Notice periods in Belgium after the 2026 reform

Notice in Belgium is set by law according to the employee’s seniority, counted in weeks, and since 2014 the same scale applies to white-collar and blue-collar staff. An employer cannot shorten it in the contract. What changed in 2026 is the shape of the scale at both ends: very short notice for new starters, and a ceiling for long-serving staff.

For a contract started on or after 1 August 2026, dismissal by the employer requires the following notice:

• Under 6 months’ seniority: 1 week.
• 6 to under 9 months: 6 weeks. 9 to under 12 months: 7 weeks.
• 12 to under 15 months: 8 weeks, then one more week for each further three months, reaching 11 weeks at 21 to under 24 months.
• From the second anniversary 12 weeks, from the third 13 weeks, and from the fourth 15 weeks.
• From 5 years: 3 more weeks for each year of service (18 weeks at 5 years, 21 at 6 and so on), up to the 52-week ceiling, which applies from 17 years.

Two dates show how sharply the new rules turn at six months. Take an employee who started on 1 September 2026. Notice given on 20 February 2027 is 1 week, because seniority is still under six months. Notice given on 10 March 2027, after the six-month point on 1 March, is 6 weeks. A colleague hired on 1 March 2026, before the reform, would have been on 4 weeks at four months’ service under the older short periods.

Seniority means uninterrupted service with the same employer, and the scale is read at the moment notice is given. A manager who hands over notice a week before an employee’s second work anniversary is on the 11-week line, not the 12-week one. That detail matters more than it looks when several people are leaving at once.

The FPS Employment keeps the official table, with all the transitional versions, on its notice periods page.

The Programme Law of 30 May 2026 did not rewrite every existing contract. Which version of the scale applies depends on when the employment began, so the first question in any dismissal is the start date on the contract.

• Started before 1 June 2026. The older short periods apply (3 weeks at 3 months, 4 at 4 months, 5 at 5 months) and there is no cap: after 20 years the scale keeps adding one week a year, so 62, 63, 64 weeks and beyond.
• Started 1 June to 31 July 2026. Same short periods as above, but notice stops rising at 52 weeks from 17 years’ seniority.
• Started from 1 August 2026. 1 week for the whole of the first 6 months, then the standard scale, capped at 52 weeks.

Contracts that began before 1 January 2014 sit in a fourth group. Their notice is built from two parts: rights frozen at the end of 2013 under the old white-collar rules, plus a second part under the current scale for service since 2014. Anyone dismissing a long-serving employee hired before 2014 needs that two-part calculation done properly.

For a company hiring its first people in Belgium in late 2026, the practical effect is simple: everyone joins under the newest rules. The 1-week notice during the first six months gives both sides a short exit while the working relationship settles. Trial periods disappeared from Belgian law at the start of 2014, and a probation clause written into a newer contract has no legal effect, so this short notice has become the main safety valve at the start of employment. The Belgian contract terms guide covers that ban.

An employee who resigns also owes notice, but on a much shorter scale. For contracts started from 1 August 2026, it is 1 week during the first 6 months. For older contracts, 1 week applies under 3 months and 2 weeks from 3 to under 6 months.

After that the resignation scale climbs in small steps: 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 9, 10 and 12 weeks, and the ceiling of 13 weeks arrives at 8 years of service. However long someone has worked for you, their resignation notice never exceeds 13 weeks.

For a team lead, the asymmetry is worth knowing early. A ten-year employee may have to be given many months of notice, yet can leave you with three months at most. Succession planning for key Belgian roles cannot rely on long resignation periods the way some other systems allow.

Notice does not have to be worked. Whichever side ends the contract can do so on the spot and pay the other an indemnité de rupture (opzeggingsvergoeding), the indemnity in lieu of notice, covering current pay and benefits for whatever part of the notice remains unworked. Employers often choose this when the person’s continued presence would be awkward, or to close a role quickly.

