Most Sikhs arrived in the wake of Sukhdev Singh Jalwehra in 1985, after the storming of the Golden Temple in Amritsar by Indian troops the previous year.

The first Sikhs in Belgium were predominantly male laborers with limited education, sharing a rented house and dividing the costs.

Later Sikhs immigrated for economic reasons; they had been living in impoverished regions of the Punjab and came looking for a better life in Belgium.

In 1994, the government of the United States noted that while Belgium has freedom of religion and has not seen much systematic violence directed against religious minorities or newcomers, an exception occurred in 1993 against Sikhs.

[2] Following problems with immigration documentation which gave rise to concerns about possible human trafficking, the Mayor of Vilvoorde closed the local Gurdwara between October and December 2014, and following disturbances in the Temple, again in September 2016.