How to hire remote employees in

Belgium

On this page, you’ll learn how to hire remote talent in Belgium without having to trudge through months of legal paperwork and shell out thousands of dollars. Shall we?

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Employment requirements

Country snapshot

CURRENCY

Euro (EUR)

EMPLOYER TAXES

25%

PAYROLL FREQUENCY

Monthly

OFFICIAL LANGUAGE

Dutch

Why hire independent contractors in Belgium

Hiring contractors is normally the easier, faster, more flexible choice—but don’t just take it from us. Below are the specific benefits and drawbacks to hiring contractors in Belgium.

It’s the fastest way to hire globally

Hiring employees takes months, at the minimum. When you hire with Thera's locally-generated contracts, it’s a matter of days or weeks. This means you can hire the best talent, fast, without losing them to a hellish procession of paperwork.

It’s a lot cheaper

It costs just $0 to sign up for Thera, then $25 per month to hire your contractors with Thera. If you hired employees manually (or did contracting on your own), you’d likely be on the hook for thousands of dollars each month. Setting up an entity alone can cost tens of thousands of dollars.

It’s more flexible for you & your team

HHiring contractors in Belgium means you’re generally not on the hook for things like health insurance and paid time off. This makes hiring flexible for you, and it gives your talent more options.

Can be less risky than hiring employees

Hiring employees is a bigger commitment, and can open you up to increased liabilities and regulations. When you hire contractors overseas, your biggest risk is misclassification—but laws surrounding contractor classification are often significantly more straightforward.

Some people want to be employees

The contractor life isn’t for everyone—some people want the security that being an employee often appears to provide. Though it’s rare, this does happen, and it’s one disadvantage of manage an all-contractor team.

You might not have as much control over your talent

Most countries’ contractor-employer relationship laws stipulate that the employer can’t set fixed working hours, among other things. These laws give contractors more freedom over how and when they do their work than an employee would have. In reality, however, most contractors are willing & able to work on the company’s schedule—it’s a matter of setting expectations beforehand.

What to know before you hire in Belgium

So you want to hire in Belgium. You’ll have to make a decision: Do you want to hire your new remote talent as employees, or do you want to hire them as contractors? Conventional wisdom might say employees, but hiring abroad is hardly conventional—below, we’ll cover what you need to know about your options.

If you want to successfully hire in Belgium, you have two options:

Hire talent as contractors

Laws about hiring contractors are significantly more simple in Belgium. Onboarding talent takes days, not weeks or months. Both you, the company, and your talent have more flexibility. And in many cases, since you’re remote, the talent you’re hiring is better classified as a contractor, anyway. Of course, it’s not possible in every case, but it’s what we built Thera for.

Hire talent as employees

This is the long route. You can either establish a physical presence with an entity and register as an employer, or you can use an Employer-of-Record (EOR) solution. Odds are, you’ll find using an EOR to be the easier route. Still, using an EOR in Belgium is expensive—it can often be $500 per month per employee—and sometimes prone to lengthy onboarding times.

Hire contractors in a couple clicks with Thera

How can I pay people in Belgium

If you’re hiring contractors in Belgium, you can pay them with Thera in a single click. You won’t need to worry about complicated wire transfers, fees, or currency conversions. We’ll take care of it all. Just make a click and your contractor will get paid in their currency of choice. This is a valuable bonus for talent in countries where the local currency is particularly weak—most people appreciate the ability to receive their payment in stronger currencies.

If you want to hire employees in Belgium

If you’ve read up until this point, you’ll know that it’s easier, cheaper, and more flexible to hire contractors in Belgium than employees. Still, there are valid reasons why you might want to hire employees instead. The content below is for you—we’ll cover employer taxes and obligations in Belgium.

Taxes in Belgium

Employer tax

Social Security for white collar workers

Social Security for blue collar workers

Individual tax

0.00 EUR – 13,250 EUR - 25%

41,361 EUR and above - 50%

Leave

Paid Time Off (PTO)

Employee’s annual leave entitlement in a given year is determined by the number of days worked. Employees are entitled to 20 to 24 days of annual leave, depending on their working regime (i.e., For a 5-day week, the entitlement would be 20 days paid annual leave and for a 6-day week 24 days).

Employees are entitled to remuneration for ten official public holidays. If a public holiday falls on a Sunday or on a day the employee does not usually work, the employer must grant a replacement rest day.

