The ultimate guide to freelancing next to your job in Belgium

Are you dreaming about becoming your own boss, but aren’t yet ready to give up your day job? Read this article and learn how to freelance next to your job. Get ideas, inspiration and information about earning extra money by being self-employed. All without quitting your job and losing the safety and security of a regular income.

Here is what you’ll learn:

• Definitions
• Advantages and disadvantages of part-time freelancing
• Reasons to side hustle
• Am I able to start as a freelancer in a secondary profession?
• You’re able and want to start, but don’t know what to do…
  • Side hustle stories
  • Ideas to make extra money on the side as a freelancer
• Do you have time for a secondary profession?
• How much does it cost to start a side hustle?
  • Company activation
  • Social contributions
  • Professional expenses
• How much will you earn?
• How do I find out the market rate for my job?
• Accounting
  • How to find an accountant in Belgium?
  • Bookkeeping & accounting
  • Earning less than €25,000/year? Get a VAT exemption
  • Will you earn more than €25,000/year or charge VAT for another reason?
  • Tax declaration
  • Customer listing
  • Copyright
  • The invoice
  • How to handle VAT exemptions
  • Payrolling
• I can’t sell
• Finding customers
• When to move from part-time to full-time
• Are you unemployed and considering freelancing?
• Resources

Definitions

Freelancer/one-person business/solopreneur 

A freelancer is a self-employed person who mainly, but not exclusively, provides business services in a business-to-business context (B2B) on the basis of temporary contracts, assignments or projects.

Freelancing as a secondary profession

Dutch: Zelfstandig in bijberoep

French: Activité secondaire indépendante or activité complémentaire

English: Part-time freelancing, freelancing in a secondary profession, side hustle. 

In this article, we’ll use the English terms interchangeably. 

This article is especially for people who want to earn an extra income by part-time freelancing in Belgium in addition to their full-time job. 

This excludes: 

• Volunteering or association work
• Multi-level marketing selling like Herbalife and Tupperware.
• Gigs like being an Uber driver or delivering takeaways
• Odd jobs like baby- or pet-sitting. Take a look at the platforms bsit, Pawshake and Kluster if you’re interested in this
• Personal projects with no plan to earn an income

Advantages and disadvantages of part-time freelancing

+++	– – –
Extra income	Your income from part-time freelancing will be added to your personal income, which might put you in a higher tax bracket
Professional expenses are tax-deductible (more on this later)	You will need to put time into your side hustle yet still manage a healthy balance between this and your full-time job
Easy, low-cost way to try out freelancing	You will pay social contributions without getting any extra benefits. However, you can also build up a voluntary supplementary pension scheme if your social contributions go over a certain amount. That amount is the minimum that full-time freelancers have to pay (+/-€775/quarter). Check with your enterprise counter for more information on this.
More variety in your working life
Build new skills
Discover new ventures/business opportunities.
Meet interesting people who can benefit your own career.

Reasons to side hustle

We asked the Freelancers in Belgium community why they are freelancing on the side. Here were their top 3 reasons:

1. Extra income 
2. Try it out before becoming a full-time freelancer
3. Fun to do

In addition to the extra income, a side hustle is also an easy and low-cost way to see if full-time freelancing would work for you. 

It also lets you have more fun and do more of the things you enjoy. You have more freedom over the work you do. 

The skills and competencies you develop while freelancing on the side help you to be more valuable in a volatile market. 

-Freelancers in Belgium-

As described in the testimonials below, part-time freelancing can lead to new challenges, learning and developing new skills, gaining new opportunities and making new relationships.

Am I able to start as a freelancer in a secondary profession?

In order to become a freelancer in a secondary profession, there are some requirements. You need to register as self-employed and request a VAT number.

Only people who meet one of the following criteria can register as a freelancer ina secondary profession: 

• You are employed at least 50% as an employee in the private sector.
• You work at least part-time (at least 8 months or 200 days per year) as a civil servant.
• You are employed (at least 60% of a full-time schedule) as a teacher with a statutory appointment. Don’t have a statutory appointment yet? Then you need to work at least 50% of a full-time schedule. 
• You receive a replacement income while retaining your pension rights. For example disability benefits, unemployment benefits under the ‘stepping stone to self-employment’ system or benefits for full-time time credit. If you plan to combine benefits with self-employment as a secondary occupation, it’s always best to check the conditions.
• You are retired.

Important! If you choose to do something similar to your current full-time job, check whether the contract you have with your employer allows this, as sometimes it is seen as competition.

You’re able and want to start, but don’t know what to do…

Our Freelancers in Belgium community members give the following advice:

Side hustle stories

Everyone who is freelancing on the side has a unique story.

