Reglementări privind salarizarea: Belgia

Remuneration conditions

An employer posting workers to Belgium must comply with the remuneration conditions (i.e. the minimum rates of pay and the other benefits and compensation).

• Minimal amounts of remuneration laid down by sectorial collective agreements

In principle, the minimal amounts of remuneration are laid down per sector by the competent joint committee. These amounts indicate the gross remuneration. The determination of the joint committee a particular undertaking belongs to depends on its principal activity.

• Minimal amounts of remuneration laid down by National collective agreement

If the undertaking belongs to a sector for which the joint committee has not laid down any minimum remuneration amount, the level applicable is the average minimum monthly income that has been determined at inter-professional level (i.e. applicable throughout the whole private sector in Belgium).

Legal hours

In Belgium, working time may not exceed eight hours a day. Moreover, daily work must in principle be performed between 6 am and 8 pm.

The general rule is that the weekly work schedule that can be applied in undertakings is:

• either 38 effective hours a week ;
• or 38 hours on average over a specified reference period.
  Nonetheless, even in such a case, it is important to point out that the effective weekly working time cannot exceed in principle 40 hours.

Minimum number of days/hours off:

-If working time exceeds six hours, the worker must be granted a break.

-The duration and conditions for granting breaks are laid down by a collective agreement concluded at sectorial level or company level. If there is no collective agreement, the worker should be granted a quarter of an hour’s break no later than the moment when the length of work reaches six hours.

-Per 24-hour period, each worker is entitled to an interruption of work of at least 11 consecutive hours. This mandatory interruption of 11 hours must, as appropriate, be aggregated either with the Sunday rest (24 hours) so that the worker has a total weekly period of interruption of work of 35 consecutive hours.

Leave

The worker is entitled to maximum 4 weeks of holiday per year. In addition, collective labour agreements concluded within a joint body and given binding force by Royal Decree may provide for extra holidays.

Notification requirement

A foreign employer posting gainfully employed workers to Belgium, or his authorised representative, must inform the authorities via the website before the employment of the workers in Belgium.

A Limosa declaration must be made each time a worker is sent to Belgium. The proof of the declaration should be presented before the work in Belgium begins. If the work continues for longer than the period initially declared, a new declaration must be made.