Inami is able to publish these figures because it has data, collected by mutual societies, concerning all cross-border work. Cross-border workers who come to work in Belgium are in fact subject to Belgian social security.
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A crowd of French people in Belgium
The bulk of the contingent of cross-border workers still comes from France, but their number has decreased slightly, reaching 39,252 last year. Followed by residents of the Netherlands, whose number has however been decreasing since 2022, as have those of cross-border workers from Germany or Luxembourg.
Conversely, workers residing in Belgium take up work in a neighboring country. These fall under the application of the social security system of the country of occupation.
The number of these outgoing workers has also been declining in recent years. It rose to 91,296 in 2019, before falling in subsequent years. In 2024, there were 86,056. Luxembourg still attracts as many workers from Belgium (48,703 in 2024), but the Netherlands has lost a lot of its attractiveness (21,804 in 2024).
Note that the Belgian provinces which attract the most cross-border workers are Hainaut and Namur (French residents) as well as East Flanders (Dutch and French).
In the other direction, it is the province of Luxembourg which sends the most workers abroad (37,923, almost all to the Grand Duchy of Luxembourg), ahead of the province of Liège (mainly to Luxembourg and Germany). and Limburg (almost all in the Netherlands).
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Less favorable tax regime
Asked about the causes of this slight decline in the number of cross-border workers, Anick Perin, international mobility consultant at HR service provider Securex, suggests in particular a change in the tax system in a direction less favorable to workers.
More fundamentally, beyond variations from one year to the next, we observe that workers who leave Belgium to work are significantly more numerous than those who go the opposite way (86,000 compared to 51,000). For Anick Perin, it is a sign that “our country is not sufficiently attractive, especially compared to Luxembourg and France, whose tax system is much more advantageous”.
