Mobility budget soon to be launched

The mobility budget is in the final straight line. Do you want to implement the system? Then you will need some more patience. You can only implement the measure after it has been published in the Belgian Official Gazette. The terms and conditions for managing the mobility budget have also yet to be published.

What is a mobility budget?

An employee can exchange his company car for a mobility budget.

With this budget, the employee can choose an environment-friendly car. It can also be spent on alternative and sustainable means of transport such as a public transport pass, bicycle, shared car or housing costs to live closer to work. The remaining money is paid out at the end of the year. There are therefore three budget pillars and an employee chooses how he spends the budget on these pillars.

Voluntary or mandatory?

As an employer, you decide whether or not the system will be implemented within the company. Your employee freely chooses whether he wishes to participate.

By which employers? For which employees?

The employer has already had to make company cars available to one or more employees for at least 36 months. Special provisions are laid down for young companies.

The individual employee must have had or be entitled to a company car for at least 12 months in the course of the last 36 months and for 3 consecutive months prior to the application for the allocation of the mobility budget. This minimum period does not apply to a newly recruited employee.

What is the budget?

The amount of the budget is equal to the total gross annual cost you pay for the company car and all related costs: the financing costs, the fuel costs, the solidarity contribution, the non-deductible VAT...

And what about the social security and fiscal treatment?

Each budget pillar is treated differently for tax and social purposes.

When choosing a more environment-friendly company car (pillar 1), the normal rules apply. You will pay a solidarity contribution and the employee will pay taxes on the benefit of the company car.

The amounts used by the employee to finance sustainable transport (pillar 2) are fully exempt from social security contributions and taxes.

Does the employee still receive a cash amount at the end of the year? In that case only the employee will pay a special contribution of 38.07 %. The cash amount is exempt from tax.

From when?

The mobility budget normally enters into force on 1 March 2019, but you can only actually implement it once the law has been published in the Belgian Official Gazette. So be sure to keep an eye on our Infoflashes.

How to manage the mobility budget? 

Managing the mobility budget is becoming a complex matter. Each individual employee will use the mobility budget in a different way. To manage this tangle of information, a Royal Decree will lay down the management rules.

Source: Draft law on the introduction of a mobility budget, Doc.parl. Chamber 2018-2019, no. 3381.