Anneleen worked for 8 years as a content manager at a training company. She loved her job but wanted something ‘more’ in her life, something that would bring back some of the rush and excitement to her daily routine. 

When her boss complained about their Wix website, Anneleen saw it as a fun opportunity. Why not make a new one in WordPress? How hard can it be? She designed a new company website and her freelance colleagues were so impressed that they asked her if she could make websites for them as well. That’s how her side hustle, called ‘Sitehustle’ was born!

It was a great way to experiment with some new technology and earn a little extra money, but she didn’t want to make this her day job. After a year, she asked if she could work full-time over 4.5 days and have Friday afternoons off. This worked out really well!

But after a while, the technical part of web design gave her nightmares. She didn’t know how to get more of the ‘fun’ brainstorming stuff and less of the technical work. When COVID-19 hit, she was technically unemployed for months. Her side hustle became her lifeline and the thing that got her up in the morning. She decided on a complete rebrand and when she could finally go back to her job, she quit! That’s how she suddenly became a full-time freelancer. 

Now Anneleen also helps people who are making their side hustle into a full-time thing: https://www.sitehustle.be/rijdenindemist/

Here are a few more side-hustle stories: 

Ideas to make extra money on the side as a freelancer

	Tips	Platforms
Sell a service	Scroll through open vacancies on a platform for inspiration. All these are services companies are looking for. These can also be sold as a part-time service. Do you have a marketable skill you do as your day job? Sell that at night too. Do you have a hobby or extensive knowledge about something you’re passionate about? Sell that! Is there something you’re very interested in and would like to develop? Look for adjacent niches to gain skills in e.g. Teacher becomes e-learning expert	Malt, GIGHOUSE, LinkedIn, Fiverr, Upwork
Monetise your knowledge	Create courses, coaching programmes, membership sites, podcasts, newsletters, communities, and more.	Kajabi, YouTube, Patreon, Substack
Sell things	Create products, physical or digital, and sell them.	Etsy, Shopify

Do you have time for a secondary profession?

If you’re working full-time and you also have a busy social or family life, it can be a challenge to find the time for a side hustle and freelance next to your job. Here are some tips from our freelancers on how to make time for your secondary profession:

Learn to say no

Learning to say no is definitely a way to save precious time to focus on the things that really matter. 

 

How much does it cost to start to freelance next to your job? 

Company and VAT nr activation

You pay €105,50 incl. VAT to start your own business as a self-employed person as a secondary activity including the registration in the Crossroads Bank for Enterprises. The activation of your VAT number if you do it yourself via MyMinFin at no charge. Connecting to a social security fund also costs nothing.

You can ask your business counter like Securex or an accountant (find a list of accountants here) to help with your company registration and VAT nr activation at an extra fee.

Social contributions

Even though you get your social security via your employer, you need to pay social contributions: 20.5% of your net taxable income (profit = income minus your operational costs) from €1,865.45 per year. If you earn less than this, you can ask for an exemption.

You pay the minimum but you don’t add an extra pension and other social security benefits as this is covered already by your main employment.

The minimum you will have to pay in social contributions is €98.52 per quarter. This gets regulated after 3 years. If you have earned more than the minimum but you only paid minimum contributions, you’ll get a big invoice after 3 years. So make sure you adjust this to avoid nasty surprises. 

Taxes:

You pay taxes according to the progressive tax brackets (25-50%). The exact amount depends on your net taxable income (income from your employment income + freelancer profit).

Please note that the amounts shown here are from 2024.

Professional expenses

Depending on what you do, you will have professional expenses too. E.g. laptop, phone, books, travel, training, accounting fees, website, workspace, materials, transport, meals and software subscriptions. For a guide on professional expenses check Deductibles.be.

It might also be worth getting liability insurance to protect you against claims resulting from injuries and damage to other people or property.

Reference: We verified the costs with the Head of Tax Coaches Simon Castex at Accountable

How much will you earn? 

Pricing is one of the most difficult parts of freelancing. There are no minimums or maximums to how much you can earn. If you want you can earn next to nothing. But the sky’s the limit. 

Your rates generally depend on:

• Supply and demand (the more demand for a service there is, and the less supply, the higher the rate)
• Your experience: are you a junior or senior? Or something in between?
• How good your marketing, sales and negotiation skills are
• What your location is: some areas have higher demand and/or prices than others 
• Your pricing model: do you charge by the hour, project or value?
• The size of your customers: the larger the customer the higher the rate tends to be 
• Your customers’ industry
• Business impact and risk

How do I find out the market rate for my job? 

Sometimes job agencies publish reports with market rates according to your title, location and experience level.

You can search and ask about pricing and rates in the Freelancers in Belgium groups. 

