Employment contract in Belgium: written terms, fixed-term limits and work regulations

An indefinite employment contract in Belgium is valid even if nothing is written down, but almost every other kind of contract, and several common clauses, must be in writing to have effect. The law demands a written document for five contract types (fixed-term, a specific task, replacing an absent colleague, part-time work and student jobs) and for certain clauses, a non-compete among them. Paper and electronic signatures are both accepted.

The oral open-ended contract is a legal safety net, not a way to work. Since the Law of 7 October 2022, which transposed Directive 2019/1152 into Belgian law, an employer must give the employee the essential information about the job in writing in any case: who the employer is, where the work is done, the role, pay, working time, leave and how the contract can end.

A company recruiting abroad for the first time should treat the signed contract as the default, whatever the minimum required. It is the only way to prove what was agreed on pay elements that are not set by the sector, such as a company car, a bonus scheme or a home-working arrangement, and it is the document a labour court (tribunal du travail / arbeidsrechtbank) reads first in any dispute.

Language is a further point to settle early. Belgium has three official languages, and many employees in Brussels work in English day to day. Agree with whoever drafts the contract which version is signed, and make sure the employee can read the one that binds them; a contract the employee cannot follow is a weak basis for any later disagreement about what was promised.

Belgium abolished the probation period for ordinary employment contracts on 1 January 2014, so any trial clause in a contract dated after that has no legal effect. Student contracts are the main remaining exception. Copying a trial-period clause from a template used elsewhere achieves nothing, and it may confuse the employee about their rights.

What took its place is a short notice period at the start. Where the contract’s first day falls on 1 August 2026 or later, an employer ending it inside six months owes one week’s notice, whatever the exact length of service in that window. For contracts that began before that date, the notice grew month by month, from one week to five, before reaching six weeks at six months.

The new rule works in practice like a probation window, and it should be used like one. Set objectives in the first weeks, review them before month five and record the outcome, because from six months’ service the notice jumps to six weeks, and an employee can ask for the concrete reasons for a dismissal under collective agreement no. 109. The full scale is in our guide to Belgian notice periods.

A short example shows the difference. An analyst who starts on 1 September 2026 and is told in late January 2027, five months in, that the role is not working out receives one week’s notice, or one week’s pay in lieu. Had the same conversation happened in early March, after six months, the notice would be six weeks. The window is generous, but it closes on a fixed date, so diarise it on day one.

A fixed-term contract in Belgium has to exist in writing, signed, by the moment work begins at the latest; otherwise it is treated as an indefinite contract. That deadline is strict, so the signature cannot follow a few days into the job.

Successive fixed-term contracts without a break that is due to the worker are also treated as one indefinite contract, with three ways out:

• up to four successive contracts, each lasting at least three months, for a total of no more than two years;
• with prior approval from the labour inspectorate, successive contracts of at least six months each, for a total of no more than three years;
• or a series justified by the nature of the work or another legitimate reason, which the employer must be able to show.

Most companies that want to test a role use a single fixed-term contract of six or twelve months and then move to an open-ended one. Remember that the two-year and three-year limits count all the successive contracts together, and that the rules on chaining are detailed in the FPS Employment guidance on fixed-term contracts.

Fixed-term staff are not second-tier employees. Someone on a fixed-term contract that runs three months or longer, for example, has the same 30 days of guaranteed salary during illness as a permanent colleague, as explained in our post on sick leave in Belgium.

Much of what an employment contract would cover in other systems is fixed in Belgium by the joint committee (PC) for the employer’s sector, through collective agreements (CCT / CAO) made binding by royal decree. Office staff of an employer that falls under no narrower sector body come under PC 200, the auxiliary white-collar committee.

Under PC 200 in 2026 the contract has to respect at least the following, whatever the parties write:

• a monthly minimum by job class, from €2,242.80 for class A to €2,555.72 for class D at zero years’ experience, after the 2.21% indexation of 1 January 2026;
• an end-of-year bonus (13th month) a full extra month’s salary, payable no later than December, provided the employee has six months’ service on the payment date, with a pro rata amount for newcomers;
• an annual premium of €330.84 gross, paid in June, except where the employer already provides benefits worth the same in purchasing power;
• automatic indexation of actual salaries each January, now limited above €4,000 a month by the 2026 index centimes rules;
• a working week that averages 38 hours across the year.

