Private international law strives for cross-border continuity in people’s identities, personal and family status. In this way, the recognition of a person’s legal identity is (age, civil status, name, gender,...) represents a crucial primary instrument for realizing entitlements. In a globalizing world, private international law increasingly interacts with refugee law e.g. the protection of unaccompanied refugee children is linked to proof of age, family reunification to proof of marriage or parentage. Since interactions between private international law and refugee law are insufficiently considered, refugees and their families suffer from identity crises as they are trapped in a serious legal limbo; e.g. spouse in Syria or minor in Ethiopia but not in Belgium. This research offers empirically grounded insights in the interactions between refugee law and private international law in Belgium by mapping the legal problems related to refugees' personal status in and beyond the asylum procedure.