Jan Frans van de Velde (1779–1838) was the 20th bishop of Ghent, in Belgium, from November 1829 until his death.

On 13 April 1825 was named dean of Lier, and in 1829, to his surprise, bishop of Ghent, in succession to Maurice-Jean de Broglie, who had been banished in 1817 and died in 1821.

[1] His relations with the government of the United Kingdom of the Netherlands were difficult, due to differing interpretations of rights to religious liberty and free expression.

One of his first actions as bishop, on 2 December 1829, had been to decree the re-establishment of the Major Seminary of Ghent, which reopened on 3 February 1830.

At a meeting of the Belgian bishops in Mechelen, in the summer of 1833, Van de Velde proposed the founding of the Catholic University of Belgium, which opened in Mechelen on 4 November 1834, and transferred to Leuven in 1835 as the Catholic University of Leuven.