The contract should name the joint committee, the job class and the gross monthly salary, and then add anything above the sector floor. The minimum scales are covered in our post on minimum pay and PC 200.

Belgian working time sits inside legal limits that a contract cannot override. Daily work normally stops at 8 hours, the weekly ceiling is 40, and averaged over the year the week must not exceed 38. Work normally takes place between Monday and Saturday, and work between 20:00 and 06:00 is night work, allowed only where a legal basis exists.

The contract and the work regulations together have to say what the employee’s hours are. A full-time contract states 38 hours, or the sector’s figure, and the regulations set the actual schedule. For a part-time contract, writing is compulsory and the schedule must be set out, in the contract itself.

Teams managed from abroad should pay attention to habits that creep in. Regular late meetings with a head office in another time zone, or weekend releases, fall within the same limits as any other work. If the job genuinely needs flexible hours, that needs to be agreed and written into the schedule rather than tolerated informally.

Leave entitlements follow from the hours as well. A full-time white-collar employee working five days a week has 20 days of annual leave, earned on the previous calendar year’s work, plus the 10 public holidays, with a replacement day off whenever a holiday falls on a Saturday or Sunday for a Monday to Friday team. The contract does not need to repeat the law, but an offer letter that promises more than 20 days should say so plainly, since anything above the statutory minimum is a contractual extra.

Part-time roles need the most care in drafting. The written contract must give the agreed hours and the schedule, and changes later on have to be documented in the same way, because the payroll and the quarterly DmfA return report working time for every employee.

Every employer in Belgium, whatever its size and even with a single employee, must have work regulations (règlement de travail / arbeidsreglement); the obligation comes from a law dated 8 April 1965. The regulations form part of the employment relationship, and each employee receives a copy.

They are more than a staff handbook, because the law prescribes what they must contain. Among the required items are:

• working hours and schedules, including rest periods;
• how and when pay is calculated and paid;
• the notice rules and the grounds for serious misconduct (motif grave / dringende reden);
• any sanctions and how they are applied;
• where the first-aid kit is and who gives first aid;
• the addresses of the labour inspection services.

The regulations are also where rules on sick notes, the use of company equipment and home working usually sit. Under an employer of record, the work regulations are ours as the legal employer, and they apply to everyone we employ on a Belgian contract for you.

Alongside the regulations, the employer keeps the social documents the law requires. For most employers the old personnel register has been replaced by the Dimona declarations, but an individual account must still be kept for each employee, and each pay period produces a payslip that sets out gross pay, contributions, withholding tax and net pay. These are the records an inspector asks for first.

If the role was first offered as freelance work, read how Belgian law separates the self-employed from employees before signing anything.

Home working terms belong in the contract or an annex too; the telework and allowance rules explain what that annex covers.

Hire through Employer of Record Belgium and we sign the Belgian employment contract with the employee as employer; the terms you agree with your candidate are set out in it: job title, start date, gross salary, the joint committee and class, working time, place of work and any extras. The Dimona declaration follows before the first working day.

A few decisions are worth making before the contract is drafted, because they are harder to change later:

• open-ended from day one, or a fixed-term contract first, and if so for how long;
• whether the role includes structural home working, and the allowance that goes with it;
• whether a non-compete or an IP clause is needed, given the pay thresholds and writing rules (covered in our post on non-competes and IP);
• extras above the sector minimum, such as meal vouchers, eco-vouchers or a group insurance plan.

Once those are settled, our step-by-step EOR process for Belgium covers what happens between the signed offer and the first pay run.

Q01Is an unsigned Belgian employment contract still valid?+

A.An open-ended contract can be valid without a signature. Fixed-term, part-time and student contracts cannot, and nor can a non-compete clause. The essential terms must be given in writing in every case.

Q02Can we start a Belgian employee on a three-month trial?+

A.Not as a trial clause, which has been void since 2014. You can use a fixed-term contract instead, or rely on the one-week notice that applies in the first six months of contracts starting from 1 August 2026.

Q03How many fixed-term contracts can follow each other in Belgium?+

A.Up to four, each of at least three months and no more than two years in total. With the labour inspectorate’s prior approval, contracts of at least six months each can run to three years.

Q04Does a five-person company need work regulations?+

A.Yes. The obligation applies to every employer in Belgium, from the first employee onwards.

Q05What weekly hours should a full-time Belgian contract state?+

A.Thirty-eight, the PC 200 full-time average measured over a year. No day may normally exceed 8 hours or week 40.