Minimum Salary Levels to Increase

The situation

Effective January 1, 2019, the minimum annual salary for foreign workers will increase as follows, up 1.9 percent from last year:

• Highly-skilled workers: EUR 41,739, up from EUR 40,972;
• Executives: EUR 69,637, up from EUR 68,356; and
• EU Blue Card applicants: EUR 53,971, up from EUR 52,978.

A closer look

• Initial and renewal applications. Employers of foreign nationals seeking to obtain or renew a work authorization on or after January 1, 2019 must increase the foreign national’s salary to comply with the new rule. Immigration applications that do not meet the minimum salary will be rejected.
• Pending applications. Employers of foreign nationals with pending work authorization applications as of January 1, 2019 must increase the foreign national’s salary to comply with the new rule and must notify the authorities accordingly.
• Current permit holders. Employers must also ensure that the salary of current foreign workers meets the new thresholds as of January 1, 2019.
• Applicability to Single Permits. These salary thresholds will be applicable to the Single Permit, anticipated to enter into force on January 1, 2019.

Reminders on other requirements

• Benefits and allowances. As before, benefits and allowances generally cannot be included in the minimum salary calculation. Exceptionally, allowances that are a remuneration of services, guaranteed and fixed, taxable and indicated in the pay slip can be included.
• Currency. As before, employers are required to guarantee the salary in EUR regardless of payroll location and/or exchange rate fluctuations.

Background

In 2014, legislative authority related to economic migration in Belgium shifted from the federal to the regional authorities. This resulted in the ability for each of Belgium’s regions to set its own individual salary thresholds, though all regions have set the same annual thresholds since then.

Looking ahead

• Minimum salary levels in Flanders.
  • Current draft legislation indicates that Flanders may set a new annual salary threshold of EUR 33,391.20 for highly-skilled staff and researchers under 30 years old and nurses, hired locally by a Belgian employer. These changes replace a more general lower threshold for graduates which was announced in July, but was not yet implemented. It is expected that this legislation will be accepted by parliament largely unchanged. Fragomen will report any relevant developments on this topic.
  • Flanders also announced that the above amounts for highly-skilled workers be accepted as indicative of suitable salaries for Intracompany Transferee (ICT) Permit applications once the ICT Permit is implemented, which is expected to occur jointly with the implementation of the Single Permit on January 1, 2019. While the ICT Permit cannot have a formal salary threshold under EU rules – which instead require salaries to be suitable for the position when compared to market rates – some EU countries, like Belgium, set thresholds to guide immigration officials in the evaluation of salaries. It is expected that this approach will be mirrored by Brussels and Wallonia.
     
• More threshold changes expected. Most EU countries increase their salary thresholds annually by amounts under five percent. Changes typically take effect January 1, with Norway as a rare exception changing its thresholds annually in July. Belgium is the fourth country after Germany, Ireland and Kazakhstan to announce its new thresholds this year. Fragomen expects most European countries to announce their new thresholds in the coming weeks, with Belarus, Croatia and the Netherlands typically being among the later countries to publish new amounts. Fragomen will report relevant developments on other countries’ increases and any other increases in Belgium as they occur.

This alert is for informational purposes only. If you have any questions, please contact the global immigration professional with whom you work at Fragomen or send an email to [email protected].