Now that 2024 has passed, it appears that you or your company have prepaid more than necessary.

If you do nothing, the earliest you will get that excess back is after your tax return is processed by the tax authorities.

Use as an advance payment for 2025?

You can. In principle, the excess prepayments you made in 2024, you can carry forward through MyMinfin no later than March 31, 2025 as a prepayment for 2025. That amount will then count as VA1.

Does that carry over to 2025 make sense?

Yes, insufficient prepayments will result in a penalty (tax increment) of 6.75%. You can avoid this by paying in advance, and the earlier in the year you do so, the better!

Is penalty rate for non prepayment in 2025 already known?

Yes, for income year 2024, the penalty if you did not pay or underpay upfront was 9% for both partnerships and sole proprietorships.

Also for income year 2025, the penalty for sole proprietorships and partnerships runs the same and has dropped to 6.75%.

As of Jan. 1, 2026, all Belgian companies must electronically invoice their business-to-business (B2B) transactions. Specifically, this concerns nearly 1.2 million companies subject to VAT, of which some 250,000 are already registered today on Peppol. This is the secure network through which the transfer of invoices will take place. So many companies have yet to take the step. This is why the FPS Finance and the FPS Economy are now launching an awareness campaign.

From Jan. 1, 2026, all Belgian VAT-registered companies will have to use structured electronic invoices for their B2B transactions. Invoices in PDF format or on paper will be replaced by structured invoices exchanged directly between companies’ software.

The purpose of this obligation is to reduce the VAT gap and to digitize our Belgian economy. Our country is thus a step ahead of European regulations, which will become mandatory for intra-community transactions from July 1, 2030.

“Although e-invoicing will become mandatory from January 1 next year, too few companies are yet prepared for it. E-invoicing offers many benefits, such as time savings and cost savings, but it also ensures smooth day-to-day management for our 1,200,000 enterprises.” Eléonore Simonet, Minister of the Self-Employed and SMEs

Benefits for businesses

E-invoicing offers several benefits to businesses, including:

• Lower costs: savings of up to €9 per invoice, or 75% less billing costs;
• higher efficiency: automated processing reduces errors and speeds up payments;
• better security: a fully secure system prevents abuse and attempted fraud.

Secure Peppol network

The exchange of structured electronic invoices will be done through the secure Peppol network. That system facilitates the transfer of standardized business documents between companies.

Companies must ensure that their billing software is compatible with Peppol to meet future obligations.

Today 250 000 companies are already registered on Peppol, and about 1 500 are added daily.

How can companies prepare?

Companies should, in preparation for the mandatory transition:

• evaluate their current billing system;
• use software that supports Peppol;
• prepare their staff for the new electronic billing procedures.

In addition, tax benefits are available for companies to adopt this new form of invoicing:

• Since Jan. 1, 2025, the digital investment deduction increased to 20%.
• For the taxable periods from 2024 to 2027, SMEs and self-employed individuals who use subscription formulas will be able to take an increased deduction of 120% for billing packages and consulting costs incurred to meet the new obligations.

To ensure a smooth transition and to support companies in this transition, FPS Finance and FPS Economy are launching an awareness campaign via the website http://efacture.belgium.be.

The website provides:

• a very detailed FAQ;
• a contact page;
• a roadmap.

“This awareness campaign is a very good thing. Moving to e-invoicing will be a big change for companies, to the benefit of their efficiency. So it is important to support them in this process. To encourage them, companies can already take advantage of tax breaks, such as the deduction for digital investments or the increased deduction of 120% for billing packages.” Jan Jambon, minister of finance

Are you now self-employed in principal or secondary occupations?

It depends on your situation because you don’t just choose whether to join as self-employed in main occupation or in secondary occupation.

• You become self-employed in principal occupation if self-employment is your sole or principal occupation.
• You become self-employed in a secondary occupation if you still have at least a half-time job as a salaried employee or civil servant.

A half-time job is a job according to at least half of a full-time schedule. If full-time according to your employment contract is 38 hours, then you must work at least 19 hours to have a half-time job.

Important to know: do you start a quarter in main occupation? Then you pay social security contributions for that entire quarter as a self-employed person in main occupation, even if you are affiliated in main occupation for only one day.

Joining in principal occupation:

• Your social contributions insure you of pension, growth package, intervention in medical expenses and all other rights you enjoy
• You build up your social protection yourself. That’s why you always pay at least the minimum quarterly contribution, regardless of your income.
• You can provide additional protection: build up a supplementary pension capital, a replacement income in case of disability.

Joining in secondary occupation:

• You have social protection through your main occupation as a salaried employee or civil servant. You pay fewer social contributions as a result
• If your income as a self-employed person in a secondary occupation is below 1,881.76 euros: then you pay no social contributions.
• You cannot build up a supplementary pension unless your income after 3 years exceeds 17,008.88 euros, then you pay the same amount of social contributions as a self-employed person in main occupation and you can build up additional social rights to give you extra protection.

Joining as a secondary or principal occupation is identical. You need a company number and VAT number and join a social insurance fund.