Phone number spoofing: what to do in Belgium

No, nobody can stop a fraudster from displaying your number, and your line has not been hacked. Since 2024, Belgian operators have nonetheless been blocking calls arriving from abroad that display a Belgian number. What is left to you: note every reported call, tell your operator, and call nobody back.

A copied number is not a hacked number

Number spoofing means making the recipient's screen show a number that is not the caller's. Your phone has not been touched. Neither has your SIM card. The fraudster simply declared your number as their own, and the network passed it on as it was.

That is why nobody can take it away from you. In February 2022, a press release from the BIPT/IBPT (the Belgian telecom regulator) and the Centre for Cybersecurity Belgium already spoke of hundreds of thousands of fraudulent calls detected within a few days, and acknowledged that the holder of a spoofed number may not know it is being used. It gave no instruction for that holder. The gap is still there.

Where does your number appear, and on whose screen?

Three situations look alike and are not handled the same way.

The second case is the one people find hardest. You end up explaining to an angry stranger that you never called them.

What should you do, step by step, if your number is spoofed?

Allow half an hour in total, at no cost, for the first four steps.

1. Note the reported calls (5 minutes). Date, time, the number that called you back, a screenshot of your call log. Without these three items, neither your operator nor a contact point can trace a call.
2. Tell your operator (10 minutes). At Proximus, which runs its own copper, fibre and mobile networks, the agent records your number, the number supposedly called and the time, then passes the file to the anti-spoofing team (Proximus blog post of 28 April 2022). I found no equivalent procedure published by Telenet, whose cable serves Flanders and Brussels, nor by Orange, which adds the Walloon cable inherited from VOO to its mobile network. That does not prove none exists: ask for the fraud team.
3. Report to the Belgian contact point (10 minutes). The site pointdecontact.belgique.be brings together the FASFC, the FAMHP, the SIRS, the Federal Police, the FPS Finance and the FPS Economy. It gives tailored advice and refers you to the right body.
4. Forward suspicious texts and e-mails to suspect@safeonweb.be (2 minutes). Safeonweb does not handle voice calls.
5. Report to the police only if you have suffered harm: repeated harassment, lost money, data handed over.

Do operators really block these calls?

Partly. The royal decree of 12 May 2024, published on 13 June 2024, requires the blocking of international calls that use a Belgian number to reach a Belgian number. The rollout was staggered, and the list of what it does not cover is longer than you might expect.

Source: the BIPT/IBPT page on the anti-spoofing decree and its communication of 26 June 2026. Gaps calculated by us.

According to the BIPT/IBPT, the decree leaves four families of calls aside: text messages, calls placed from within Belgium, all calls received from foreign numbers, and calls received abroad while roaming. Four exceptions remain, for geographic numbers only: nomadic internet telephony, conference calling, customer support and telephone marketing hosted in the cloud. When an operator fails to supply the identity of a user the BIPT/IBPT asks about, it must block all that user's incoming calls within 24 hours.

Figures from CallMePower, checked on 24 August 2026, give a sense of scale: in 2025, Proximus and Telenet reportedly blocked 72 million calls, and Telenet, Proximus and Orange 33 million fraudulent text messages (CallMePower). For the cases the decree does not target, the regulator itself writes, on its fraud page, that no effective solution exists yet.

Does the do-not-originate list protect you?

No, not you. It protects the numbers of companies that never place calls: helplines, customer services, anti-fraud numbers printed on bank cards. Blocking happens in the network, so the recipient's phone does not ring.

The scheme's path fits in a timeline. Public consultation from 15 January to 7 March 2025. On 20 May 2025, the BIPT/IBPT judges the benefit limited and drops it. On 30 May 2026, 375 days later, the government approves the measure. On 24 August 2026, 86 days after that, CallMePower noted that no public registration desk was open.

A freelancer who uses a business mobile for outgoing calls has no place on it, since the list excludes any number actually used to place calls.

Should you change your number?

Almost never.

The fraudster picks numbers from lists, or generates them at random: if yours disappears, they move on to the next one, and you will have lost a number your family, your bank and your online accounts all know. I found no public price for a number change at Proximus, Orange or Telenet, so ask before deciding. Keep this option for cases where the callbacks have turned into daily harassment and where the contact point and the police could do nothing.

Five mistakes that make things worse

• Calling back the numbers that rang you and hung up: some lead to a premium-rate line, covered in our rate card for premium-rate numbers.
• Answering the people who call you back in anger: Proximus advises against playing along with scammers, because every reply tells them something about you.
• Keeping a password you already handed over, especially if it is used elsewhere.
• Waiting for the bill before reacting: at most operators, a premium-rate call only shows up on the following statement.
• Registering your number on the "Do Not Call Me" list in the hope of stopping these calls: it targets commercial cold-calling, not fraud, as our guide to the "Do Not Call Me" list explains.

For the unknown caller, our guide on an unknown number calling gives the next steps. Blocking on a phone is covered in blocking a number on iPhone and Android, and reading a prefix in Belgium's country code. If the line itself is the problem, our mobile operator ranking lets you start again from a clean base.

Sources: BIPT/IBPT (royal decree of 12 May 2024 and communication of 26 June 2026), BIPT/IBPT and Centre for Cybersecurity Belgium press release of 16 February 2022, local police (advice on spoofing), Safeonweb (November 2022), Proximus (blog post of 28 April 2022), Belgian fraud contact point, CallMePower (24 August 2026).