Your net salary when you arrive in Belgium (2026)

Gross to net: four worked examples

Between €3,000 and €6,000 gross, a single employee keeps 75% to 58% of the gross. The share falls as pay rises, because each extra euro is taxed at the higher rates. For other amounts, use the Indexo calculator or the net pay curve.

Over a full year, from your second year

From your second year, a white-collar employee also receives double holiday pay and, in many sectors, a year-end bonus. At €4,500 gross a month (single):

Your first payslip

• When you are paid. White-collar employees are paid at least once a month. Unless a collective agreement or the work rules say otherwise, the salary is due no later than the 4th working day after the month worked; the work rules can set it no later than the 7th working day. You receive a payslip (loonbrief / fiche de paie) with each payment.
• A partial first month. If you start mid-month, you are paid for the days you worked. The withholding tax is calculated on what you are actually paid that month, so the first month is taxed at a lower rate.
• Posted to Belgium? If a foreign employer posts you and you stay insured at home with an A1 certificate (EU), no Belgian social security is deducted. Your employer files a Limosa declaration before you start. Belgian withholding tax may still apply: ask your employer’s social secretariat (payroll provider).

Holiday pay in your first year

In Belgium, your paid holidays and your holiday pay (vakantiegeld / pécule de vacances) are earned in the previous calendar year. Work abroad does not count, so in your first calendar year you usually have no statutory paid holidays.

• Supplementary holidays. After three months of work in the same calendar year, you can take supplementary (‘European’) holidays: one week at first, then extra days each month. They are paid like a normal salary, then deducted from the next year’s double holiday pay.
• Your second year. Double holiday pay is prorated: 1/12 for each month worked in the previous year. If you arrive on 1 July and earn €4,500 gross, you will receive about €2,070 gross of double holiday pay the following year (92% × €4,500 × 6/12).
• When you change employer, or leave Belgium. Your employer pays you departure holiday pay (vertrekvakantiegeld / pécule de sortie): 15.34% of the gross pay earned in the current year.
• Year-end bonus. In the supplementary joint committee for white-collar workers (JC 200), the 13th month requires at least six months’ seniority: if you start in the second half of the year, you may receive none in December. Your sector’s rules are in your contract or the joint committee pages.

Your contract may grant extra holiday days from the start: check it.

Your first tax return

You become a Belgian tax resident when you establish your home here: where your family lives or, failing that, where you manage your affairs. Registration in the National Register creates a legal presumption that you live in Belgium. From that date, your worldwide income is taxed in Belgium.

• The year after you arrive, you file a resident tax return for the income earned since you settled. For 2025 income, the deadlines were 30 June 2026 on paper and 15 July 2026 online through MyMinfin (Tax-on-web), extended to 19 July 2026; with some specific income (self-employed income, foreign professional income), the online deadline is 16 October 2026, extended to 31 October 2026. The dates for 2026 income are not published yet: to be confirmed.
• Belgian income earned before you settled, for instance if you started working here while still living abroad, is subject to non-resident income tax (belasting van niet-inwoners / impôt des non-résidents). For 2025 income, the non-resident return can be filed from 3 September 2026 to 20 November 2026.
• Your municipality’s rate applies to the whole year: the municipality where you live on 1 January of the tax year (1 January 2027 for 2026 income). Non-residents pay a fixed 7%.
• Tax refund or tax to pay. The monthly withholding tax assumes you earn the same amount all year. Indexo’s estimate of your tax refund or tax to pay assumes a full year: it does not handle a part-year arrival.

Living in the Brussels-Capital Region: the municipal surcharge in 10 of its 19 municipalities

Your municipality’s surcharge does not change your monthly pay, which assumes 7%, but it changes your final tax. At €4,500 gross a month for a single employee, moving from the lowest Brussels rate Indexo has sourced (4.9%) to the highest (7.0%) changes the year’s tax by €276.35.

Indexo has not found a sourced rate for tax year 2026 yet for Evere, Ganshoren, Ixelles, Jette, Koekelberg, Saint-Gilles, Saint-Josse-ten-Noode, Schaerbeek and Woluwe-Saint-Lambert. The rate appears on your tax assessment notice and in the municipality’s tax regulation; see the municipal tax rates of all 565 municipalities.

Common benefits and how they are taxed

• Meal vouchers (maaltijdcheques / chèques-repas): up to €10.00 for each day worked, credited to a card, free of tax and social security. You pay at least €1.09 per voucher, deducted from your net pay. With 20 vouchers a month at €4,500 gross: €2,810.06 paid into your account and €200.00 on your card.
• Telework allowance (thuiswerkvergoeding / indemnité de télétravail): office costs reimbursed by your employer, free of tax and social security up to €164.21 a month.
• Company car (bedrijfswagen / voiture de société): you pay no social security on it, but a benefit in kind (voordeel van alle aard / avantage de toute nature) is added to your taxable pay. For a new €40,000 electric car, it is €140.83 a month (the legal minimum of €1,690 a year applies), and your net pay at €4,500 gross falls from €2,831.86 to €2,764.05. Compare a company car with a pay rise.
• Costs proper to the employer (kosten eigen aan de werkgever / frais propres à l’employeur): costs your employer reimburses because your job causes them are neither pay nor taxable. Under the expat tax regime, a flat allowance of up to 35% of your gross pay is treated this way.

Frequently asked questions

What next?

• The expat tax regimeA tax-free allowance of up to 35% of gross pay.
• Your payslip explainedEach line, with its Dutch and French label.
• First-year checklistEvery step, in order.
• Double holiday payWhat remains net in May or June.