Telework in Belgium: CCT 85, the 2026 home-office allowance and remote teams

Telework in Belgium falls under one of two sets of rules, and the difference is regularity. Home working that happens on a regular, planned basis is structural telework, governed by collective agreement no. 85, which employer and union representatives agreed in the National Labour Council. Home working that happens now and then, for a delivery, a strike or a sick child, is occasional telework under the Law of 5 March 2017 on workable and agile work.

Structural telework rests on four principles in CCT no. 85. It is voluntary for both the employer and the employee, so neither side can impose it. It is set out in a written agreement. The employer bears the costs of equipment and connection as the parties agree. And the teleworker keeps the same rights as colleagues who work on the employer’s premises, from pay and training to collective rights.

Occasional telework is lighter. It does not need a formal telework agreement for each instance, but the employer’s policy on how it is requested, approved and equipped is usually written into the work regulations or a company policy so that everyone applies the same rules.

Which regime applies is more than a label. It decides whether the arrangement must be in writing, whether the tax-free allowance described below is available, and what a manager can and cannot change without the employee’s agreement.

A few examples make the line clearer. A developer who works from home every Tuesday and Thursday under a signed arrangement is a structural teleworker. A sales manager who stays home one morning to let in a plumber is teleworking occasionally. An employee who has worked from home three days a week for a year with nothing in writing is in an arrangement that looks structural in fact but lacks the agreement the rules expect, which is worth fixing before anyone asks for the allowance.

An employer can pay a structural teleworker a monthly allowance for office costs that is free of both income tax and social security contributions, within a fixed ceiling. For 2026 the ceiling is €160.99 a month until 31 August and €164.21 a month from 1 September.

The condition is a minimum amount of home working: structural home working has to add up to one day a week or more. Someone who comes into an office four days a week and works from home on Fridays qualifies. Someone who works from home only when the trains are on strike does not.

Two smaller amounts can sit beside it. The rules allow up to €20 a month for the use of a private internet connection and up to €20 a month for the use of a private computer, both on the same exempt basis, as set out in the ONSS instructions on expense reimbursements. Where the employer supplies a laptop and pays the connection directly, those extras are not needed.

Over a full year at the 2026 ceilings, the office allowance comes to €1,944.76: eight months at €160.99 and four at €164.21. Adding both €20 amounts for twelve months brings the total to €2,424.76. Because none of it carries employer ONSS, the full amount reaches the employee, and it costs the employer exactly what it pays.

The ceiling moved during 2026, so payroll has to change the amount from the September payslip. Allowances agreed as a fixed euro figure below the ceiling stay as agreed; an agreement written as “the maximum exempt amount” follows the ceiling automatically. The second wording saves an amendment every time the figure is revised, and it avoids a payslip that quietly falls behind the limit.

Anything paid above the ceiling falls outside the exemption, so it should be agreed knowingly and run through payroll as such. For a teleworker who genuinely has higher costs, it is usually simpler to supply equipment directly than to raise the allowance beyond the exempt limit.

A written telework agreement is required for structural home working, and a good one answers in advance the questions that otherwise turn into disputes. CCT no. 85 sets the principles; the agreement turns them into an arrangement both sides can check.

• Frequency and days. Fixed days, or a number of days a week chosen within limits.
• Place. The employee’s home address, and whether working from another address is allowed.
• Equipment. What the employer supplies, who maintains it and what happens to it when the arrangement ends.
• Costs. The monthly allowance, any internet and computer amounts, and how they change when the ceilings are indexed.
• Reachability. The hours during which the teleworker should be available, consistent with the work schedule.
• Ending the arrangement. How either side can return to office working, and with how much notice.

For teams without any Belgian premises, the agreement also helps by saying plainly that the home is the normal place of work. That avoids questions later about commuting arrangements or an office the employee was never expected to use.

Working from home does not change the working-time rules. A full-time white-collar employee under PC 200 averages 38 hours a week across the year, inside the usual daily cap of 8 hours and weekly cap of 40, and any work from 20:00 to 06:00 counts as night work needing a legal basis, whether it is done at a desk in an office or at a kitchen table.

The risk with home working is drift. Messages answered at 21:00 and calls stacked into the evening to suit colleagues in another time zone add up, and they still count as work. Managers outside Belgium should agree core hours with the team and keep regular evening work out of the routine.

Health and safety duties also follow the employee home. Belgian employers work with an external prevention service for occupational health, and prevention duties cover teleworkers too. A short checklist on the home workstation, chair, screen and lighting, reviewed when the arrangement starts, is a sensible minimum.

Equal treatment is the last point. A teleworker’s pay, bonuses, training and promotion prospects follow the same rules as those of office colleagues. If home workers are quietly left out of reviews or development, the arrangement itself has become the problem.

Changing a structural arrangement works the same way as starting one: by agreement, in writing. If the business later wants people back in an office, or an employee wants to return, the agreement should already say how either side can bring the arrangement to an end and how much warning is given. Writing that down at the start is far easier than negotiating it when relations are already strained.

A large share of the foreign companies that use an employer of record for Belgian staff have no premises in the country, so their employees work from home every day. That is still structural telework, and the same written agreement and the same allowance rules apply.

For a fully remote employee, the home-office allowance replaces much of what an office would have cost. Our recurring €4,500 PC 200 example costs the employer roughly €78,400 over 2026, excluding the EOR fee. Adding the full home-office allowance and both €20 amounts adds €2,424.76, with no social contributions on top. The full cost build-up is in our guide to employer cost in Belgium.

Remote-only teams should still plan for occasional in-person time. Travel to a team meeting is a business expense and should be reimbursed separately; it does not reduce the home-office allowance, which covers the costs of the home office itself.

Onboarding a home-based hire also takes some planning. The laptop, phone and any other equipment need to arrive before the first working day, the Dimona declaration is filed before the employee starts, and the telework agreement should be signed with the contract rather than weeks later. Each of those steps needs a date in the onboarding plan.

An employee on a Belgian contract who works part of the time from another country may bring that country’s social security or tax rules into play. The outcome depends on the number and pattern of days, the countries involved and the rules in force at the time, so there is no single safe number of days to quote.

Two habits keep the risk under control. First, agree in writing where the employee is expected to work, and require approval for longer stays abroad. Second, review any regular pattern, such as one week a month spent in another country, with an adviser before it starts, not after a year of it.

Short trips for meetings or conferences are a different matter from a regular split between two homes, and a simple log of days worked outside Belgium makes any later review much easier. Our post for UK companies hiring in Belgium looks at the question from the other side, where the employer is abroad and the employee occasionally works from there.

As the legal employer on the Belgian contract, Employer of Record Belgium signs the telework agreement with the employee and pays the allowance through payroll, so it appears on the payslip as an exempt reimbursement rather than salary. You decide, with the employee, how many days are worked from home and what equipment your company provides.

• Settle before the offer goes out how many days, if any, the person will spend at a desk you provide.
• Confirm which equipment your company ships and which costs the allowance is meant to cover.
• Tell us the agreed home-working pattern so the allowance can start with the first payslip.
• Flag any plan for the employee to work regularly from another country.

The telework terms sit beside the main contract and the work regulations, described in our post on Belgian contracts and work rules. For an overview of everything the employer role covers, read the employer of record explained for Belgium.