How I pay almost no taxes on my investments in Belgium (2025 Update)

I am so happy to be an investor in Belgium 

While Belgium has one of the highest taxes on labor income, it also has one of the most favorable stock market tax regimes for individual investors like me.

In fact, I pay almost no investing taxes! 

(The original version of this article was first published in The Brussels Times. This one includes a 2025 update on capital gain tax provided lower in the article)

Here is a how I do it (and how you can too):

Belgium is also one of the only countries with 0% tax on investment profits (known as capital gains).

Under certain conditions of course.

To be able to benefit from the 0% tax on capital gains, the investment has to be within normal management of personal assets that are not part of any business activity.

“Normal management” in this case refers to non-speculative long-term investments, such as holding a fund for the long term. Speculative short term trading and investments fall outside of this category and would be subject to a 33% tax.

It has to be your own after-income-tax money invested privately, in your own name, not as part of a business activity, such as through your own company.

The 0% tax on capital gains makes stock market investing very interesting for individuals.

Imagine you invest 10 000 EUR, after a few years it’s worth 15 000 EUR. If you sell, you’d make a gain of 5 000 EUR. 

In the UK, you would have to pay 20% tax on capital gains, so 1000 EUR (20% of 5000 EUR).

In France, 34%, or 1700 EUR.

In Belgium, 0.

Well, almost 0.

While we don’t have capital gain taxes in Belgium in this situation, we still need to pay various small taxes on investments:

• 30% withholding tax on dividends distributions
• 30% tax on the capital gains of accumulating bond funds (also known as the Reynders tax)
• 0.12%, 0.35% or 1.32% tax on transaction amounts (also known as TOB: Taxe sur les opérations de bourse, or Taks op de beursverrichtingen)

The 30% withholding tax on dividend distributions only applies to investments that distribute dividends. By selecting accumulating funds (that reinvest the dividends directly), we don’t have to pay this tax.

The Reynders tax is the equivalent of the withholding tax for accumulating bond funds. Instead of paying 30% tax on dividend distributions, we need to pay 30% on the capital gains generated by those dividends at the time of sale. Luckily, as long-term investors (who prefer stock funds), we don’t hold much bonds, we sell them rarely, and usually only a small portion of it. 

The TOB is a small tax paid on the transaction amount. For the type of funds we like to invest with (ETF, or exchange traded funds), this tax is paid both at the time of purchase and sale.

For accumulating ETFs that are registered in Belgium, the tax rate is 1.32%.

But by selecting accumulating ETFs that are not registered in Belgium but in another country of the European Economic area, we can benefit from the lowest TOB rate: 0.12%.

To come back to our earlier example: if we were to invest 10 000 EUR in a stock ETF (accumulating and not registered in Belgium), and sell it when it’s worth 15 000 EUR, we would pay 0.12%* 10 000 + 0.12% * 15 000 = 12+18 = 30 EUR in taxes.

This is indeed far less than what we would have to pay in other countries.

Belgium is awesome :-)

2025 Update

The government has recently confirmed there will be a 10% tax on capital gains starting in 2026.

All the implementation details are not available yet, but here is what we know:

1. The tax will apply from 1 January 2026 to capital gains realised on sales of financial assets (such as shares, bonds, funds, savings and investment-type insurance products, etc.).
2. There will be a 10 000 € tax exemption each year for each investor, indexed annually
3. If you don’t use the exemption in a certain year, you can carry over 1000 € of exemption to the following year, up to a maximum of 15 000 € after 5 years.
4. Belgian financial institutions will be responsible for withholding the 10% CGT

Overall, this tax will be annoying to deal with if large amounts need to be sold in the same year, so for example when purchasing real estate or if big amounts are needed in retirement. For many people and especially in the early years of this law, the 10 000 € exemption will be sufficient to minimize tax payments.

With this tax, Belgium remains one of the lowest taxed EU countries when it comes to stock market investments, with attractive rates compared to countries like France (34% CGT), the Netherlands (33% CGT) and Germany (26% CGT). 

A simpler way to look at this tax is to consider that we can now count on slightly lower market returns overall. So for example, instead of an 8.3% average annual return for the global stock market, we should now consider it to be closer to 7.4% per year. 

This is still vastly better than most pension products and other investment alternatives.

Belgium is still awesome :-)