Employment law firm Belgium

Yes. A foreign company can employ staff in Belgium without first incorporating a local entity. In practice this means registering as a foreign employer for Belgian social security purposes, filing the mandatory Dimona declaration for each employee and applying Belgian employment law to the relationship.

Many employers use a payroll provider or an employer-of-record to manage these obligations while they assess the market. It is worth taking advice early, however, as sustained activity in Belgium can create tax or permanent-establishment exposure that a purely payroll-based arrangement does not resolve.

An indefinite-term, full-time contract can in principle be agreed orally, but relying on this is rarely advisable. A written contract provides certainty on the essential terms and is required in order to rely on a number of clauses that employers commonly want to include.

Several arrangements must be in writing to be valid, including fixed-term and part-time contracts, teleworking arrangements, non-compete clauses and student contracts. Belgium’s language rules also determine the language in which the contract and related documents have to be drawn up, depending on the operating unit.

As a rule, terminating an employment contract in Belgium does not require prior administrative or court approval. Statutory notice periods are calculated on the basis of the employee’s seniority, under the harmonised rules that apply to blue- and white-collar staff alike.

Notice may be worked or bought out through an indemnity in lieu. Employees also have the right to ask for the concrete reasons that led to their dismissal, and specific protections apply to certain categories of staff, so each termination should be assessed on its own facts.

Belgian employment law is largely federal, so the core rules on contracts, working time and dismissal apply across the country. In that sense the substance of the law does not change from one region to another.

Language, however, does. Employment documents and communications must be in Dutch, French or German depending on the location of the operating unit. The sanction for using the wrong language ranges from nullity of the document to its replacement in the Brussels and German-speaking regions, so the rules matter in practice.

Yes. In Belgium, L&E Global works with Van Olmen & Wynant, a specialist employment law firm based in Brussels and a co-founder of the alliance.

The firm advises domestic and international employers across the full range of individual and collective employment law, and can coordinate with L&E Global member firms in other jurisdictions whenever a matter extends beyond Belgium.

Van Olmen & Wynant advises clients in Dutch, French and English, reflecting Belgium’s multilingual legal environment and its substantial international client base.

This means international employers can receive advice in English while ensuring that their employment documents comply with the Belgian language that applies to the relevant operating unit.