, which are largely Turkish (the Yavuz Sultan Selim and Fatih mosques) with one in Kazemattenstraat near Sleepstraat; Eid prayers are held in the larger halls. Indian Christians will find English-language congregations in the centre; a Malayalam Mass is best asked of Kairali Belgium, which is Leuven-based.

Ghent's Indian community has no association of its own that we could confirm — the national bodies (Indians in Belgium vzw, the Indian Association of Belgium) and the Antwerp and Leuven associations are the nearest — and its community life runs through the university, the dance school and the cricket ground.

• The university is the hub: student societies, the India Platform's events, the Ghent Centre for South Asian Studies' lectures, and the Diwali and Holi evenings that student groups put on (a "Diwali Gent" evening was held in the Stadshal in 2025).
• Shoonya Dance Centre, Stapelplein 41, teaches Kathak, semi-classical, Bhangra and Bollywood, holds open days with free trial classes, and hosts the Gent India Dans Festival — the fourth edition ran 1–3 May 2026 and the fifth is set for 7–9 May 2027 — curated by Swapnil Dagliya with ABC a bollywood company. It is the most visible Indian cultural fixture in the city.
• Gent Cricket Club plays on a ground the city built in Mariakerke in 2014, and the Belgian Cricket Federation is headquartered in Ghent; street-cricket sessions run in the summer.
• Kinepolis Gent is part of the chain's Indian-film programme; check the listings for Hindi, Tamil, Telugu and Malayalam releases with English subtitles.
• Festivals follow the national calendar on the festival pages: Holi in the spring by the student associations, Onam with Kairali Belgium in Leuven or Kraainem in September, the Ganesh festival on Blauwputplein in Leuven, garba in October, the Brussels Diwali Festival at the Atomium on 24–25 October 2026, and Guru Nanak Jayanti at the gurdwara.

The events posted near Ghent are listed below as they are added; the associations in Leuven and Brussels are 35 minutes away by train and welcome Ghent members.

Every Indian who has moved abroad has the same first move: find the WhatsApp group. Ghent has them — the UGent Indian students' group for each intake, a "Desis in Gent" group, a Nepali one, flat-hunting groups, a cricket group — and they are how the community has always run. This guide is not going to pretend otherwise.

What the groups are good at, and what they are not

They are fast and warm: ask at nine in the evening which crèche still has places in Sint-Amandsberg and somebody will answer before ten. But you need to know somebody to get the link; the links that circulate on Facebook are stale, and the live ones are where the "guaranteed job" and "cheap OCI service" scams start. A group of 600 students has no moderator, so the same three questions are asked every week and the answers scroll away. Every member can see your phone number. And a group does not know that you live in Ledeberg: the flat in Antwerp and the garba in Leuven arrive with the same weight as the one round the corner.

What Namaste Community does instead

Namaste Community is a free app, built in Belgium by members of this community, that keeps what the groups do well and fixes the rest. It launched in the Benelux and works in every country — so it is also the answer when you move on from Ghent to Brussels, Amsterdam or Munich.

• Everything is ranked by distance from you — events, groups, questions, businesses and things for sale, within 10, 50, 100 or 200 km, your choice — so a Ghent member sees Ghent first.
• Groups with a place and a moderator, joined by people within their radius, with polls, join modes and a member limit; your phone number is never shown, and you can post under your name or an anonymous handle.
• Ask, and the answer stays: the question about the Flemish deposit rules or a Hindi-speaking dentist is answered once, in a thread the next person finds.
• A directory with reviews of grocers, restaurants, tailors, tutors, accountants and driving schools, listed free by the businesses themselves.
• The events calendar — every Diwali night, garba, Onam sadya, cricket match and temple programme near you, imported daily and moderated, with an RSVP; the same calendar behind the festival pages.
• Marketplace and rooms from members near you — the student cycle of furniture and kots runs through it every September.
• Verified members, moderation, and a report button on everything.

