What are the tax brackets in Belgium in 2025?

In Belgium you pay personal income tax in brackets. In other words: the more you earn, the higher the percentage you pay on the additional part of your income.

In this article you learn what those brackets are in 2025, how the calculation works and what makes you pay more or less tax in the end.

What does “assessment year 2026” mean?

In Belgium, tax always applies to the income you earned in the previous year.

• Income 2025 is the amount you earned during calendar year 2025 (salary, profit, rental income and so on).
• Assessment year 2026 is the year in which you have to declare that income and have it taxed.

So: what you earned in 2025, you only declare in 2026.

The tax brackets in 2025

Personal income tax in Belgium works with four brackets.

Your income is taxed piece by piece, according to the percentages below:

Taxable income	Rate
€0 – €16,320	25%
€16,320 – €28,800	40%
€28,800 – €49,840	45%
Above €49,840	50%

👉 So you do not pay 50% on everything if you earn more than €49,840, but only on the part above that. On top of that, everyone is entitled to a tax-free allowance of €10,910. You pay no tax on that part of your income. Do you have children or someone else dependent on you? Then the tax-free allowance is higher still.

What is the tax-free allowance?

In Belgium the tax-free allowance differs from person to person. It is the part of your income that is not taxed, and it depends on your personal situation. A few important factors:

• The number of dependent children. For every dependent child you get an additional tax-free allowance.
• Age or other circumstances. An increase applies if you are over 65, and other deductions can play a role, for instance for people with a disability or for informal care.

The term “tax-free allowance” can be misleading: you do not really pay 0% tax on the first €10,910, but you get a reduction on your calculated tax equal to 25% of your tax-free allowance (for example €10,910 × 25% = €2,727.50).

How do you calculate your tax in practice?

Let us take an example. In 2025 you have a taxable income of €40,000.

• The first €16,320 is taxed at 25%
• The part between €16,320 and €28,800 at 40%
• The part between €28,800 and €40,000 at 45%
• At the end your tax-free allowance (€10,910) is taken into account, which lowers the amount you pay.

The result? On average you pay considerably less than 45% tax, because the first part of your income is taxed at a lower rate.

You can therefore see the tax-free allowance as a kind of discount. Adding it all up, we get: €14,112 − €2,727.50 = €11,384.50

So you pay roughly €11,384.50 in personal income tax on €40,000 of taxable income. That comes down to an average tax burden of about 28.5%.

Every situation is of course a little different. Do you have dependent children, for instance? Then the tax burden will be lower still.

What changes in 2025?

The rates themselves (25%, 40%, 45%, 50%) have been stable for a while, but the amounts at which those rates start and stop shift a little every year. The threshold amounts and the tax-free allowance are indexed slightly, to keep up with inflation.

What else determines how much tax you pay?

The brackets are only part of the story. What you actually pay also depends on:

• the municipality where you live, which charges municipal tax on top of the federal tax
• deductible items such as pension saving, donations, a mortgage loan and so on
• your family situation: more dependants means less tax

Tips to lower your tax

A few simple ways to handle your taxes more cleverly:

• Check your tax-free allowance. See whether you have filled in all the increases, for dependent children, single parents and so on.
• Use your deductible items. Pension saving, childcare, donations, energy-saving investments: they all lower your tax burden.
• As a self-employed person, make your advance payments on time. That earns you a bonification on your final tax bill.
• Plan ahead. Making certain expenses before 31 December can make a difference in next year’s return, especially if you have more income than expected that year.
• Keep your receipts. Add all your expenses in Dexxter: more expenses means less profit, and less profit means a lower taxable income.