How to hire employees in Belgium with an Employer of Record

Belgium is the European market where the structure behind a hire carries the most legal weight, because Belgian law starts from a prohibition on placing staff at a third party’s disposal. Get the structure wrong, and both the placing company and the client can be held jointly liable for wages, benefits, and social contributions.

For employers hiring in Belgium in 2026, key considerations include the legal structure, applicable joint committee, social security costs, notice periods, and provider compliance. White-collar employers should budget roughly 27% above gross salary for social security.

Employer of Record arrangements are commonly used for international hiring, but EOR is not a separately recognised statutory model in Belgium. Belgian law generally prohibits hiring out workers and allows temporary agency work only as a regulated exception, with licences issued at the regional level.

Companies can instead use a workforce management platform such as Boundless, a Payoneer company, to engage and pay talent in Belgium compliantly. Boundless operates through licensed local entities and supports onboarding, payroll, benefits administration, and employment compliance without requiring the company to establish its own Belgian entity.

Article 31 of the Act of 24 July 1987 prohibits any natural or legal person from placing its own employees at the disposal of a third party who uses those employees and exercises any part of the authority normally belonging to the employer. The Belgian Federal Public Service Employment describes this as a principled prohibition, and the Court of Cassation has enforced it strictly, imposing joint and several liability on both the lending employer and the user company where the prohibition is breached.

The prohibition lifts for lawful temporary agency work (uitzendarbeid) performed under the same 1987 Act, and for four defined circumstances: replacement of a permanent worker whose contract is suspended or ended, a temporary increase in workload, execution of exceptional work, and artistic performances. Outside those categories, or without a compliant contractual and instructional structure, placing staff with a user company is unlawful.

Licensing sits with the Regions rather than the federal state. In Flanders, a first-time applicant lodges a financial surety of EUR 25,000 with the Social Fund for Temporary Workers before applying, then a further EUR 50,000 on grant, against a total guarantee of EUR 75,000. Wallonia runs an equivalent regime with an initial licence validity of two years, renewable indefinitely. Brussels-Capital requires the same EUR 75,000 surety to the Social Fund for Temporary Workers, with EUR 25,000 due on application and the balance within 30 days of the licence being granted, administered by Brussels Economy and Employment on a two-year initial licence. Foreign agencies holding an equivalent guarantee at home can seek recognition of equivalence rather than posting the Belgian surety twice.

For buyers, a compliant structure in Belgium generally follows one of two routes:

• Licensed temporary agency work: the provider holds the relevant regional licence and operates within one of the four permitted use cases.
• Genuine employer model: The provider remains the sole employer and retains authority over recruitment, discipline, and instruction. This route can support open-ended placements, provided the client does not assume employer authority in practice.

Client instructions can still be permitted where they are clearly defined in writing and the working relationship matches the contract. In that case, the arrangement is not treated as prohibited hiring out.

Nearly every Belgian employee falls under a sector-specific joint committee (Paritair Comité in Dutch, Commission Paritaire in French), and the collective agreements those committees conclude set binding minimum pay scales and conditions. The national guaranteed floor applies to only a small fraction of the workforce, because the overwhelming majority of employees are covered by a sectoral minimum that sits above it. The joint committee, not the statutory wage floor, is usually the number that governs an offer.

Two examples show how much the applicable joint committee can change employment terms:

• PC 200: Belgium’s largest white-collar auxiliary committee, with minimum salaries of roughly EUR 2,200 to EUR 2,600 and above depending on function class.
• PC 111: Covers metal and technology, with minimums of roughly EUR 2,400 to EUR 3,200 and above.

Belgium has around 220 joint committees and sub-committees. The correct classification determines the binding wage floor, working-time rules, overtime rates, and additional entitlements such as eco-cheques.

Getting the committee wrong can mean applying the wrong legal minimum or benefits package. Ask any provider to confirm the applicable joint committee before the offer goes out.

1. Identify the applicable joint committee for the role: Determine the sector classification first, because it sets the binding minimum salary and the benefits package before any negotiation begins.
2. Register the employer with ONSS electronically: Employer registration with the national social security office precedes any hiring activity.
3. File the Dimona declaration before the employee start: The immediate employment declaration reports every start and end of employment in real time, mandated by Royal Decree of 5 November 2002, with penal sanctions under Article 181 of the Social Penal Code for non-compliance.
4. Issue a written employment contract in the language required for the region of the operational seat: Flanders requires Dutch and Wallonia requires French, with a non-compliant contract void, though the nullity cannot be used to the employee’s disadvantage. Brussels-Capital requires French or Dutch according to the employee’s language, and there the sanction is replacement by a retroactive translation rather than nullity.
5. Set the salary against the joint-committee scale rather than the national floor: Sectoral minimums govern where they exceed the guaranteed average minimum monthly income.
6. Configure meal vouchers and any eco-cheques required by the sector: Neither benefit is federally mandatory, so entitlement depends on the applicable collective agreement.
7. File the quarterly DmfA declaration and monthly withholding tax: DmfA reports hours worked and remuneration for contribution calculation, and the professional withholding tax declaration falls due electronically within 15 days of the month or quarter in which wages were paid.

