What is an interim contract?
An interim contract is a temporary employment contract between a worker and a licensed temporary-work agency, under which the worker performs work at a third company. Three parties are involved and each has a distinct role: the agency employs and pays the worker, the user company directs the day-to-day work, and the worker performs it.
This split is the whole point of the arrangement, and it is also what sets interim apart from every other contract type in Belgium.
How is an interim contract different from a fixed-term contract?
The difference is not duration, since both are temporary. It is the identity of your employer. On a fixed-term contract (CDD) the company you work for signs your contract and carries the employer obligations. On an interim contract those obligations sit with the agency, and the user company has no employment contract with you at all.
In practice that means your pay, your payslip, your holiday entitlement and the end of your assignment all come from the agency rather than from the organisation whose office you sit in.
When does Belgian law allow interim work?
Interim work is not freely available. It is permitted for specific reasons: replacing a permanent employee who is temporarily absent, covering a temporary increase in workload, carrying out exceptional work, or recruiting with a view to permanent employment. Agencies also need a licence to operate, granted at regional level.
The reason has to be real. Using an agency simply to keep someone off the payroll indefinitely is not what the framework permits, and Belgium treats making personnel available to a third party outside these routes as unlawful.
What does an interim contract mean if you are building a consulting career?
Interim gets you inside companies quickly, and it is often how a first assignment at a large organisation happens. What it does not give you is continuity. Each assignment is its own contract, and seniority does not accumulate the way it does with a single employer.
The alternatives sit on different axes. Contract to perm keeps the agency route but adds an explicit intention to convert, while secondment keeps you employed by one consultancy across changing client projects. Sparagus works with all three and states which applies on each of the roles currently open.