Your first week in the app

1. Install it, sign in, set your location to Ghent and the radius to 10 km. Get the app for iPhone or Android.
2. Join the general Ghent group and the one for your language, faculty or interest. Read before you post.
3. RSVP to one event in the next fortnight — a cricket practice, a bhajan evening, a Diwali night in Leuven.
4. Ask the question you actually have, and say which neighbourhood you are in.
5. When you have found your kot, your GP and your grocer, leave a review or an answer for the next person from Hyderabad or Kathmandu.

The groups near Ghent are listed below, ranked by how active they are. If the one you need does not exist yet — Ghent is early on this platform — start it: it takes a minute, and it shows up here for the next person searching.

Ghent's South Asian community is, if anything, more Nepali than Indian. Belgium has around 8,000 people of Nepali origin by Nepal's own estimate, and Nepali families are visible in Ghent in the night shops, the restaurants (Himalaya on Oudburg, Nepal Delight, the momo kitchens) and the university; the NRNA's Belgian council organises Dashain, Tihar and Teej, mostly in Brussels and Leuven, and the Satya Sai bhajan groups meet on Sundays in Leuven, Antwerp and Ostend. Pakistani and Bangladeshi students and shopkeepers are present in smaller numbers — the Association of Bangladeshi Students in Belgium (absb.be) covers Ghent from Brussels — and the Sri Lankan Tamil community is centred on Brussels rather than here. Afghan nationals (2,066 at the end of 2024) are the largest South-Central Asian group in the city's statistics.

All four communities share the gurdwara's langar, the halal shops of Sleepstraat and Dampoort, the cricket ground at Mariakerke and the Kinepolis screen. Their embassies are in Brussels — Nepal at Avenue Brugmann 210, Sri Lanka at Rue Jules Lejeune 27, Pakistan at Avenue Delleur 57, Bangladesh at Rue Jacques Jordaens 29 — 40 minutes by train; the addresses and hours are in the Belgium guide. Everything on this page about registering, renting, the university and getting around applies identically to all of them.

Ghent is a Dutch-speaking city that speaks excellent English, which makes it easy to postpone Dutch and costly to keep postponing it: the town hall, the school, the crèche, the hospital's forms and most of the public-sector job market run in Dutch, and A2 in Dutch is a condition of Belgian nationality later.

• Amal (Kongostraat 42, 09 265 78 40) is the front door: a free placement test and a referral to the right course, and the integration programme with its Dutch component for those who follow it. Register there first — CVO Gent will not enrol you in NT2 without it.
• CVO Gent and Het Perspectief (the provincial centre) teach Dutch as a second language in evening, day and online formats for €1.50 a lesson hour at the first level and €0.60 at the second, with reductions for job-seekers.
• UCT, Ghent University's language centre, runs Dutch for speakers of other languages from beginner to a full preparatory year, open to students and staff.
• Conversation tables, the library's language cafés and the city's "Gentse Praatgroepen" are free and the fastest route to the sounds.

Indian speakers of Hindi, Punjabi or Bengali usually find Dutch pronunciation easier than French; the word order takes a year. The integration programme is not obligatory for single-permit workers and students in Flanders, but it is the cheapest structured course in the city, and the certificate counts toward nationality.

Belgium has one Indian mission, the Embassy of India in Brussels (Chaussée de Vleurgat 215–217, Ixelles), 40 minutes from Gent-Sint-Pieters by train and a tram ride from Brussels-Central. Passports, OCI cards, police clearance certificates and attestations are done there by online appointment (10:00–12:30 on working days; collection 16:00–16:45); visas to India for non-Indian citizens go through VFS Global in Schaerbeek. The Belgium guide has the contacts, the after-hours numbers and the welfare fund.

Everything that is national rather than Ghent-specific lives in that guide and applies here unchanged: - The single permit, Blue Card, students, family reunification, the B card and nationality - Flanders versus Brussels versus Wallonia — thresholds, integration, deposits - The health fund, GP costs and emergency numbers - Banks, tax brackets, the expat regime and the treaty with India - The driving-licence answer and the Low Emission Zones - Temples and gurdwaras across Belgium

The other city guides: Indians in Brussels and Indians in Leuven. Antwerp is next.