Joining the Belgian social security system is bureaucratic, but not difficult. Here is a brief guide to everything - from contributions to payouts.

Joining the Belgian Social Security system is bureaucratic, but not difficult.

The first thing to do is to visit www.socialsecurity.fgov.be for a 64-page brochure ‘Everything you have always wanted to know about social security’. This tells you about the structure of the system and your entitlements. There are separate rules and separate institutions for the salaried, the self-employed and civil servants. If you are employed, your employer will likely take care of the formalities and deduct contributions from your wages. Salaried are covered for seven sectors (medical care, unemployment, pension, family, accident, work-related injury, vacation).  

If you are self-employed you will start by paying a minimum quarterly contribution which increases at the same rate as your income. It’s important to know that contributions are calculated on what you earned three years previously. You will need to sign up with one of a number of specialised organisations or a health insurance company mutuelle/mutualiteits, who act as collection agencies for the national social security offices. Once registered, they will send you a Social Security Identity Card (SIS) which is needed to get prescription drugs and other medical services.  

From January 2008, the law changed to cover the self-employed for petits risques/kleine risico’s. This means you can now claim for doctor appointments, dentists and prescriptions in the same way as the salaried. Naturally, this doesn’t come without financial implications and contributions are increasing from 19.65% of income to 22%. The increase will be staged over four years.

International co-operation
There are EU rules designed to maintain entitlement to national benefits for EU citizens working in other EU countries. For a short-stay it is often best to take advantage of these especially if you plan to return to the home country directly after your current stay. There are specialised offices in each EU country for further advice.

Contacts
The social security offices are semi-autonomous parts of the Ministry of social affairs and are known as parastatal institutions. The salaried should contact ONSS/RSZ the national social security office and the self-employed can find more information from RSVZ-INASTI the national institute for social insurance of the self-employed.

National Office of Social Security - ONSS/RSZ
Place Victor Horta 11
1060 Brussels
02 509 3111
www.onssrszlss.fgov.be

National Institute of Social Security for the self-employed - INASTI/RSVZ
Place Jan Jacobs 6
1000 Brussels
02 546 4211
http://inasti.be

Overseas Social Security Office - DOSZ/OSSOM
Avenue Louise 194
1050 Brussels
02 642 0511
www.dosz.be

(expatica 2008)