Compliant EOR now possible in Belgium!

As conscious EORs are aware, EOR in many countries is still an undefined concept in labour legislation. Making if often very difficult to interpret the compliance status of an EOR service or -provider. Who then quite often follow the somewhat naive logic ‘if it is not defined, it cannot be forbidden!’.

Belgium in that context is no exception. Or at least, it was till recently.

Belgium-based EORs till recently had an unclear status, endangering employment setups, and causing serious risk for legal issues during labour inspections. And Belgium has a strong reputation in that domain!

Also employing employees with an unclear legal context, is very riskful for both client and service provider when labour disputes come up, for example at involuntary termination of a worker. Usually those disputes the EOR itself has no influence on, but they will have to stand in the local judicial frontline as legally responsible….

On the other side: the only employment model that could clarify each party’s position in legal and social context in a triangle labour relation such as EOR, is the TEMP agency / interim legislation.

But that legislation was always very restrictive, as it only allowed for triangle labour relations, on a maximum 6 month deputation basis. This as result of Belgian legislator’s interpretation/transposition of the EU Agency Work directive. That 6 month maximum conflicts clearly with the purpose of EOR: enabling long-term, quality jobs with a border-crossing structure.

Next to that, TEMP/interim activities require a license, a concept that many EOR’s also tend to be somewhat allergic for.

So what is changing now??

Since ~2024, a dialogue has been ongoing between Federgon, the Belgian federation of HR service providers, the Flemish federal labour authority, and relevant worker’s representations (Unions). A dialogue in which the industry requested for changes to that rather restrictive 6-month limit on Service-provider involved employments/assignments.

From the side of the World Employment Confederation, myself and Parakar were invited by Federgon to share our thoughts on this and other aspects of the (lacking) regulation on EOR in Belgium. Where that same 6-month limit was identified as the largest roadblock for EOR providers to actually implement using an agency license.

At the same time, the labour authority did extensive research and investigation into the status or EOR in (particularly) Flanders.

These 3 processes all together, ultimately led to an agreement between the labour market partners, taken forward by the new coalition government, to remove / change the maximum employment/deployment duration for agency employed workers. Thus making EOR now possible under a fully regulated and licensed employment model in Belgium.

Is your EOR provider for Belgium compliant?

As in many countries, also Belgium’s federal states maintain a public register of their licensed Employment Agency. See below the option to consult the list of licensed agencies in the 4 geographic regions that together form the federal state of Belgium.

EOR is forbidden without a license!

Please be aware: in Belgium, without a license, it is quite explicitly forbidden to lend out staff to another company that in turn exercises the actual authority on that staff.