Here is Anneleen Callewaerts’ experience: 

I wish I had asked around about competitive pricing. I never even looked into that when I was starting out! It just felt like I couldn’t ask for more because I didn’t have much experience in web design. To give you an idea of how low my pricing was… I charged €250 for my first website, which took me about six days!

In the beginning, I did all brainstorming sessions for free! Later I realised that it’s not because something is easy and fun for you that you shouldn’t charge for it.

That said, I did up my price with every new customer that came around. That’s something I would do again! And I would also stop making proposals. I spent too much time and energy on these things. Your sales process should be so easy that a customer can say yes or no on the spot, and you can give a price indication right away.

Accounting

How to find an accountant in Belgium?

Read our Freelancers in Belgium blog post including recommendations by our members and questions to ask during your first meeting with potential accountants.

Bookkeeping & accounting

You need to keep track of what you earn and your professional expenses (i.e. the expenses or investments that you make in order to grow your business). You need to prove that you made these expenses for business purposes and keep (a digital) receipt or invoice of your purchase. This can be done with an accountant and/or by using accounting software. We definitely recommend Accountable. With Accountable you can easily keep track of your expenses and income, you know exactly what money is in your account and what social contributions and tax you need to pay. You can also use Accountable to do the tracking of income and expenses and have an accountant who provides financial and fiscal advice and files your tax returns. 

 

Earning less than €25,000/year? Get a VAT exemption

If your turnover is less than €25,000 per year you can opt for the VAT exemption scheme. Note: some professions don’t allow this exemption. Find out if this applies to you by asking at your business counter. A VAT exemption means you don’t need to account for VAT or add it to your invoices, meaning you also don’t charge your customers VAT. The drawback is that you can’t get the VAT back from your professional purchases. Another thing to look out for is that if you sell products or services to individuals (not companies) and your income increases beyond the threshold, then your services will be 21% higher! Companies can get the VAT back, so for them, it doesn’t matter if you charge them VAT or not. 

Will you earn more than €25,000/year or charge VAT for another reason? 

If so, here is what you’ll need to do to comply with tax laws: 

• You need to add VAT to your invoices. VAT can be 6%, 12% or 21%.
  • 6% for basic necessities; the things that every person needs, products such as books, pharmaceuticals, water, milk and milk products, live animals and meat, services such as passenger transport, etc.
  • 12% for goods and services that are of social or economic interest. This ranges from margarine to a TV subscription as well as caterers and catering services.
  • 21% for the rest (this is the most common for freelancers).
• In order to get the VAT back, you need an invoice with your company details on it. A receipt or ticket is not enough.
• You need to submit your VAT to the Belgian tax authorities via Intervat every quarter. 
• You also need to send intracommunity listings with all your EU customers with VAT numbers, also via Intervat. 

Please note that the VAT rules depend on who your customers are too. E.g. If you have EU or foreign customers, individuals or companies, which sectors the goods or services are for… It is best to ask an accountant about your specific situation. 

Tax declaration

Your net income (i.e. your gross income minus business expenses) from your secondary activity will be added to your personal income from your full-time job. This can lead to you ending up in a higher tax bracket, which means you’ll pay more taxes. Your side hustle income will be declared in your personal tax return. Belgium has a progressive tax system, meaning that the tax rate increases as you earn more. 

Make sure you keep money aside to pay your annual taxes or opt for prepayment. 

Customer listing

Every year (deadline 31 March) you have to send a list of your customers to the Belgian tax authorities. If you have customers without a Belgian VAT number or you have earned less than €250 from a customer, you don’t need to include them. If you only have foreign customers, you still need to send the tax authorities an empty list. Your accountant can help you with this, but you can also do it yourself through the MinFin e-services in Dutch and in French.

If accounting seems like too much of a hassle for you, you can also opt to freelance via a payrolling company like Tentoo. Read on to find out more about payrolling. 

Copyright 

Are you a creative or IT professional working with copyrighted products and services? Then you can pay less tax by invoicing with copyright. Creative Shelter can help you make invoicing with copyright easier. 

The invoice 

When it’s time for you to send your first invoice, you need to be sure it’s valid. Here are the things you need to add: 

• A unique invoice number. Start e.g. from 0001, the next invoice is then 0002 and so on. 
• Your information:
  • Name and/or name of your company
  • Address
  • Company form
  • Company registration number and VAT number. They are the same; your VAT number is BE+company number)
• Your customer information:
  • Name
  • Address
  • VAT number
• The issuing date of the invoice and the date your product or service was delivered
• A description of the delivered product or service
• The price per unit and the number of units or hours
• The total amount without VAT
• The correct VAT percentage that is relevant for your activity (6, 12 or 21%) – see below what you need to do in case you’re not charging VAT
• The total amount of money to be paid, including VAT

Optional, but it is very important to add your: 

• Bank account number
• Contact details
• Payment terms and conditions 

If you are a freelancer in Belgium then your invoice should be in Dutch or French depending on your company address. For clients inside the EU, it is advisable to draft an English-language invoice and add an extra Dutch or French version. The tribune will demand language-specific translations of the documents in case of a dispute. 

