Working and earning in Belgium: double holiday pay, indexation and the real net salary

The Belgian gross salary lies in two directions: the tax burden is higher than Dutch people expect, but against it stands a package that appears nowhere on the payslip of the vacancy — double holiday pay, an end-of-year bonus, meal vouchers and automatic indexation. Plus the trap of your first year: holiday rights are built up in the year before. And for whoever starts their own business: the social contributions, the recognition of diplomas and the expat regime that is almost never for Dutch people.

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Written and checked by Auke on 26 September 2026, against the sources at the bottom. Is something no longer right? Report it below and I'll fix it.

Yes, as an EU citizen you may work in Belgium from the day of arrival, as an employee or self-employed. But whoever puts a Belgian vacancy next to a Dutch one and compares only the gross salary compares apples with a fruit basket. The Belgian pay package is put together differently: stricter on the tax side, more generous on the package side.

Three things to know in advance:

What it costs is 13.07% social security plus a progressive tax.
Against that stand items Dutch payslips don't know.
One systemic difference can really hit your first year: the holiday system builds up your rights in the previous year.

The net salary: why gross says less here

From the Belgian gross salary 13.07% social security comes off first. Then personal income tax rises quickly:

There is a tax-free allowance of € 11,180.
After that the first band starts straight away at 25% (up to € 16,720 taxable, income year 2026).
Via 40% and 45% it rises to 50% above € 51,070.
On top come municipal surcharges of zero to around nine percent on top of the tax itself.

The result: for the same gross, the Belgian net is noticeably lower than the Dutch. But don't stop calculating there, because next to the monthly salary stands a row of items Dutch payslips don't know.

The package next to the salary

Four items next to the monthly salary:

Double holiday pay. On top of your paid holidays (the "single" holiday pay) you get a supplement for every month worked or treated as worked in the previous year, equal to one twelfth of 92% of the gross salary of the month in which you take your holiday. For a full year that is roughly 92% of a month's salary.
The end-of-year bonus. In most sectors the collective agreement provides a thirteenth month.
Meal vouchers. Up to € 10 per day worked, almost untaxed: a quiet thousand plus a year.
Automatic indexation. The most un-Dutch thing of all: wages under a joint committee (the body that negotiates the collective agreements per sector) rise automatically with the health index, a variant of the price index, without negotiation.

In case of illness your employer pays guaranteed pay for the first thirty days, after which the health fund takes over. Count the package in, and the difference with the Netherlands becomes a lot smaller than the first payslip makes you fear.

Item	What applies
Employee social security contribution	13.07% of gross salary
Tax-free allowance (income year 2026)	€ 11,180
First income tax band	25% up to € 16,720 taxable
Highest band	50% above € 51,070
Double holiday pay	1/12 of 92% of gross salary per month worked in the previous year
Guaranteed pay in case of illness	30 days by the employer
Self-employed as main occupation: social contributions	20.50% up to € 75,024.54; 14.16% above that up to € 110,562.42
Self-employed: minimum contribution	calculated on a minimum income of € 17,374.08

The trap of year one: you earn holidays in advance

The Belgian holiday system builds up your rights in the previous calendar year. Whoever starts in Belgium in 2027 formally has hardly any paid holidays in 2027.

There are safety nets. Supplementary holidays are a right for whoever works this year and didn't last year. You take them from the last week of the start-up period and after the ordinary days are used up. The holiday pay is then an advance on next year's double holiday pay.

But the conversation about this belongs with your employment conditions, before you sign. Whoever comes from a Dutch employer moreover has their accrued Dutch days paid out neatly on leaving.

May you start straight away, and does your diploma count?

As an EU citizen you may start working immediately after entering, as an employee and as a self-employed person. The residence procedure runs separately from that.

The Agentschap Integratie en Inburgering (the Flemish agency for integration) does name the threshold at which municipalities recognise you as an EU worker: from twelve hours a week, with employment of more than three months.

For regulated professions and for employers that ask for it, NARIC-Vlaanderen (the Flemish diploma recognition office) recognises foreign diplomas. For the Benelux and the Baltic states automatic recognition runs through a digital platform.

The expat regime is almost never for Dutch people. Belgium has a special tax regime for incoming taxpayers, under which the employer may reimburse up to 30% of the gross remuneration tax-free, with a maximum of € 90,000 a year. It is meant for whoever is temporarily recruited from abroad or seconded; the precise access conditions are with the FPS Finance, and whoever already lived in the border region should not count on it.

Self-employed in Belgium

For entrepreneurs the sum is different but the principle the same. You compulsorily join a social insurance fund and as a main occupation pay social contributions on your net professional income:

20.50% up to € 75,024.54;
14.16% on the part above that up to € 110,562.42;
with a minimum contribution on an income of € 17,374.08.

Those contributions are provisional at first, calculated on your income of three years earlier, or on a fixed statutory amount if you weren't self-employed then. They are regularised (settled afterwards) once the tax authorities know your income. The registration in the Crossroads Bank for Enterprises and the affiliation with the fund you arrange at a business counter.

Against that, Belgium has no box 3 (the Dutch tax on savings and investments): saving and investing are taxed per transaction and per return. Since 2026 there is, however, a new capital gains tax of 10% above € 10,000 profit a year. Here too: have it calculated once by someone who knows both systems.

In Vertrekklaar this is phase 1 of 5 of the journey: the same steps, but applied to your situation — in your order, tickable, and with the deadlines watched. See the whole journey to Belgium.

What this rests on

The facts in this article come from these official pages. Rules change. When in doubt, go by the source, not this article.

FPS Finance — the tax rates — fin.belgium.be
Social Security — the employee contributions (13.07%) — socialsecurity.be
Social Security — annual holidays, single and double holiday pay, supplementary holidays — socialsecurity.be
FPS Employment — guaranteed pay in case of illness — werk.belgie.be
NBB — automatic wage indexation — nbb.be
Agentschap Integratie en Inburgering — working as an EU citizen, employee or self-employed — vreemdelingenrecht.be
RSVZ — the social contributions for the self-employed — rsvz.be
NARIC-Vlaanderen — having a foreign diploma recognised — naricvlaanderen.be
hub.brussels — the special tax regime for incoming taxpayers — info.hub.brussels

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