Paying a cleaner off the books in Belgium: the real cost and the risks

An hour of cleaning paid with service vouchers costs €11.40 in Brussels, €10.60 in Wallonia and €10.00 in Flanders in the first tier of vouchers of the calendar year. The price of a voucher depends on the region where the user lives, because service vouchers are a regional matter: each region sets its own rate and its own tax regime separately. One service voucher pays for one hour of work performed.

The tiers matter as much as the entry price. In Brussels, the €11.40 rate covers the first 300 vouchers per person per calendar year, and the voucher then costs €14.00 from the 301st to the 500th. For a whole Brussels household, the first 600 vouchers are €11.40 and the next 400 are €14.00, within a ceiling of 1,000 vouchers a year.

In Brussels, no tax advantage lightens that price after the fact: according to Brussels Economy and Employment, tax deductibility is abolished for service vouchers bought from 1 January 2026, while the reduction remains acquired for vouchers bought before that date. In Wallonia, a tax reduction of €0.90 per voucher survives on the first 150 vouchers bought in the year, so €135 at most per person per year, provided the main residence is in the Walloon Region on 1 January of the year following the purchase. In Flanders, the tax advantage has been gone for vouchers bought since 1 January 2025, and no tax certificate at all is issued from 2026 onwards.

The Walloon net cost of €9.70 per voucher, often quoted, is therefore not a displayed price: it is €10.60 minus €0.90, valid only on the first 150 vouchers of the year and only if the taxpayer owes enough tax to absorb the reduction. The full breakdown by region is on our service voucher prices page.

One worked example gives the scale. At three hours a week, a Brussels household hands over 156 service vouchers across a full year, which is €1,778.40 at €11.40 per voucher — those 156 vouchers stay comfortably inside the first tier of 300.

It is the absence of a Dimona declaration for the person employed. The Belgian National Social Security Office states without reservation that since 1 October 2014, domestic workers must always be declared, regardless of the number of hours worked. Two hours a month therefore call for the same declaration as two days a week: the obligation does not depend on the volume of hours.

A private individual who has cleaning, laundry or ironing done at home for the needs of the household is an employer in the social security sense. That status is federal: it applies in the same way in Brussels, in Wallonia and in Flanders. The Federal Public Service Employment, Labour and Social Dialogue classifies the absence of a Dimona declaration as a level 4 offence, the highest level in the Social Criminal Code.

The service voucher system moves that role elsewhere. At Milhomem Group, the home cleaner is hired on an employment contract by the accredited company, which handles her declaration, her social contributions and her insurance. The user pays with service vouchers and files no Dimona declaration.

A level 4 offence carries an administrative fine of €3,000 to €35,000, or a criminal fine of €6,000 to €70,000 together with six months to three years of imprisonment — imprisonment and the criminal fine may also be imposed separately. Those amounts are the ones published by the Federal Public Service Employment. They are the amounts of the regime in force since 1 September 2026, the date the law of 16 March 2026 amending the Social Criminal Code came into force. They apply in all three regions: the Social Criminal Code is federal.

Level 4 is not the price of a forgotten form: it is the level the Federal Public Service Employment reserves for undeclared work, and the six months to three years of imprisonment exist at that level only. In the event of a repeat offence within the year, the maximum administrative fine may be doubled.

To put that in cleaning hours: the lowest level 4 administrative fine, €3,000, is 263 hours of declared cleaning in Brussels at €11.40 per voucher, which is about one year and eight months of visits at three hours a week. The ceiling of the same level, €35,000, is beyond any comparison in hours.

Fedris, the Belgian federal agency for occupational risks, sets out precisely what happens to an employer who is not insured against occupational accidents. Fedris carries out a retroactive automatic affiliation, from the first uninsured day. The flat-rate contribution due is about €124.66 per worker per calendar month where the lack of insurance lasted three consecutive months at most, and rises to €297.74 per worker per calendar month beyond twelve consecutive months. Both are 2026 amounts: they are index-linked.

Fedris itself points out that this flat-rate contribution is higher than the premium of an occupational accident insurance policy. That is still not the heaviest item. Fedris compensates the victim as an insurer would, then claims back from the employer every benefit it has paid out. Late payment adds a 10 % surcharge and late-payment interest. Fedris states that criminal prosecution remains possible.

That regime targets the employer, and it is federal. The National Social Security Office, for its part, treats a private individual who employs a domestic worker at home as an employer: that is what makes an accident during an undeclared visit expensive far beyond the price of the hour.

Three months without insurance already means €373.98 of flat-rate contribution for a single person employed, which is more than 32 hours of declared cleaning in Brussels — and that amount comes before any benefit has to be repaid.

The Belgian national employment office sanctions a fully unemployed person who works while the job goes undeclared. Exclusion from benefit runs from at least 4 weeks to at most 26 weeks; in aggravated cases, from at least 27 weeks to at most 52 weeks. On top of that comes repayment of every benefit wrongly received. Where the offence is repeated in aggravating circumstances, the person loses entitlement to benefit and has to build up working days again to recover it. The employment office page carries an update date of 1 March 2026, and the rule is federal.

The employment office describes two aggravated cases. The first is working for an employer whom the person knew had not declared the job. The second is carrying out a self-employed activity of a professional nature, assessed on criteria such as advertising, pricing, how often the work is done and the equipment used.

The first case describes exactly the situation covered here: a household that does not declare, and a cleaner who knows it. The penalty does not fall on the payer alone. Someone already cleaning homes can be hired on an employment contract by an accredited company — that is the route Milhomem Group offers in Brussels, set out on our work as a home cleaner page.

An honest comparison does not set two hourly rates against each other, because only one of the two exists officially. What can be costed, against the price of a service voucher, are the amounts the federal administrations claim once the situation is established.

Against that, the price of a declared hour is known in advance and does not move: €11.40 in Brussels for the first 300 service vouchers of the calendar year. That amount is what the user pays; the cleaner's wage, her social contributions and her insurance sit with the accredited company that employs her. Since Brussels deductibility was abolished on 1 January 2026, no tax amount is added to that price and none is given back the following year.

That is where the comparison tips. Against the price of a voucher, undeclared work offers not a certain saving but an immediate saving alongside a possible liability whose official amounts are, by contrast, precisely known. How the system works step by step is set out on our how service vouchers work page.

The switch is mostly prepared beforehand: knowing the number of hours, the competent region and the applicable rate before ordering anything. A free quote gives you that rhythm and that number of vouchers with no commitment, for a home in Brussels, in Walloon Brabant or in Flemish Brabant.