How to handle VAT exemptions

If you are not charging VAT, there are some legal texts that you need to include on your invoice, depending on the reason that VAT isn’t being charged: 

• VAT exemption scheme with a turnover of less than €25,000 a year
  • “Special VAT scheme for small companies – VAT not applicable”
  • Dutch: “Bijzondere vrijstellingsregeling kleine ondernemingen”
  • French “Régime particulier de franchise des petites entreprises”
• You provide service between professionals (B2B) to a customer in the European Union
  •  “Reverse charge – Article 196 of the Council Directive 2006/112/EC”
  • Dutch: “BTW verlegd”
  • French: “Exonération TVA”

If you export services or products outside of the EU, you also don’t need to charge VAT. Ask your accountant about the invoice requirements for this. 

Payrolling

Yes, you can freelance without registering as self-employed by using the services of a payrolling company. They act as your employer, taking care of your salary and other administrative obligations, insurance, social security and tax requirements. You need to get your clients yourself and agree on your salary, which can be hourly, daily, weekly, monthly or even for the task at hand. 

Your client will be invoiced by the payrolling company for your salary, plus an extra handling fee as agreed between the client and the payrolling company.

The downside is that you and your client need to respect legal work regulations like minimum wages, daily and weekly maximum working hours, overtime, etc. And you can deduct fewer professional expenses than you can as an employee. A payrolling company in Belgium offering this service is Tentoo. Tentoo is also registered as a Social Office for Artists and has all the specialised knowledge to help artists or performers.

I can’t sell

“I can’t sell” or “I don’t like selling” are often the reasons people think freelancing might not be for them. You can freelance next to your job even if you don’t like selling.  

Finding customers

Your current employer might be willing to work with you on a freelance basis. Here are some other tips on how to find customers: 

When to move from part-time to full-time

How do you know when it’s the right time to leave your full-time job behind and turn your part-time freelancing into a full-time profession? Here’s some advice from our experts:

Are you unemployed and considering freelancing?

If you’re a job seeker and want to take the step towards self-employment, you can (under certain conditions) take advantage of some government support, both in terms of income and with help starting your business.

Receive unemployment benefits while starting as self-employed in a secondary profession. Dutch │ French

Additional regional support:

• Flanders: Dutch
• Brussels: Dutch │French
• Wallonia: French

Resources

We want to finish this guide with an inspirational quote:

Learn more about how to freelance next to your job and get support on your journey:

• Join the Facebook group Freelancers in Belgium
• Download the Start2Freelance e-book and book a free session with a Securex coach via their Start2Freelance portal, available in Dutch, French and English
• Find a good accountant and get advice – check out our blog post at Freelancers in Belgium for tips on finding an accountant and what to ask
• The accountancy app Accountable offers great service and a lot of useful content about self-employment in Belgium. Check out their website here. 
• Time trackers: Toggl
• Side Hustle School – a podcast, book and resources about starting and running a side hustle
• Book: How I Built This by Guy Raz
• Podcast: The Tim Ferriss Show

With special thanks to the freelancers who contributed with their experience and tips.

• Brainstorm Buddy Anneleen Callewaert
• Drone flyer & photographer Axel Huts – Glitch Productions
• Storyteller and driving force behind doctor-quote.com Bernard Van Causenbroeck
• Woodturner and Business Owner Dennis Marechal – Wooden Gifts And More
• Digital Marketer Guy Vindevogel – Contenter
• Office Manager Heidi Van den Bergh – Office11
• Project and Community Manager Johan Bommerez – www.johanbommerez.com
• Consultant Johan Cremery
• CTO (Chief Transformation Officer) Katrin Boermans – Change-iT
• Digital Product Designer (UX/UI) Lieven Degrauwe – Uxpertise
• Wordsmith Loes Keimes
• Managing Director, Bua Unlimited; Management consulting, technology advisory, digital transformation coaching and overall customer experience market solution strategy review Riccardo Bua
• Mechanical Project Engineer Robin Van Eester

Disclaimer: 

Note: While we have done our best to make sure this information is accurate, rules and regulations change and each individual situation might be different, so it is always a good idea to check with appropriate authorities for the latest information. Consequently, the authors do not assume any responsibility or liability for any issues or damages stemming from the use of the information found on this website. If you notice errors or omissions please contact jenny.bjorklof@freelancersinbelgium.be