Meal vouchers in Belgium – “The Dutch don’t work like this”

We often hear this from our Dutch clients who are hiring their first employee in Belgium. It is based on the wish of practically every employer to stick to the same employee benefits (or at least: as similar as possible) in every country. Quite funny actually, because their next wish is to make the most of all the tax benefits a country offers. Asking us at Interfisc to make sure that the taxes they pay are as low as possible. And guess what? The meal vouchers in Belgium are an ideal employment condition to achieve this goal.

What is a meal voucher in Belgium?

Employers can offer a meal voucher to their employees for every day they work (not during holidays or when on sick leave). With this pre-paid meal card – in electronic form in practice – employees can buy a meal in restaurants or food in shops. Meal vouchers are a very popular employee benefit: more than 70% of Belgian employees receive them.

Please note: it is not allowed to offer a meal voucher for a day when an employee was not working (either due to holidays or sick leave). This is why it is not only compulsory in Belgium to register the leave of absence of all employees in the salary administration, but it is also very important.

What is the advantage of meal vouchers?

Meal vouchers are a widely used employee benefit (in fact, they are even compulsory in some sectors). They allow employers to pay their employees a considerable net amount to cover expenses.

In 2025 a meal voucher had a nominal value of € 8 maximum. The employee had to pay € 1.09 of this amount (by having it deducted from their net wages). The remaining € 6.91 were charged to the employer. No income tax or social security contributions need to be paid on this amount, so there’s your tax benefit.

This amount is higher in 2026: the tax-exempted amount of the employer’s contribution is increased to € 8.91. This means that the maximum nominal value of meal vouchers is now € 10. The employee continues to pay € 1.09 per meal voucher themselves. Adding this up, with an average of 20 working days per month you can pay a net amount of € 178.20 to each of your employees.