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Understand · Payroll glossary

What is a business and employment cooperative?

Updated on

A business and employment cooperative invoices your services to your clients and pays you a salary: you work like a self-employed person, with the protection of an employee. In 2026: 6.5% (Smart’s pooled contribution on the amount invoiced excluding VAT; employment budget of 1.55 times gross pay). In Dutch: activiteitencoöperatie.

Definition of a business and employment cooperative

You find your clients and set your prices; the cooperative issues the invoices, collects payment, takes a contribution and turns the rest into salary, with contributions and withholding tax (bedrijfsvoorheffing / précompte professionnel). You are then an employee for each job, with the rights that go with it.

Smart is the best known in Belgium; other organisations support jobseekers who are trying out an activity.

The key figure in 2026

6.5%Smart’s pooled contribution on the amount invoiced excluding VAT; employment budget of 1.55 times gross pay

Source: Guide des membres : le salaire, Smart. Value in force on 1 October 2026.

Worked example

You invoice €1,000 excluding VAT through Smart: €65.00 in contribution, then an employment budget that covers the employer’s charges. That leaves €603.23 gross and, for a small activity, €603.23 net (Indexo calculation).

In Dutch: activiteitencoöperatie

In a Dutch-language contract or document, a business and employment cooperative is called ‘activiteitencoöperatie’; in French-language ones, ‘coopérative d’activités’.

Dutch term taken from: Actiris (Brussels public employment service).

Not to be confused with…

  • Self-employed as a secondary occupation: a person self-employed as a secondary occupation carries on a self-employed activity alongside a job as an employee of at least half-time: they pay no social security contributions below €1,922.16 of net taxable income a year (2026).
  • Social secretariat (payroll provider): the company that calculates pay and files the social security and tax declarations on the employer’s behalf.

Calculate it for your situation

What remains of an amount invoiced through Smart (6.5%, then 1.55 × gross pay), and the comparison with a self-employed person.

Business and employment cooperative (Smart)

Related terms

Sources

Parameters in force on 1 October 2026. Each parameter links to its source, the official one where it exists; a secondary source is flagged as such.