Belonger status is a legal classification normally associated with British Overseas Territories. It refers to people who have close ties to a specific territory, normally by birth or ancestry. The requirements for belonger status, and the rights that it confers, vary from territory to territory.

The rights associated with belonger status normally include the right to vote, to hold elected office, to own real property without the necessity for a licence, to enter and reside in that territory without immigration restrictions, and to freely accept employment without the requirement of a work permit. In general, to be born with belonger status a person must be born in a territory to a parent who holds belonger status. Belonger status can sometimes be passed to a child born outside the territory, but this is purposely limited, to minimise the number of belongers who will not live in the territory. In most independent countries, these rights would be associated with citizenship or nationality. However, as the British Overseas Territories are not independent countries, they cannot confer citizenship. Instead, people with close ties to Britain's Overseas Territories all hold the same nationality: British Overseas Territories Citizen (BOTC). The status of BOTC is defined by the British Nationality Act 1981 and subsequent amendments.

BOTC, however, does not confer any right to live in any British Overseas Territory, including the territory from which it is derived. It is the possession of belonger status that provides the right. Acquisition of belonger status in a British Overseas Territory does not automatically confer BOTC, but most people holding such status are eligible for registration or naturalisation as a BOTC upon meeting the requirements of the 1981 Act. Similarly, it is possible to lose belonger status in a territory while retaining BOTC or British citizenship.

The British Overseas Territories Act 2002 also conferred British citizenship upon BOTCs (other than those solely connected with the Sovereign Base Areas of Cyprus), which provides for a right of abode in the United Kingdom. The conferral is in addition to their BOTC and was not reciprocal in nature, and British citizens did not receive any rights to reside in the Overseas Territories without permission. The act also changed the reference of British Dependent Territories to British Overseas Territories. It was enacted five years after the United Kingdom relinquished sovereignty over its most populous dependent territory, Hong Kong, to the People's Republic of China.

The Constitution of Anguilla defines Anguillian status in section 80. This section was introduced in 1990 and originally referred to "Belonger status". This was changed to "Anguillian status" in 2019, with the Anguillian Belonger Commission similarly being renamed the Anguillian Status Commission. Section 80 now reads as follows:

The term "belonger" appears only in the Bermuda Constitution Order of 1968, "A person shall be deemed to belong to Bermuda..."

Belongers include those possessing Bermudian status; naturalised British Overseas Territories citizens; the wives of Bermudians or naturalised British Overseas Territories citizens; and the children under the age of eighteen of Bermudians, naturalised British Overseas Territories citizens, and their wives. Other laws typically only use the term Bermudian status, neglecting to deal with other Belongers. A couple of recent court decisions in 2016–2017 have held that references to Bermudians should also be read as including other Belongers in the context of immigration law, company ownership and land ownership.

Only Bermudian status-holders may vote in island elections. With limited exceptions, only Belongers and the spouses of Bermudians may own land, live or work on the island without a permit.