What are meal vouchers?
Meal vouchers are an electronic benefit credited to a personal account and usable to pay for a meal or ready-to-eat food. They are one of the most common extra-legal benefits in Belgium, to the point that their absence from a package is more noticeable than their presence.
They are jointly funded. The employer pays the larger share and the employee contributes the rest, which is deducted from net pay.
How are meal vouchers granted in Belgium?
One voucher per day actually worked, and that condition is strict. No voucher is due for a public holiday, a compensatory rest day, a day of annual leave or a sick day, which means part-time schedules and absences all change the count. A mismatch between vouchers and days worked is one of the classic ways a plan loses its favourable treatment.
Several other conditions apply cumulatively for that treatment to hold, as the ONSS administrative instructions on meal vouchers set out: the benefit has to rest on a collective agreement or a written individual agreement that exists before the first vouchers are ordered, the vouchers have to be electronic and credited to an account in the employee's name, employer and employee shares have to stay within set limits, the voucher can only pay for food, and it expires twelve months after being credited.
How do meal vouchers differ from eco-vouchers?
On three axes, and all three matter. What you may buy: meal vouchers cover food, eco-vouchers cover only products and services on an official ecological list. Who pays: meal vouchers are co-funded by the employee, eco-vouchers are entirely employer-funded. How the entitlement is calculated: meal vouchers accrue per day actually worked, eco-vouchers are an annual amount over a reference period.
They are often mentioned together in an offer, which hides the fact that they behave nothing alike.
What are meal vouchers actually worth to you?
More than the same amount in gross salary, because the vouchers escape the deductions that gross pay does not, as gross vs net salary explains. That is the whole reason the instrument exists.
Two things reduce the value in practice: your own contribution comes out of net pay, and the vouchers expire after twelve months, so unused balances are lost rather than banked. Sparagus states what a package includes on each opening rather than leaving it to the interview, so you can compare across the roles currently open.
