What does contract to perm mean?
Contract to perm describes an engagement that starts as a temporary assignment with a stated intention: if both sides want to continue, it becomes a permanent contract. You will usually meet the term as a contract type on job filters, sitting alongside permanent and contract.
In Belgium it is commonly arranged through temporary agency work used for recruitment purposes, which is one of the reasons the law recognises for using an agency at all.
How is contract to perm different from a plain interim contract?
The mechanics can look identical at the start: an agency contract, an assignment at a company. What differs is the declared purpose. A standard interim contract exists to cover a temporary need. A contract-to-perm arrangement exists to evaluate a permanent hire, with both sides expecting the assignment to end in an offer rather than at a term.
That difference matters most when the assignment is going well and nobody has raised the conversion. On a temporary need, silence is normal. Here, silence is information.
What actually triggers the conversion?
Nothing automatic. Conversion means the company offers a permanent contract (CDI) and you accept it, a new contract with its own terms that have to be agreed rather than inherited. The temporary phase gives both sides evidence; it does not give you a right.
One thing does carry over, and it is easy to miss. Time already worked at that company through the agency can count towards your seniority once you are taken on permanently, which affects your notice from the first day of the new contract rather than starting you at zero.
How should you read a contract-to-perm offer?
Three questions are worth asking before you start: how long the temporary phase is expected to run, what will be assessed during it, and what the permanent package would look like if it converts. An arrangement where none of the three has an answer is a temporary assignment with optimistic branding.
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