The indemnity is calculated on the whole package rather than on base salary alone. For a PC 200 employee that means monthly salary plus the share of the 13th month, holiday pay and any recurring benefits attached to the period. A worker on €4,500 a month with 12 weeks’ notice due is owed close to three months of everything they earn, not three monthly salaries alone.

Notice can also be mixed: part worked, part paid. Many employers start with worked notice and buy out the balance if the person finds a new job early or the handover finishes ahead of plan.

There is one exception to the notice rules: serious misconduct (motif grave / dringende reden). Dismissal for serious misconduct ends the contract with neither notice nor indemnity, but it is a narrow ground with strict procedural deadlines, and labour courts look hard at whether the facts justify it. Treat it as a separate legal process, not a faster way to dismiss.

Once an employee has 6 months’ seniority, collective agreement no. 109 (CCT/CAO 109) gives them the right to know the concrete reasons for their dismissal and protects them against a dismissal that is manifestly unreasonable. It applies across the private sector.

• The request is a registered letter sent no later than 2 months after the employment ends; during worked notice it can come earlier, at any point in the 6 months after notice is served, provided the 2-month limit after the end is respected.
• The employer answers by registered letter within 2 months. Missing that deadline costs a civil fine of 2 weeks’ pay.
• A dismissal the labour court judges manifestly unreasonable carries compensation of 3 to 17 weeks’ pay, which comes in addition to any fine.
• Writing the reasons down unprompted, at the time of dismissal, removes the duty to reply to a request later.

The most practical consequence is documentary. A dismissal that rests on performance needs a record of the conversations, objectives and warnings that preceded it. Without that record, explaining the reasons in a credible letter two months later becomes hard, and the 3-to-17-week range starts to look real.

Three further obligations come with many dismissals and are easy to overlook.

Outplacement. Thirty weeks is the trigger. Once the notice or indemnity owed reaches that length, the general outplacement scheme applies: the employer offers 60 hours of career support, valued at a twelfth of the employee’s gross pay for the previous year and kept between €1,800 and €5,500 before VAT. The offer is made in a registered letter, either in the first 4 weeks of notice or, when an indemnity replaces notice, within 15 days of the contract ending. On the current scale, employer notice reaches 30 weeks at 9 years’ seniority (18 weeks at 5 years plus 3 weeks for each further year), so this obligation comes into play once someone has completed nine years with the employer. Older workers have their own scheme: from the age of 45, with a year or more of service, it can apply even below the 30-week line.

Protected employees. Elected employee representatives, and people standing for election to the works council or the committee for health and safety at work, can only be let go for serious misconduct or, for economic or technical reasons, through a dedicated procedure. A wider group is shielded from dismissal connected with a particular situation: union delegates, pregnant employees, and anyone using birth or adoption leave, time credit or paid educational leave, among others. Dismissing someone in one of these positions needs reasons that clearly have nothing to do with the protected status.

Documents. The end of employment is notified to the ONSS through an exit Dimona. On the last day the employee should have the C4 (needed to claim unemployment benefit), a holiday certificate to pass to the next employer, and a certificate stating the period of employment. The final payslip also settles the holiday pay already earned in the year of departure, worked out as a percentage of that year’s gross.

If the person was hired through an employer of record, notice comes from the EOR, because it holds the contract; it also pays any indemnity and issues the leaving documents. Your role is to decide on the change and supply the facts behind it.

In practice, the sequence looks like this. You raise the situation early, with the start date, the reason and any performance history. The EOR works out the notice under the right version of the scale, the cost of paying in lieu, whether outplacement applies and whether the person is protected. You then choose between worked and paid notice, and the EOR serves notice and runs final payroll. Our description of the EOR process in Belgium shows how the same steps look at the start of employment, and EOR explained for Belgium sets out which decisions stay with you throughout.

Notice is also a cost to plan for at hiring time, not only at the end. A long-serving employee under the pre-June 2026 scale can carry a notice liability above a year’s pay. With Employer of Record Belgium you see the notice position for each employee, and the non-compete rules explain why a restrictive clause has no effect on dismissal without serious cause after the first six months.