At a glance
- Full-time employees are entitled to five days of professional training per year, reduced pro-rata for part-time or partial-year employees.
- Initially intended to be mandatory from November 2024, the online system for registering training days faced technical issues and was postponed to May 2025.
- A new government formed in January 2025 proposed abolishing the mandatory use of the Federal Learning Account, citing administrative burden - though this has not yet been legislated.
- Currently, registration in the Federal Learning Account is optional until 1 September 2025, with no added benefit for voluntary use.
- Employers with 20+ staff must submit a yearly training plan by 31 March, with works council consultation (if applicable) by 15 March, and register it electronically with the FPS Employment.
Under Article 52 of the Act of 3 October 2022 on various employment measures, full-time employees are, in principle, entitled to five days of professional training per year. This entitlement is applied on a pro-rata basis for part-time employees or those employed for only part of the year.
A collective bargaining agreement at the joint committee level may stipulate a different number of training days.
The previous government had planned to introduce mandatory registration of all training days to enable systematic monitoring of compliance with the minimum training entitlement. This led to the enactment of the Act of 20 October 2023, which established the Federal Learning Account - an online platform (available at careerpro.be) where employers and training providers could log training days.
Initially, the use of the Federal Learning Account was to become mandatory from 1 November 2024. However, due to frequent technical issues and growing concerns from employers about the administrative burden, the government postponed the mandatory implementation to 1 May 2025.
Following the formation of a new coalition government in January 2025, the coalition agreement proposed abolishing the Federal Learning Account. The coalition partners argued that employers should be able to demonstrate, using any available evidence, that employees have received their entitled training days - without being required to register each instance formally.
However, this proposal has not yet been enacted into law. In fact, the Act of 6 April 2025, which temporarily postponed the registration requirement, did not abolish the Federal Learning Account. It merely confirmed that registration would remain optional until 1 September 2025. There is currently no specific benefit for employers who choose to use the system voluntarily.
New legislation is expected in the coming months to clarify the framework from 1 September 2025 onwards. The government has indicated that any future system will aim to reduce administrative complexity, though details remain unclear.
It’s important to distinguish between the registration of individual training days and the requirement to submit an annual training plan. Employers with 20 or more employees must prepare a yearly training plan outlining their professional training policy, including the use of external training providers. This plan must be finalised by 31 March each year.
If a works council exists, it must be consulted and given the opportunity to provide advice on the plan by 15 March. However, the council’s agreement is not required for the plan to proceed.
The annual training plan must be submitted electronically to the Federal Public Service for Employment, Labour and Social Dialogue via the FPS Employment, Labour and Social Dialogue [BE] portal.
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