AISBL Guide - Mandatory Yearly Tasks

This document contains things to know to create and manage an AISBL (International non-profit association seated in Belgium). We fill information here as we learn it, so don’t expect to find here complete, definitive information.

Mandatory yearly tasks and reports

General calendar

	J	F	M	A	M	J	J	A	S	O	N	D
Association tax declaration			x
General assembly				x
Approval of last year’s report				x
Updating of UBO register				x
Filing of last year’s report					x
Approval of next year’s budget						x
Tax declaration							x
VAT declarations, if applicable	x			x			x			x
VAT list of clients, if applicable												x
Request insurance for next year									x

Determining the type of the AISBL

The size of the AISBL determines its accounting obligations:

• The nano association does not exceed more than one of the following criteria:
  • 5 full-time equivalent (FTE) workers on average over the year
  • € 334,500 in revenue excluding VAT (excluding exceptional revenue)
  • € 1,337,500 in total Assets
  • € 1,337,500 in total Debts
• The micro association does not exceed more than one of the following criteria:
  • 10 FTE workers on average over the year
  • € 7,000,000 in turnover excluding VAT (excluding exceptional receipts)
  • € 3,500,000 balance sheet total 3.
• The small association does not exceed more than 1 of the following criteria:
  • 50 FTE workers on average over the year
  • € 9,000,000 in turnover excluding VAT (excluding exceptional receipts)
  • € 4,500,000 balance sheet total
• The large association exceeds more than 1 of the following criteria:
  • 50 FTE workers on average over the year
  • € 9,000,000 in turnover excluding VAT (excluding exceptional receipts)
  • € 4,500,000 balance sheet total

General assembly

The association must hold, at least once a year, a general assembly meeting, where, at minimum, the approval of last year’s financial report and next year’s expenditure budget must be voted. The way the meeting is organised is determined by the statutes or other internal ruling. There is no mandatory date to perform the meeting, but it must happen once a year and is usually done before April.

Yearly financial report

Each year, a financial report must be established, giving:

• The detail of all money earned and spent by the association over the past year
• All assets (money and goods) owned by the association
• All debts the association has

The form this report must be made and filed depends on the size of the association determined above:

• nano associations can opt for a simplified report which needs to be filed each year to the Entreprise Court’s greffe.
• micro and small associations must use double-entry accounting and submit their report to the national bank of Belgium.
• large associations must also use double-entry accounting, use an extended report system and submit it to the national bank of Belgium.

Simplified report

The simplified report can be made on a single sheet, and must contain name of the association, juridic form (AISBL), address, entreprise number and year and tables for income, spending, assets and debts. See model here (last page). The report must be delivered physically at the Greffe du Tribunal de l’entreprise (section des personnes morales, Boulevard de la Deuxième Armée Britannique 148, in Forest) and must include:

• Two signed copies of the report

• One copy of the last general assembly minutes (procès-verbal) that approves the report, signed by the administrators

• One signed copy of the attestation d’identité form

• One copy of the deponent’s identity card

More info on the associations page of the Greffe

This must be done maximum one month after the annual general assembly meeting

Budget

All non-profit organisations are required to draw up a budget each year for the following financial year and have it approved by the General Assembly, no later than 6 months after the end of the year. The form of your budget can be chosen freely, as it is not determined by legal provisions. It is nevertheless advisable to draw up the budget on the basis of the same diagram as the annual accounts.

The budget remains internal. Unlike annual accounts, it is not registered with a third party.

Tax declaration

Associations must submit each year a tax declaration. By default, associations are subject to a tax called IPM (Impôt des Personnes Morales / Tax on moral persons).

Associations can be subject to the moral persons tax regime, or societies tax regime. Basically, it is submitted by default to the legal persons tax if it does not perform any commercial operation. If it engages in commercial operations (ie, it sells goods), it can be subject to the societies tax instead. The key to decide is if the commercial operations are a main activity or an auxiliary activity. This form may help to decide.

As a rule of thumb, to stay on the safe side and under the IPM regime (which is an advantage as basically all revenues are tax exempt), commercial activities undertaken by the AISBL should be non-permanent, and always to help fulfilling the main non-profit goal of the association.

The latest date when the tax declaration must be submitted varies varies each year, and also depends on when the association closes its budget. Using normal closing dates (from January 1st to December 31st), to be on the safe side, the declaration should be done before July 31st (7 months after the end of the budget closing date).

Moral persons tax

The declaration is done online via the BizTax website. This can be done by any person with a Belgian ID card registered as an administrator of the AISBL, or by a bookkeeper or accountant registered in Belgium.

The declaration is composed of 4 parts:

• Identification of the AISBL and the person filling the form

• Profits (only taxable profits, excluding the normal income, see below)

• Annexes (the yearly income statement should be annexed)

• Additional forms for movable capital, only to be filled if applicable

In typical cases (no taxable commercial operations), only the first part must be completed, and the yearly income statement should be annexed. The profits part should be left entirely blank, resulting in 0 EUR of taxable profits. After the declaration is completed and submitted, a receipt is issued, and a tax simulation can be obtained, which should indicate 0 EUR of tax to pay.

With the moral persons tax regime, an AISBL is in principle not taxed on the profits it made (donations received or, for example, the revenues from a spaghetti evening that you organize occasionally to finance the objectives of your AISBL).