Belgium has no statutory minimum wage set by legislation. The guaranteed average minimum monthly income is fixed by Collective Labour Agreement No. 43 of the National Labour Council and applies to private-sector employees aged 18 and over. It rose to EUR 2,154.11 gross on 1 January 2026, then to EUR 2,189.81 gross from 1 April 2026.

Wage indexation runs automatically through the health-index pivot mechanism rather than through legislation. Predetermined thresholds rise in roughly 2% increments, and when the smoothed health index crosses a threshold, wages and benefits adjust. Most of the 2026 movement came from indexation rather than negotiated increases.

A material 2026 change affects high earners. Under the Programme Act of 18 July 2025, the basic employer social security contribution is not due on quarterly earnings above EUR 85,000 per employee. The rule has applied since Q3 2025, and the threshold is scheduled to fall to EUR 67,500 from 2027, subject to indexation.

Two points matter:

• The exemption applies only to the basic employer contribution.
• Additional employer contributions and the employee’s 13.07% contribution still apply to full salary, and the threshold works quarterly rather than annually.

Our guide to Belgian social security explains the contribution structure in more detail.

Personal income tax is withheld monthly as professional withholding tax. For 2026, the FPS Finance brackets are 25% up to EUR 16,720, 40% up to EUR 29,510, 45% up to EUR 51,070, and 50% above that. The basic tax-exempt allowance is EUR 11,180.

Two common fringe benefits remain relevant in 2026:

1. Meal vouchers: The tax-exempt ceiling increased to EUR 10 per day from 1 January 2026, with the employer contribution capped at EUR 8.91 and the employee contribution remaining EUR 1.09.
2. Eco-cheques: These remain capped at EUR 250 per employee per year.

Eligibility for both depends on the applicable joint committee agreement.

Belgium’s statutory working-time rules include:

• 38 effective hours per week, or 38 hours on average across a reference period
• A maximum of 40 hours in any week, even under averaging schedules
• A maximum of 8 hours per day
• Overtime supplements of 50% on weekdays and Saturdays and 100% on Sundays and public holidays
• At least 11 consecutive hours of rest between working days

For annual leave, employees receive four weeks of statutory paid leave, equal to 20 working days on a five-day week. Leave is accrued in the previous calendar year at two days per month worked. Belgium also provides double holiday pay, equal to one twelfth of 92% of gross monthly pay for each month worked in the qualifying year. Over a full 12 months, this equals 92% of one month’s gross salary. A 13.07% solidarity contribution applies to 85% of the double holiday pay.

Belgium has 10 statutory public holidays. If one falls on a Sunday or another non-working day, the employer must provide a substitute rest day.

One rule is especially important for foreign employers: standard employment contracts cannot include a probationary period. Belgium abolished the general probationary period from 1 January 2014. Exceptions remain for student work, temporary work, and temporary agency work.

The Single Status Act of 26 December 2013 unified notice rules for blue-collar and white-collar workers from 1 January 2014. Notice is now based primarily on seniority, calculated per started calendar year, rather than age, salary, or worker category.

For employer notice:

• Notice starts at 1 week in the first quarter of employment and increases step-by-step during the first five years.
• From year 5 to year 19, notice accrues at 3 weeks per year of seniority.
• This gives 15 weeks at five years, 30 weeks at ten years, and 62 weeks at 20 years.
• After 20 years, notice increases by 1 week per additional year.

Employee resignation notice is generally half the employer notice period, capped at 13 weeks, which is reached at eight years of seniority. For employees with service dating from before 2014, notice is calculated in two stages, with the earlier salary- and category-based rules applied to the pre-2014 period.

Employees entitled to at least 30 weeks of notice, or equivalent pay in lieu, also have a statutory right to 60 hours of outplacement support.

Additional dismissal protections apply to certain employees, including pregnant employees, workers on maternity, paternity, or adoption leave, employee representatives, trade union delegates, prevention advisors, political mandate holders, and employees using protected leave or career-break rights. Dismissing a representative body member or prevention advisor generally requires prior authorisation from the labour courts or the competent joint committee.

Structuring the arrangement so the client directs the worker: Article 31 turns on the exercise of employer authority, not on what the contract is called. Where the client takes over direction and discipline in practice, the arrangement can be recharacterised as prohibited hiring out, with joint and several liability for wages and contributions falling on both parties.

Setting salary against the national floor instead of the joint committee: The guaranteed minimum binds only the small share of the workforce that no sectoral agreement covers. An offer built on EUR 2,189.81 in a sector whose committee sets EUR 2,600 is below the binding legal minimum from day one.

Writing a probation period into a standard contract: Probation was abolished for standard employment contracts in 2014. The clause is not merely unenforceable; its presence signals that the contract was drafted from a non-Belgian template.

Forgetting double holiday pay in the cost model: A supplement equal to 92% of a month’s gross salary across a full qualifying year is a material budget line, and it is regularly omitted from first-year cost estimates built on gross salary plus employer contributions.

Filing Dimona late: The declaration is due before the employee starts, in real time, and carries penal sanctions under the Social Penal Code rather than an administrative fine alone.