Content

Upon dismissal, employees are entitled to unemployment benefits provided that certain conditions related to the nature of the termination of their employment are met and provided that evidence of sufficient salaried employment during a certain ‘waiting time’ can be produced.

Until recently, the Belgian authorities in charge of unemployment (RVA/ONEM) upheld the position that, upon their return to Belgium, employees having been employed abroad (without the Belgian social security system having been applied), anywhere in the world, are in principle immediately entitled to unemployment benefits in Belgium, at least in so far as the conditions for access to unemployment benefits are met as required under Belgian law. However, that interpretation was applied only to Belgian subjects – not to foreign nationals. While, in the aforesaid situation, Belgians were in principle granted an immediate right to unemployment benefits, foreign nationals having returned to Belgium in similar circumstances were required to work for a certain period of time in Belgium before being entitled to claim unemployment benefits.

News

Effective from 1 September 2007, under the influence of European case law, the RVA/ONEM has imposed more stringent conditions on access to Belgian unemployment benefits upon employment outside Belgium. Similarly to the rule already applicable to foreign nationals, since the aforesaid date, Belgian subjects are only entitled to Belgian unemployment benefits upon returning from employment abroad (without the Belgian social security system having been applied) if, upon their return to Belgium, the conditions for access to unemployment benefits are met and, additionally, provided that they have first worked in Belgium again before applying for unemployment benefits.

This specifically means that, since 1 September 2007, persons (whether of Belgian or non-Belgian nationality) returning to Belgium after having been employed abroad (without the Belgian social security system having been applied) will have to work in Belgium as salaried workers for at least one day before being able to assert their right to Belgian unemployment benefits. There is an exception, however, for social-law frontier workers within the EEA.