The Belgian tax declaration period, which began on Tuesday, introduces a simplified proposal for 3,929,000 citizens — more than half of the population, Finance Minister Jan Jambon and the CEO of the General Tax Administration announced.
Those receiving this proposal have to make any necessary corrections via the Myminfin platform until 15 July. Changes can only be made once.
For citizens preferring paper forms, the deadline is 30 June. The use of paper forms has significantly declined, with only 4% opting for them last year (141,000 submissions compared to 321,000 in 2021).
Digital declarations have risen by 8% as of 2025, totalling 2,172,000 submissions. Among those offered a simplified proposal, 93% accepted the initial version.
Specific taxpayers, such as self-employed individuals or those with foreign professional income, can submit their online declarations by 16 October.
As part of ongoing efforts to simplify tax procedures, announced last March, 47 federal tax codes have been removed, leaving fewer than 700 codes in total.
The Federal Public Service Finances has deployed 1,400 staff to assist with tax declarations. Last year, they responded to approximately 600,000 calls between April and mid-July and filled out 178,000 declarations.
For this year, 58,000 appointments have already been scheduled. Citizens can visit any of the 34 offices or attend sessions organised alongside 367 municipalities.
Since July last year, first-time errors made in good faith no longer trigger tax increases. Among 62,600 potential increases, 53,800 (86%) were waived.
950,000 letters sent without calculation notes
The Federal Public Service Finance (FPS Finance) will return 950,000 simplified tax return proposals on paper.
The proposed breakdown of the amount to be paid or received, which is usually attached, was found to be missing in the hundreds of thousands of initial letters, explained Director-General Wouter De Ryck on Tuesday, during the announcement of the opening of the 2025 tax return filing period.
De Ryck stressed that this was merely a technical error related to the sending process and not to the tax calculation itself, which is already available via MyMinFin.
FPS Finance began sending out simplified tax return proposals on paper a few days ago. This concerns approximately 2.8 million documents out of a total of 3.93 million.
"This form normally contains both the data held by the FPS Finance and a provisional calculation of the amount to be paid or refunded," stated Mr De Ryck.
"However, we discovered that due to a technical issue, this calculation was not included in the paper returns. The figures are significant: approximately 950,000 were sent without the calculation notes."
The tax authorities will resend the affected simplified tax return proposals, this time accompanied by the provisional calculation. The tax calculation itself is, in any case, accessible via the MyMinFin portal.
