Business Expense Compliance in Belgium

Stay up to date with rules and regulations on digital expense management in Belgium.

Last updated in January 2024.

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Rules and Regulations in Belgium

Discover guidelines on VAT rates, proof of payment & mileage allowance in Belgium.

Proof of Payment

VAT Rates

Mileage Allowance

Paperless Proof of Payment

According to the Belgian government, companies must retain all transactional documents for FPS Finance for 10 years, starting from January 1st of the year following the award date.

Organizations can keep the paper or electronic versions, regardless of the original format. The digital archiving of paper receipts is recognized and legally valid, provided that companies can ensure the integrity and authenticity of the scanned receipts.

For VAT purposes, companies can choose where to keep their receipts and invoices as long as they can submit them to the FPS Finance at any request and without delay.

Companies can use digital expense solutions if they comply with the Belgian archiving obligations.

Digital Proof of Payment with Klippa SpendControl

Klippa SpendControl allows employees to take pictures of the receipts and invoices or upload e-documents via email, web or mobile app.

Our user-friendly software extracts relevant document fields with 99% accuracy using Optical Character Recognition and automatically uploads data to your system.

Once submitted, authorized personnel can immediately review and approve transactions. The processed and approved data can then be booked to your accounting or ERP system using Klippa’s 20+ direct integration options.

Klippa stores all archived data for a minimum of 10 years. That way, your transactional documents are always accessible for audits and tax authorities.

VAT Rates

The Belgian government applies VAT rates based on the European Union’s VAT Directive. There are four VAT tariffs relevant to business expense management:

Standard VAT rate: 21% on all general goods and services

Intermediate VAT rate: 12% on restaurant and catering services, as well as phytopharmacology, some parts of agricultural machines, certain solid fuels (notably coal) and housing in the framework of social policy.

Reduced VAT rate: 6% on most food and beverage products, medicines and medical appliances, newspapers, periodicals, books, works of art, antiques, etc.

Zero VAT rate: 0% on supplies, intra-community acquisitions and importations of daily papers and periodicals containing general information and published at least 48 times a year.

Please refer to the Taxation and Customs Union for a complete list of taxable and exempted goods and services.

Automated VAT Rate Extraction with Klippa SpendControl

Klippa SpendControl automatically recognizes and extracts Belgian VAT rates from all document types and uploads them to your system.

Additionally, our solution allows users to add relevant VAT rates based on company needs. Once extracted, users can book the data into their preferred accounting or ERP system.

Mileage Allowance

In Belgium, business travel expenses are not taxable, given that the number of kilometers traveled doesn’t exceed 24,000 km per year.

Companies can reimburse business-related trips based on the total costs incurred or using the official fixed rate per driven kilometer.

Commuting to work: Home-work travel is the journey employees make between home and the fixed place of work.

If employees travel from home to work by car, mixed car, minibus or motorbike, the allowance is set at a flat rate of 0.15 euros per km.

If employees travel by bicycle the following rates apply:

0.27 euros per km traveled for the 2024 tax year (2023 income)

0.35 euros per km traveled for the 2025 tax year (2024 income)

If a company reimburses, totally or partially, a bus, metro or train subscription, this compensation is entirely exempt from tax.

For all types of transportation, the distance between home and work cannot exceed 100 km for a single journey.

Business trips: Car expenses incurred for business travel (other than home-work travel) are deductible as business expenses.

Mileage allowances cover the travel cost for business trips when using a private vehicle based on the quarterly rates:

€0,4269 – From 1 January 2024 to 31 March 2024

€0,4259 – From 1 October 2023 to 31 December 2023

€0,4237 – From 1 July 2023 to 30 September 2023

€0,4246 – From 1 April 2023 to 30 June 2023

€0,4259 – From 1 January 2023 to 31 March 2023

Companies must be able to provide invoices, notes, or receipts stating the number of kilometers and car expenses.

Automated Mileage Tracking with Klippa SpendControl

Klippa SpendControl allows users to easily track and reimburse mileage expenses with the Google Maps integration.

Employees simply pick the starting and ending points of the trip, while our solution calculates distance based on the fastest route and applies a set rate.

After an expense claim is submitted, SpendControl can apply custom compensation rules, such as allowances per kilometer, based on specific users, administration, or category, and then route the data for approval to the authorized personnel.

Klippa stores all data for a minimum of 10 years, ensuring that companies can access mileage records to easily and accurately reimburse employees when necessary.