Company cars: why have the reference CO2 emissions for 2024 not yet been published?

If you make a company car available to your employees, a taxable benefit arises when they use this car for private purposes. One of the elements to calculate the taxable benefit for 2024, the reference CO2 emission, is still unknown. Why is that?

Flat-rate estimation of the benefit

The benefit in kind for a company car is calculated according to the following formula:

(List price x degressive coefficient) x 6/7 x CO2 percentage

For electric company cars, the CO2 percentage is always 4%. For other company cars, the CO2 percentage is determined on the basis of the so-called reference CO2 emissions.

These reference CO2 emissions are set annually by Royal Decree.

Reference CO2 emissions 2024

The reference CO2 emissions for 2024 are determined according to the average CO2 emissions over the period from 1 October 2022 to 30 September 2023 compared to the average CO2 emissions of the reference year 2011. Average CO2 emissions are calculated based on the CO2 emissions of vehicles registered as new.

In principle, the FPS Finance has all the data to establish these reference CO2 emissions by Royal Decree. Yet until today they have not been published in the Belgian Official Gazette.

From various press articles, we learn that the 2024 reference CO2 emissions would again significantly decrease compared to 2023. This potentially leads to a higher taxable benefit of the company car. The finance minister has indicated that he wants to mitigate that shock effect. He will develop technical proposals so that a sharp increase in the benefit of the company car will be mitigated.  

We will keep a close track of developments. We will keep you updated as soon as we have more details.

What now?

As long as the reference CO2 emissions for 2024 are not available, it is not possible to calculate the correct taxable benefit of company cars with a diesel, petrol, LPG or natural gas engine (or their hybrid versions).

Pending the publication of the 2024 reference CO2 emissions or instructions from the FPS Finance, it may be opted to temporarily apply the 2023 reference CO2 emissions. These are 82 g/km for vehicles with a petrol, LPG or natural gas engine and 67 g/km for vehicles with a diesel engine. Retroactive corrections may have to be made once the reference CO2 emissions for 2024 are known.

Finally, we note that there is no problem in calculating the taxable benefit of electric company cars. A CO2 percentage of 4% automatically applies to these cars.