New immigration rules in Flanders
Foreign employees who are not citizens of the European Economic Area (EEA) need a work permit or a single permit to work on Belgian territory, unless they are exempt from it.
The competence for granting a work permit or a single permit has been regionalised. Consequently, each region can determine its own conditions for granting a work permit/single permit. Flanders changed its rules regarding single permits with effect from 1 May 2024. The main changes are as follows:
1. Extension of grounds for refusal and withdrawal
An authorisation to work can be withdrawn or refused in Flanders on certain grounds to prevent abuse. In doing so, Flanders distinguishes between optional and mandatory grounds for refusal and withdrawal. The new rules further expand these grounds for refusal and withdrawal. For example, it will be possible to refuse an authorisation to work if the employer does not carry out sufficient economic or social activities that justify the employment of foreign employees or if the company was founded less than three years ago or has no employees. Especially for start-ups, this means that it will become more difficult to recruit third-country nationals in the company's early years.
2. Categories
Unless a certain exemption can be applied, the foreign employee has to belong to a certain category in order to obtain an authorisation to work in Flanders. Each category is subject to certain conditions and procedures. You can find below a short overview of the new rules regarding the categories that are most common in practice.
a. Highly skilled employees
To qualify for the category “highly skilled employee”, two conditions must be met:
- The gross annual salary of the employee must meet a certain salary threshold during their employment in Belgium:
- For employees aged 30 or older, this threshold amounts to 48,912 EUR gross (amount for 2025).
- For employees younger than 30 years old, a reduced salary threshold of 39,129.60 EUR gross applies, which corresponds to 80% of the salary threshold for employees aged 30 and older
- The employee should be able to present at least qualification level 5 (bachelor's degree). Under the old regulations, this required at least a 3-year degree, but this condition has now been removed.
b. Medium-skilled positions
Two conditions apply to this category:
- There is a structural shortage of suitable employees in the labour market for the position in question. There is a legal presumption that this condition is met if the job appears on the list of middle-skilled positions that is now revised every two years at the latest.
- The application is made by an employer based in Belgium. A secondment from a foreign company is therefore not possible for middle-skilled positions.
Under the new regulations, additional documents will also have to be submitted from now on when submitting an application under this category.
c. “Other” category
If the employee does not fall under any of the other categories, an employer based in Belgium may apply for an authorisation to work under the “other” category.
Under this category, there is no presumption of a labour market shortage. Consequently, in the past, a labour market research had to be carried out by the VDAB to fall under this category. This meant that a vacancy had to be posted in a shared administration on the VDAB website for at least 6 weeks before an application could be submitted under this category.
Under the new rules, an application under this category has to meet the following conditions:
- The position must appear on the shortage occupations list published annually by the VDAB.
- The job requires a qualification of level 2,3 or 4.
- The vacancy must have been published on the platforms of VDAB and EURES for at least 9 weeks within a period of 4 months preceding the application. Publication on EURES is automatic if the vacancy was posted on the VDAB platform.
- When the vacancy is published, the employer requests active mediation by the VDAB. This means that the VDAB actively looks for suitable candidates for the position in question.
Moreover, additional documents must now also be submitted when applying under this category.
3. Only one authorisation to work
It is now explicitly stated that an employee can be granted only one authorisation to work for the same period.
An important exception to this principle is that employees who already have a single permit can hold a flexi-job on top. In that case, however, the general conditions for exercising a flexi-job must be met, which requires, among other points, that the employee in question must work at least 4/5th with the first employer.
For further questions, please feel free to contact our legal department at the following e-mail address: legal@pro-pay.be.
