Dutch-Belgian agreement on working from home during corona crisis

An agreement has recently been concluded with Belgium, along the lines of the recent agreement between the Netherlands and Germany, on how to deal with cross-border work and working from home while the corona crisis lasts.

Home-based working days

Days spent working from home on full pay are to be treated as days worked at the relevant cross-border worker’s customary place of work. This “presumption of fact” is not to apply to any such working days as the frontier worker irrespective of corona-related measures would have spent working from home or from a different country than that of his or her residence or work, and is available for use only where the wages collected by the frontier worker for his or her home-based working days are liable for (payroll) tax in his or her regular country of work.

Home-based non-working days on full pay

The treatment of days which the frontier worker would normally have devoted to working but which he or she now spends non-working from home on full pay is to be the same as that of worked days.

Home-based non-working days while eligible for Belgian temporary unemployment benefits

Dutch residents who customarily work in Belgium whom the corona measures have (for now) kept from working have conditional eligibility for Belgian temporary unemployment benefits to be taxed in Belgium (provided, that is, that the employment association endures).

The Dutch-Belgian agreement, which is set to expire on the 31st of May 2020, is subject to renewal by successive terms of one month each.

Dutch version: Overeenkomst met België over thuiswerken tijdens coronacrisis