On 30 April 2026, the social partners within the National Labour Council (CNT/NAR) and the Central Economic Council (CCE/CRB) issued their unanimous (non-binding) joint advice with recommendations in relation to the anticipated reform of the mobility budget. The advice is essentially a response to the preliminary legislative text of Belgium’s Arizona Government which, in accordance with the government agreement 2025-2029, wants to make the mobility budget mandatory for employers and available for all employees who have a company car or are eligible for one. Today, strictly speaking, the system remains optional for all employers, but this will change.
When will the mobility budget become mandatory?
This will depend on the size of the company. Companies with on average 50 employees or more (i.e. large companies), which offer company cars to their employees, would be required to effectively implement the mobility budget as of 1 January 2027. Small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) with on average 15 to 50 employees, would need to implement the mobility budget by 1 January 2028. For companies with on average less than 15 employees, there would be a full exemption from the obligation to introduce a mobility budget. Other exemptions to the mandatory mobility budget would be foreseen for well-defined specific situations, notably for companies in difficulties and companies who are in the process of collective dismissal.
In a nutshell: how does the mobility budget work?
Introduced in 2019, the mobility budget is a flexible and tax-efficient compensation scheme designed to promote sustainable commuting. It allows employees who are entitled to a company car to exchange it -or opt not to take one- in return for a flexible budget. This budget can be spent across three pillars:
What are the main recommendations?
The CNT-CCE opinion contains several recommendations for improving the system of the mobility budget in a context where it will become mandatory and to ensure that it supports sustainable mobility without it becoming just a tool for salary optimization.
The social partners call for significant administrative simplification to encourage broader adoption by employers and to support a real shift towards sustainable mobility.
Key proposals include:
The goal is to make the system less complex and more straightforward to apply while preventing it from becoming a new form of wage optimization that may be scrutinized over time.
Today, employers are only required to offer (at least) one option within pillar 2 to comply with the spending options of the mobility budget.
The social partners strongly recommend that companies engage in social dialogue at a company level to expand and tailor mobility options according to the employee’s needs. This would ensure a broader and more meaningful range of sustainable alternatives. Further follow-up and evaluation of the options offered within pillar 2 will be needed.
Employees living within 10 km of their workplace or working from home at least 50% of the time can – if the mobility budget, as introduced by the employer, provides this option – allocate their housing costs (i.e. mortgage repayments or rent) to pillar 2, tax-free and without paying social security contributions. However, there is currently no limit to the portion of the mobility budget that the employee can spend on this item. Indeed, the full mobility budget can be spent on housing costs.
Considering the above, the social partners warn of risks such as excessive fiscal and parafiscal wage optimization, as well as upward pressure on housing prices and rents. They therefore propose to limit housing costs to a maximum of 50% of the total mobility budget that the employee can spend, starting for newly attributed mobility budgets as of 1 January 2027 (i.e. not affecting already existing situations).
The joint CNT-CCE advice supports the government’s ambition to expand the mobility budget and to make it mandatory but calls for clear safeguards, administrative simplification, and better balance between flexibility, sustainability and financial fairness. During the coming weeks and months, it will become clear how these recommendations will potentially be translated into the text of law that will be brought before parliament.
For a deeper discussion on the above, please reach out to your Vialto Partners point of contact, or alternatively:
Martijn De Meulemeester
Director
Filip Van Praet
Director
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