If you want to work as a self-employed you will need to go through several formalities and are responsible for paying your own advance on income taxes and social security contributions.
- Contact a business one-stop shop (the so-called » guichet d’entreprise-ondernemingsloket »). They will discuss the activities you are planning to undertake and will take care of the necessary applications for you.
- Be able to demonstrate that you possess business skills defined as: basic knowledge of business management, and professional knowledge
- Apply for an entreprise number. Your business must be registered as a commercial enterprise in the Crossroads Bank for Enterprises (CBE) through a business one-stop shop. The CBE is a central database in which various authorities can consult data relating to your business activity (the commercial activities, the address, the business’s bank account number…)
- Apply for a VAT number if this is required.
- Sign up to a social security fund for self-employed people and pay social security contributions. A self-employed person has to pay his social security contributions himself calculated on the basis of his annual net taxable income. For this purpose, you need to be affiliated with a social insurance fund that collects your social security contributions and immediately transfers them to the government. This is an important difference compared with an employee, for whom the social security contributions are automatically deducted from his wages every month. Moreover, as a self-employed person, you pay your contributions every quarter, and not every month.
- Sign up to a mutual insurance association ("mutualité") to benefit from healthcare services in the frame of the sickness-disability insurance.
GOOD TO KNOW : hub.brussels is the Brussels agency providing a free universal public service for all businesses at every stage of their life cycle. Contact 1819 in order to get an appointment.
