The National ELO rating system has been archived since July, 2026, and is available as a read-only system. Our ranking is now based on the FIDE ELO ranking.
There are four main steps to be done in order to report your tournament for FIDE ELO:
Registration of tournaments is done through the RBCF FIDE delegate. In order to respect FIDE deadlines, registration needs to be done latest:
Registration of a tournament is done through the registration form availabe on the FIDE forms overview page. Fill in at least all the required fields, and send it to the RBCF: fide@frbe-kbsb-ksb.be.
The RBCF FIDE delegate will review your request, register the tournament at FIDE, and send you back one or more FIDE registration number(s). Your tournament is then visible in the list of FIDE registered tournaments.
When registering your tournament, take into account the reporting requirements that the RBCF has agreed upon with FIDE:
Let’s look at some examples:
| Actual playing dates | Registered playing dates | Reporting deadline | Notes |
|---|---|---|---|
| July 7th – July 12th | July 7th – July 12th | July 15th | Single report, ELO processing happens August 1st |
| Actual playing dates | Registered playing dates | Reporting deadline | Notes |
|---|---|---|---|
| September 15th (R1) September 22th (R2) | September 15th September 22th | September 25th | First report, ELO processing happens October 1st for rounds 1 & 2 |
| October 6th (R3) October 20th (R4) | October 6th (R3) October 20th (R4) | October 23th | Second report, ELO processing happens November 1st for rounds 3 & 4 |
| November 15th (R5) November 29th (R6) | November 15th (R5) November 29th (R6)* | December 2nd | Third report, ELO processing happens January 1st for rounds 5 & 6 |
| December 11th (R7) December 18th (R8) | December 11th (R7) December 18th (R8) | December 21st | Fourth report, ELO processing happens January 1st for rounds 7 & 8 |
| January 5th (R9) January 12th (R10) | January 5th (R9) January 12th (R10) | January 15th | Fifth report, ELO processing happens February 1st for rounds 9 & 10 |
| Actual playing dates | Registered playing dates | Reporting deadline | Notes |
|---|---|---|---|
| September 15th (R1) October 22th (R2) November 6th (R3) December 20th (R4) January 15th (R5) February 29th (R6) March 11th (R7) April 18th (R8) May 5th (R9) June 12th (R10) | July 15th (R1) July 15th (R2) July 15th (R3) July 15th (R4) July 15th (R5) July 15th (R6) July 15th (R7) July 15th (R8) July 15th (R9) July 15th (R10) | July 18th | Single report, ELO processing happens August 1st |
The RBCF gives the tournament organizer the choice about reporting frequency and reporting dates. The choice is mandatory, e.g.
Note: in the exceptional case that a tournament covered by these rules is a title tournament, it is important for the organizer to carefully report the match dates. After all, FIDE checks the games played when awarding the title. In that case, it is essential that the match dates correspond exactly with the dates in the title application.
For tournaments for which you have registered multiple reports (= multiple FIDE registration numbers received), send in the intermediate tournament reports in time. For these longer tournaments, only the first round will be invoiced. This means, there is no financial drawback in having multiple FIDE registration numbers and corresponding reports.
Final tournament results need to be submitted for reporting at the latest 3 days after the tournament ended.
FIDE calculates for each homologated tournament (or round) the month in which the results will be processed. The rule is that if the end date of the tournament or round is until the third last day of the month, then it is month + 1. If the end date of the tournament or round falls on one of the two last days, then it is month + 2. Examples:
If a tournament ends on 30/07/2024 and the report is sent to the RBCF manager the same day and he also loads the results the same day, the results will only be processed for the FRL of 1 September.
This is not the case the other way around. If the tournament results are not uploaded by the RBCF manager three days before the end of the month, the results will only be processed in month + 2. For example, the report with the results is uploaded by the RBCF manager on 30/07/2024, then these results will only be processed for the FRL of 1 September 2024.
The documents that are part of the report are:
If a player achieves a norm during a tournament, he should contact the head referee. He prepares a FIDE certificate and sends it signed immediately to the general address: fide@frbe-kbsb-ksb.be.
The RBCF pays all rating costs – from the official transition up to June 2027 – for tournament registrations and rating fines, insofar as the latter can be attributed to the RBCF.
An invoice is send by FIDE to the RBCF twice a year, in January and July. The RBCF sends through indivual invoices to the tournament organizers, with the costs for the tournament reporting. All costs charged by FIDE for rating reporting are invoiced to the tournament organizers. The RBCF does not add any markup to these invoices.
Visibility, controllability and discipline.
Visibility, because players can consult the FIDE rated tournaments list for an overview of tournaments that will be rated.
Controllability, because both RBCF and FIDE can verify whether tournament results are reported as expected.
Discipline, in order to avoid late submissions.
The benefits of tournament registration far outweight the additional effort. As such, the RBCF is also preparing pre-registration for national ELO processing. Regardless of the fact that we’ll migrate our ranking system to FIDE only, pre-registration will become a requirement in the future. We plan a transition period for all organizer to adapt to this new way of working.
FIDE ELO reporting is natively integrated in the SWAR pairing software. Consult the SWAR manual for more details.
All players need to have a FIDE ID in order for the tournament results to be processed.
Important notice for organizers of tournaments that count toward the ELO FIDE ranking, and for players who do not have a FIDE ID and are playing a FIDE-approved tournament abroad.
The general FIDE rule is now clear: all players who have played in a FIDE-approved tournament must have a FIDE ID at the time the tournament report for the FIDE rankings is sent out.
FIDE distinguishes two cases: national players and foreign players.
The RBCF board of directors disagrees. It finds that requesting FIDE IDs from other federations is not the responsibility of RBCF, but rather of the FIDE-approved organization of the tournament (organizer/principal referee). Specifically, if the organizer of a FIDE-approved tournament admits foreign players without a FIDE ID, he must ensure that each foreign player has a FIDE ID from the relevant federation no later than when he sends the tournament report to the RBCF.
How do I find information to contact another country’s federation?
Go to the FIDE website: https://www.fide.com/directory/member-federations
The clubs must send the RBCF manager no later than three days after the end of the tournament (and in the case of a norm by a player also the pgn file). If a report is uploaded too late by the RBCF manager, a fine will be imposed. This fine will increase each month that the reports are not processed.
If after three months in which the report could have been processed, the results have not yet been received, the tournament can no longer be processed and a fine will follow. FIDE invoices the fine to the RBCF, but the RBCF simply invoices this fine to the club / league / federation of the organizer.
For the sake of clarity, let’s give an example. Suppose a tournament ends on 27/07/2024. The calculated FRL will be 1 August 2024. However, a club can send its report without a fine until 30/07/2024. If it does so on that day, the games will not be processed for the FRL of 1 August 2024, but they will be for the FRL of 1 September 2024. FIDE will NOT impose a fine because all deadlines were respected.
When a Belgian player obtains a norm, he should receive a signed document from the chief arbiter. In the best case it should already been signed by the organizing federation. He must without delay scan this document and send it to the Belgian FIDE Delegate. Additionally, he must send the link of the tournament website of the result and also a pgn-file containing the relevant games:
Finally, if there is not a recent players photo on the FIDE ratings website, the player must send a recent photo with the exact measures of 480 pixels wide and 600 pixels high.
If an error is found in a reported (round of a) Belgian tournament, then the organizer/chief arbiter must (i) inform the Belgian FIDE Delegate and (ii) share the corrected report.
There are two possibilities, depending on whether the error was discovered within the same month that the tournament must be reported:
The FIDE Rating Regulations are the official FIDE source of information. For all questions or feedback, please reach out through fide@frbe-kbsb-ksb.be.