Every month someone posts questions about the Belgian professional card (non-EU freelance visa) on this board and r/brussels. I’m writing this post for 1) to help those who have questions regarding it, as the Brussels region has very little information, and 2) to inform the Belgian public about the process. Note that this is NOT legal advice but only based on my personal experience, do your own research.
For those unaware: in order to work as a freelancer in Belgium as a non-EU citizen, you need to request a professional card, and once approved (it takes 5 months), you can apply for the right to stay in Belgium. This card lets you invoice in a certain domain but you cannot be employed.
Information about the professional card is regionalised and hard to find; Flanders [reformed the beroepskaart in 2021](https://www.vlaanderen.be/en/professional-card-for-foreign-entrepreneurs), and the information on the [Belgian staatsblad](https://www.ejustice.just.fgov.be/eli/decreet/2021/10/15/2021033701/staatsblad) largely corresponds to website. Unfortunately, the [Brussels](https://economie-emploi.brussels/carte-professionnelle) region is much more complicated than in Flanders as the code was not recently reformed. Indeed, while speaking to lawyers, they often laugh out of sympathy as soon as you mention Brussels. I am not informed on Wallonia but I believe it is similar to Brussels.
Belgium’s high tax obligations/paperwork are notorious. Not only will you pay more tax, freelancers in Belgium have additional obligations compared to other EU countries such as FR, NL, DE, or yes, even IT. The threshold for VAT exemptions is much lower (25k, as opposed to 50k-100k+ in France), and you need to do VAT declarations every 3 months – in France, again, you only need to do such detailed declarations upon gaining 250k+. Social security fees are about the same as in neighbouring countries, around 20%. Unlike in France, if your revenues are low, you need to pay around 900€ every 3 months in social security fees from the start of your independent status – this means starting off as an independent can be a real financial challenge for Belgians.
Arguably the strongest disadvantage compared to other EU countries is that Belgian non-EU freelancers cannot be employed and are very limited in their activities, and many institutions do not understand how to pay you if you are not employed. The work you can invoice is extremely limited by NACEBEL activity codes, whereas other countries often have some flexibility. You should make sure to include as many NACEBEL codes as you think will be reasonable in your request. **If you are accepted to freelance as a video editor for cinema, for example, and then invoice someone for a music composition side-gig, you could (in law, hopefully not in practice) risk a year in prison or several thousand euros in punitive fees for working outside of your specified domain.**
Should you decide to be independent in Belgium, the reform in Flanders brought much more transparency. From my own experience (highly educated in EU, from a wealthy non-EU country), here are a few remarks about my experience with the Brussels region, with some additional info (nowhere online or in the legal code) you may want to add to your application:
* **Flanders requires you make 120% living wage – Brussels does not clearly state how much you should make.** Your wages may be approved, but then later you may be told it isn’t enough; each person may gave you different information, unable to give you a solid minimum income figure. **Even though the EU wants to end the ‘Golden Visa’ scheme, they may ask you to prove your wealth, so if you have this proof it may increase your chances of acceptance.**
* **Even though Brussels is seen as an innovative, cultural, and artistic hub, only Flanders takes these into account according to the staatsblad.** The only real criteria which Brussels takes into account is economic, according to the staatsblad. I can attest that my non-economic criteria (Belgian/EU prizes) and integration criteria (I can communicate in all of the official languages of Belgium) did not seen to help me.
* You can get a form from the CPAS saying you haven’t received any social aid, which can’t hurt your application.
* For certain steps you may have to wait an unknown amount of time (1 month max in Flanders, no legal limit in Brussels) for the **Ministre de l’emploi et de la formation professionnelle** to sign your paperwork. I needed to wait several months, and the 2024 Belgian elections may also impact the busy schedule of the Minister. I was assured that the Minister is interested in \[my domain\], so he may respond favourably. How this process actually works I think only the people within the ministry know, but apparently it may depend on the inclinations of the politician; **you may thus want to Google search them and consider their politics to increase the chances of receiving a favourable response.**
* Important: you should not renew your professional card before its expiry date, but **3 months before**. I would say even 6 months before if you can. The entire process takes months in Brussels, around 5 months for each step, but I’ve heard of longer; I called and emailed them every week. That means each time you want to renew or change your codes you’ll need to wait several months. In the end, my refusal was turned into an acceptance but for a humorously short amount of time (not even enough time to do 1 tax declaration). In Brussels (don’t think it’s the case in Flanders), you also need to pay an accountant 500€ to do a study of your finances for each renewal, on top of several hundred in processing fees and a lot of time.
* When you submit your application, they will find something wrong with it. This is your chance to improve your application. Take care to submit ALL additional information in one email here. In Brussels, the Economie phone line is only open on Thursday 9-12h, but aren’t as informative as the person examining your dossier. I reached out to the minister and politicians I have met to try and get my dossier examined within months, this probably helps; your social network definitely can get things done more efficiently.
* As you can’t request the right to stay until your professional card is approved, you can’t request a temporary visa until your professional card is approved. Refugees can request an annexe 9bis in these cases, but your situation isn’t really suitable – on top of that, it costs 363€ if I’m not mistaken.
* **This means that if your professional card or right to stay runs out due to their lengthy treatment times, you cannot invoice, leave Belgium, or go to a doctor, even though you pay tax and social security fees. Indeed, should you want to become Belgian after paying taxes here for 5 years, the fact that processing your paperwork took so long that it pushed you into irregular stay may be grounds to refuse you Belgian citizenship/EU rights.** This personally was the ‘de druppel die de emmer deed overlopen’ for me. In most democratic countries, when your paperwork is being processed, you have a temporary visa; I would rather not cancel a business trip to the US or the UK or avoid going to the doctor because it’s an election year and I’m waiting for a signature.
Coming from a more liberal economy and having experience with other EU countries this was all quite surprising. The quality of life, cost of housing, etc. are great in Belgium, but Belgium has other curious limitations: you can only do certain activities, certain Antwerp universities require you to have the right to work to do a funded PhD, meaning non-EU nationals cannot research there, etc. – so make sure to think it through and compare your EU options, as well as the differences between the Flanders vs Brussels professional card.
Finally, being an employee (requires sponsorship by a company) or a refugee entitled to state aid (Ukranians do not need the professional card, for instance) has some real advantages over the independent status. I am curious as to why this is and would love to know how this makes sense economically, of course – but hope this post was informative to prospective freelancers and Belgians.
by aimockup