Brussels is home to over 180 nationalities and a population in which nearly one third holds a foreign passport. The city's CPAS offices, hospitals, courts and asylum institutions serve communities speaking Arabic, Turkish, French, Dutch and dozens of other languages. Community interpreting in Brussels bridges the gap between public services and the people who need them most.
Brussels' exceptional linguistic diversity
The Brussels Capital Region is the most linguistically diverse territory in Belgium and one of the most diverse in Europe. Its 19 communes host large communities of Moroccan, Turkish, Congolese, Guinean, Cameroonian, Syrian, Iraqi, Afghan, Romanian, Polish, Spanish, Portuguese and Italian origin, alongside the European civil servant community (English, German, Spanish, Italian, Polish and more) and the most recently arrived asylum seekers and international protection applicants from sub-Saharan Africa, the Middle East and Central Asia.
This diversity creates extraordinary interpreting demand in Brussels' public institutions. The 19 CPAS/OCMW welfare offices, the six Brussels public hospitals (Iris Sud, CHU Saint-Pierre, CHIREC, UZ Brussel and others), the Brussels courts and the asylum institutions (Fedasil reception centres, CGRS/CGVS interview rooms) all require community interpreters on a daily basis.
Services and settings covered in Brussels
Brussels CPAS/OCMW: interviews for social assistance eligibility, housing support, child welfare assessments, administrative regularisation and social integration programmes. The 19 Brussels CPAS offices collectively handle tens of thousands of dossiers each year, many requiring interpreting in Arabic, Turkish, Romani, Somali, Tigrinya, Dari, Pashto or Georgian.
Brussels hospitals and healthcare: consultations in general medicine, gynaecology and obstetrics, psychiatry and mental health, paediatrics, oncology and emergency departments. Informed consent, discharge instructions and treatment plan explanations require precise interpreting in the patient's first language.
Brussels courts and legal proceedings: civil hearings, criminal trials, family court cases, juvenile court proceedings and administrative hearings at the Council of State. For hearings at the Council for Alien Law Litigation (CALL/RvV) and CGRS/CGVS asylum interviews, interpreters must combine linguistic accuracy with strict impartiality and detailed knowledge of asylum procedure.
Asylum and immigration institutions: Fedasil reception meetings, DVZ/OE appointments, legal aid consultations and applications for international protection. The stakes in these settings are exceptionally high, and the quality of interpreting can directly affect the outcome of an asylum claim.
TranslateBE
Community interpreting in Brussels - NL-FR-AR-TR and 70+ languages
Professional community interpreters for Brussels CPAS, hospitals, courts and asylum institutions. Available on-site, by phone and by video.
Languages and booking in Brussels
TranslateBE covers the full range of languages encountered in Brussels community settings: Arabic (Moroccan, Algerian, Libyan, Syrian, Iraqi, Sudanese dialects), Turkish, Romani, Tigrinya, Amharic, Somali, Lingala, Swahili, Wolof, Bambara, Dari, Pashto, Uzbek, Georgian, Ukrainian, Russian, Romanian, Polish, Bulgarian, Albanian and many more.
Community interpreting in Brussels is available in-person across all 19 communes, by telephone for urgent situations, and by secure video link for non-emergency appointments. Institutional clients - hospitals, CPAS networks, law firms - can access a dedicated booking platform for on-demand scheduling and reporting.
FAQ
Frequently asked questions
Can your interpreters attend CGRS/CGVS asylum interviews in Brussels?
Yes. TranslateBE provides interpreters for asylum interviews before the Commissioner General for Refugees and Stateless Persons (CGRS/CGVS) in Brussels. Our asylum interpreters are trained in the specific requirements of the CGRS procedure - strict impartiality, no paraphrasing, no personal opinions - and are available in all languages commonly encountered in Belgian asylum proceedings.
Is telephone interpreting available for urgent Brussels hospital calls?
Yes. For urgent medical situations - emergency department arrivals, acute psychiatric episodes, urgent obstetric consultations - TranslateBE provides telephone interpreting in the most critical languages with a connection time of a few minutes. A dedicated emergency line is available 24 hours a day, seven days a week for subscribing institutional clients.
Do your community interpreters sign a confidentiality agreement?
Yes. All community interpreters working with TranslateBE sign a strict confidentiality agreement covering all information encountered during their assignments. For healthcare settings, GDPR health data processing rules apply and interpreters are briefed on their obligations under Belgian privacy law. For legal proceedings, the interpreter's duty of confidentiality is equivalent to that of counsel.