Company car benefit in kind: how it is calculated in 2026

How is a company car benefit in kind calculated in Belgium?

With a statutory formula, and nothing else. Here it is: list value × depreciation coefficient × 6/7 × [ 5.5 + ( vehicle CO2 − reference CO2 ) × 0.1 ] / 100.

Three variables, no room for judgement. The list value is the price of the new vehicle in a sale to a private individual, options and VAT actually paid included, with no account taken of reductions, rebates or discounts. The discount you extract from the dealer does not lower the benefit in kind by one euro. The depreciation coefficient depends on the age of the vehicle. The CO2 percentage starts at 5.5% and moves by 0.1 point per gram of difference against the reference for the year, never falling below 4% or exceeding 18%.

The 2026 reference emissions were set by the Royal Decree of 17 December 2025, published in the Belgian Official Gazette of 24 December 2025: 70 g/km for petrol, LPG and natural gas, 58 g/km for diesel. Each loses one gram against 2025. A reference that falls pushes the taxable benefit up, mechanically, without the car having changed.

Two thresholds fall out of that arithmetic. The 4% floor is reached at 55 g/km on petrol and 43 g/km on diesel. The 18% cap is reached at 195 g/km on petrol and 183 g/km on diesel: beyond that, each extra gram costs nothing. An electric car emits nothing, so no CO2 reference applies and the 4% floor is used by default.

What is the minimum benefit in kind for income year 2026?

€1,690 a year. That is the indexed amount for income year 2026, tax year 2027, derived from a statutory base amount of €820. It was €1,650 for income year 2025.

This floor is not open to discussion and takes no account of the engine type, the emissions or the list value. It applies to employees and company directors alike. In practice it bites as soon as an electric car falls below a depreciated list value of €49,291.67: below that point the formula produces a result under €1,690 and the floor is what gets declared.

In the segment covered here, luxury cars on the Belgian price list, that floor almost never concerns a new vehicle. It does catch older ones: an electric car at €65,300 reaches the floor during its sixth year from first registration.

What is the benefit in kind on an electric luxury car on the Belgian price list?

Between €2,086.63 and €3,597.67 a year on the six electric models I track, in the first year. The calculation is easy to check: on an electric car there is no CO2 reference and no percentage to look up, just the list value multiplied by 6/7 and then by 4%.

Belgian list prices taken from Moniteur Automobile on 1 August 2026 and rechecked on 2 August 2026. These are entry prices, without a single option. Every option ticked on the order form enters the list value and raises the benefit accordingly: €5,000 of equipment adds €171.43 of taxable benefit a year. The top of the Porsche Taycan range reaches €255,300, which would put its benefit in kind on a different level entirely.

For the two combustion models I track, the Mercedes-Benz E-Class from €61,468 and the S-Class from €123,904, I publish no figure. CO2 emissions vary from one version to the next and I found no dated, verifiable reading per engine as at 17 August 2026. What I can give without inventing it is the weight of one percentage point: €526.87 a year on the E-Class, €1,062.03 a year on the S-Class. Multiply by the gap between 4% and the actual percentage of the version and you have the order of magnitude.

On an S-Class, each CO2 percentage point is worth €1,062.03 of taxable benefit a year. The engine costs more than the trim.

Why does the benefit fall every year without anything changing?

Because the list value is written down by 6% a year from the thirteenth month after first registration, with a floor set at 70% of the initial value. Any month started counts as a full month.

The sixth row is the one that matters to a director who keeps the car. The formula produces €1,567.20, but the statutory floor of €1,690 takes over. Across five years the total fall in the taxable benefit reaches €548.86, or 24.5%: far slower than the real depreciation of the vehicle on the Belgian market. The tax authority writes down more slowly than the dealer.

One point that costs used-car files dearly: the clock starts at the first registration of the vehicle, not at the date your company buys it. A four-year-old premium taken on by a company goes straight into the 82% band, without passing back through 100%.

What share of the benefit is exempt for home-to-work travel?

€500 a year in 2026, and only for a salaried employee. The condition is strict: you have to opt for the flat-rate deduction of professional expenses in your tax return, not for actual expenses. Company directors, so self-employed people operating through a company, are excluded from this exemption.

It is the only allowance that exists on this benefit, and it is modest. On a new Audi A6 Sportback e-tron it brings the taxable base down from €2,238.86 to €1,738.86. On a salary taxed in the upper brackets, the annual saving runs to a hundred euros or so, not to thousands.

What does the benefit cost the company providing the car?

A disallowed expense, added back to its taxable base. The rate is 17% of the benefit if there is no fuel card, no charging card and no contribution to energy costs, and 40% in every other case. That amount is then taxed under corporate income tax, at 25%, or 20% for an SME on its first €100,000 of taxable base.

On the new Audi A6 Sportback e-tron, with a charging card, the disallowed expense is €895.54 and the corresponding tax €223.89 at the 25% rate. Without a charging card, those figures drop to €380.61 and €95.15. The difference between the two car policies is worth €128.74 of tax a year per car. Across a fleet of twenty vehicles, it starts to show.

This disallowed expense has nothing to do with the deductibility of the vehicle costs, which follows its own timetable since 1 January 2026. They are two separate lines of the return, and I covered the second in what the end of deductibility changes.

Can the benefit be reduced by paying a personal contribution?

Yes, up to the exact amount of the benefit. If the driver pays a contribution relating to what is actually made available to them, that contribution is deducted from the calculated benefit. If it covers the benefit in full, there is no benefit in kind left to declare, and therefore no payroll tax on that line.

Three limits are worth knowing before signing a car policy. The contribution can only be deducted from the benefit it relates to, not from another one. Any excess is neither carried over to another year nor set against salary. And since 1 January 2017, that contribution has had no effect on the company's disallowed expense: the employer pays the same, whether the driver contributes or not.

The solidarity contribution paid to the ONSS remains due in every case, since it depends only on the emissions figure and the fuel type. To arbitrate between engine types before getting that far, the comparison of premium company cars for a self-employed person works through five models line by line, and the luxury car ranking adds the regional taxes and the warranty. The company car guide sets out the full reasoning.

Sources

• Securex, company car — benefit in kind for tax purposes, updated 13 January 2026, consulted 17 August 2026: formula, definition of list value, 4% floor and 18% cap, minimum amount of €1,690.
• Securex, indexed tax amounts for 2026, published 4 March 2026, consulted 17 August 2026: minimum benefit of €1,690 and home-to-work exemption of €500.
• Securex, the progressive write-down of the list value, updated 13 January 2026: scale of 100, 94, 88, 82, 76 and 70%.
• Securex, the employee's personal contribution to the benefit in kind, updated 13 January 2026.
• Royal Decree of 17 December 2025 amending the AR/CIR 92 on benefits in kind, Belgian Official Gazette of 24 December 2025: 2026 reference emissions.
• Article 36 § 2 of the Belgian Income Tax Code 1992 for the notion of list value, and article 65 of the same code for the vehicles covered by the flat-rate valuation.
• Moniteur Automobile, new car prices in Belgium, taken on 1 August 2026 and rechecked on 2 August 2026: the eight list prices quoted.