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

Whoever puts a Belgian vacancy next to a Dutch one and compares only the gross salary is comparing apples with a fruit basket. The Belgian pay package is put together differently — stricter on the tax side, more generous on the package side — and one difference in the system can really hit your first year.

The net salary: why gross says less here

From the Belgian gross salary 13.07% social security comes off first, and then personal income tax adds up quickly: after a tax-free allowance of € 11,180 the first band starts straight away at 25% (up to € 16,720 taxable, income year 2026), via 40% and 45% to 50% above € 51,070 — plus municipal surcharges of zero to around nine percent on top of the tax itself. The result: at equal gross, the Belgian net is noticeably lower than the Dutch one. But don't stop calculating there — because alongside the monthly salary stands a row of items that Dutch payslips don't know.

The package alongside the salary

Double holiday pay: on top of your paid holiday (the "single" holiday pay) you get an annual supplement of roughly 92% of a month's salary. The end-of-year bonus: in most sectors the collective agreement provides for a thirteenth month. Meal vouchers: up to € 10 per day worked, almost untaxed — a quiet thousand-plus a year. And the most un-Dutch thing of all: the automatic index — wages under a joint committee rise automatically with the health index, without negotiation. During 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 good deal smaller than the first payslip makes you fear.

The pitfall of year one: you earn holiday in advance

The Belgian holiday system builds your entitlements in the previous calendar year: whoever starts in Belgium in 2027 formally has hardly any paid holiday days in 2027. There are safety nets — the supplementary "European holiday" lets you take days after three months as an advance on your double holiday pay — but the conversation about this belongs with your terms of employment, before you sign. Whoever comes from a Dutch employer, moreover, has their accrued Dutch days properly paid out on leaving.

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 around 20.5% social contributions on your net professional income (up to a ceiling), provisionally calculated on your income from three years back and regularised later. Against that, Belgium has no box 3: savings and investments are taxed per transaction and per return — though since 2026 with 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 monitored. See the whole journey to Belgium.