Public Holidays

There are 10 public holidays. An extra holiday may be applicable according to the Joint Labour Committee.

Sick Days

The duration of sick leave entitlement provided to workers is dependent on how long they have been employed by their employer:

For the first 30 days of sick leave, the employer must pay the employee’s full salary.
The employee is required to provide a medical certificate upon the employer’s request.
After the first 30 days of sickness, the Health Insurance Fund pays for the remainder of the sick leave.

Maternity Leave

Maternity leave is 15 weeks long and is broken down into 2 stages:

Prenatal leave: The woman must take a minimum of 1 week before the expected due date and can take up to a maximum of 6 weeks of leave before the due date.
Postnatal leave: A mandatory 9 weeks which starts from the date of the birth of the child.

For multiple births, the mother is entitled to an additional 2 weeks of maternity leave.

The Health Insurance Fund pays for the maternity leave as follows:

82% of the salary for the first 30 days of the leave
75% of the salary (capped at 106.9, EUR per day) from the 31st day onwards.

Paternity Leave

The father is entitled to 15 days of paid paternity leave. The 15 days can be taken separately or in a row as well as split up to up to 30 half-days.

The first 3 days of the leave are paid by the employer and the remaining leave is paid by the Health Insurance Fund at a rate of 82% of the regular pay.

Parental Leave

Parental leave can start from any time from the end of the post-natal maternity leave and can be taken as follows:

A single 4-month period
Multiple periods broken into at least 1 month each
Temporarily reducing the working hours to 80% and can be done for a maximum of 20 months. This period can also be divided up into multiples of 2 month periods.
Temporarily reducing the working hours to 50% for a maximum of 8 months. This period can also be divided up into multiples of 2 month periods.
Taking off half a day per week or one full day every 2 weeks and can be done for a maximum of 40 months or divided up into several periods of 10 months each. However, the employer has the right to refuse this scheme.

Other Leave

Family care, to assist a seriously ill household or family member, depending on the various Joint Labour Committees:

All employees (employed full-time or part-time) can entirely suspend their services for 12 months maximum per patient. These interruptions must be taken each time for periods of a minimum of one month and a maximum of 3 months
All employees employed part-time whose average weekly working hours is at least equal to ¾ of the average weekly working hours of a full-time worker can reduce his or her benefits by up to half of full-time employment for a maximum period of 24 months per patient.

Marriage Leave

Depending on the various Joint Labour Committees, leave might be given for the marriage of the employee or family member.

Bereavement Leave

In Belgium, employees are entitled to paid leave due to a death of a family member.

Termination

Termination Process

The termination process varies according to how the employment agreement.

The strictest form of dismissal is dismissal with notice.

Employees who have been employed for at least 6 months have the right to know the reason for the termination.

Notice Period

The notice period in Belgium is:

Notice period varies based on the length of employment:

Less than 3 months of employment- 2 weeks’ notice
3-6 months of employment- 4 weeks’ notice
6-9 months of employment- 6 weeks’ notice
9-12 months of employment- 7 weeks’ notice
12-15 months of employment- 8 weeks’ notice
15-18 months of employment- 9 weeks’ notice
18-21 months of employment- 10 weeks’ notice
21-24 months of employment- 11 weeks’ notice
24-36 weeks of employment- 12 weeks’ notice
36-48 months of employment- 13 weeks’ notice
48-60 months of employment- 15 weeks’ notice
60 months- 19 years of employment- 60 weeks’ notice + 3 weeks for every year exceeding 5 years
20-21 years of employment- 62 weeks notice + 1 week for every year of employment

It is also possible to pay in lieu of notice.

Severance Pay

The Severance Pay in Belgium:

Severance pay is only applicable when an employer terminated an employment agreement without notice. In this case, the severance pay would be for the same amount the employee would earn if they were given notice.

Probation Period

Probation period is 6 months.

Employee requirements in Belgium

Working Hours

The maximum full workweek in Belgium is 38 hours.

Depending on some Joint Labour Committees, the number of working hours can be lower, however, the minimum number of hours per day is 3.

Overtime

Overtime is strictly regulated and in general, prohibited.

When employees work overtime, they are paid at the rate of 150% of the regular pay during weekdays and 200% for work on weekends or public holidays.

Rules on overtime and working hours do not apply to some jobs such as sales, managerial roles, and trust roles.

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