These profits are therefore not included in the declaration. However, certain other income must be declared:

• real estate income located in Belgium (except income from private rentals, market garden and agricultural rents, rentals to non-profit tenants) or located abroad (unless a double taxation agreement provides for taxation in the country in which the property is located)
• income from movable and capital property (both received and allocated) (a non-profit organization must also pay withholding tax for certain income and therefore complete a declaration for withholding tax 273 or 273A)
• certain capital gains on land located in Belgium or on certain rights in rem on this land
• certain capital gains on buildings located in Belgium or on certain rights in rem on these buildings
• capital gains on major holdings (sale, exchange, contribution, etc.)
• financial benefits or advantages of any kind (in the context of corruption)
• pensions, lump sums, employer contributions and bonuses
• unjustified costs or benefits of any kind, and corruption
• car expenses up to a portion of the benefit in kin
• the costs of the mobility allowance up to a proportion of the benefit in kind

You must be able to justify all the income and expenditure of your non-profit organization with supporting documents. Unjustified expenses may possibly be penalized by a maximum tax at the rate of 102%.

The declaration must be submitted no later than October 28 in all cases, but there might be different rules depending on the year and the closing date.

VAT

Registering to the VAT is mandatory for all associations or companies engaging in commercial activities (the selling of goods or services). See registering instructions here. Once an association is registered, it must:

• File monthly (default) or quarterly (if allowed, must be asked for when registering the AISBL at VAT) reports, stating the total amount of operations (in and out) subject to VAT. Reports must follow a specific calendar. If no VAT operation has been done, a null report must be filed anyway

• Reports are filed online (needs a belgian ID card and be a registered admin of the AISBL, or an accountant)

• File yearly list of VAT clients the AISBL has sold goods or services to

• Retain a VAT of 21% over all sold goods or services in Belgium, and pay that amount quarterly to the finance administration

• Inform of all the VAT paid in Belgium during the last quarter. Those will be reimbursed.

• Apply reverse charging when buying or selling goods or services from / to a body subject to VAT in another EU country. Warning, incorrect reverse charging will cause fines to be applied. When receiving invoices from anybody (person or comapny) outside Belgium, the invoice must carry 1) the FPA’s VAT number (BE0781867807), and the mention “Reverse charged VAT according to Art 21 § 2 of the Belgian VAT Code”. It is the responsability of the AISBL to make sure these mentions are corectly indicated on the invoices it receives.

• The same mentions must be indicated when the AISBL is invoicing a VAT-enabled person or company within the EU. In that case, VAT is not applied on the invoice and is paid by rhe client.

• Inform of all reverse charges applied/received during the last quarter, together with the quarterly declaration (separate form)

The finance ministry website provides information in english or in french (with more information) over all the details of VAT declaration

quarterly VAT declaration

The following operations must be registered on the quarterly declaration:

• Invoices received from Belgian companies: The total amount without VAT (box 82), the VAT paid (box 59), the total to be reimburded by the VAT administration (box 72). The invoice must carry our VAT number.

• Invoices issued to Belgian companies and all individuals anywhere: The total amount without VAT (box 03), the VAT received (box 54), the total to be paid to the VAT administration (box 71). The invoice must carry the client’s VAT number, if existing.

• Invoices issued to EU/non-EU companies: The total amount without VAT (box 46) only. No VAT must be charged. The invoice must carry the client’s VAT number and the reverse-charging legal mention. A relevé intracommunautaire must also be registered together with the quarterly declaration, mentioning the total amount without VAT with an L code.

• Invoices received from EU/non-EU companies: The total amount without VAT (box 82), the VAT of 21% to be paid on it (box 59) and also the same amount to be deduced (box 54). There is therefore no amount to report on boxes 71 or 72. The invoice must carry our VAT number and the reverse-charging legal mention.

UBO register

The UBO register is an anti-corruption and anti-money-laundry system in Belgium, that keeps track of possible beneficiaries of companies and associations. For non-profit organizations and foundations, the following are considered effective beneficiaries:

• Administrators
• The people who are authorised to represent the association
• The people in charge of the daily management of the non-profit organization or the foundation
• The founders of a foundation
• The natural persons or, when these persons have not yet been designated, the category of natural persons in whose main interest the non-profit organization or the foundation was formed or operates. This is mainly when the association is specifically aimed at funding a certain person or designated group of people
• Any other natural person exercising by other means the ultimate control over the non-profit organisation or foundation

The UBO register must be kept updated each year with the effective beneficiaries of the association. It can be accessed with the Belgian ID card of one of the administrators registered as such at the crossroads bank. There is no limit date specified, but any change of beneficiaries must be registered within one month to the UBO register.

Only administrators registered at the crossroads bank (see below) can be added as beneficiaries.

Administrators register update

Each time there is a change in the adminstrators roster, these changes must be communicated to the Greffe du Tribunal de l’entreprise (ssection des personnes morales). Doing this publishes the changes to the national gazette, and updates the crossroads bank register. Need to be filed:

• Form 2 from Formulaires pour publication au Moniteur belge with the following fields filled:

  • Fields 1 and 2 (name and entreprise number) must always be filled
  • In the rest of the form, only changed values must be filled
  • When nominating or demoting new administrators, field 4 of volet C (page 2) must be filled with (1) N (nomination) or C (demotion) (2) RBIS number (3) Name (4) Date of start of mandate

• Proof of payment of the publishing tax

• One signed copy of the attestation d’identité form

• One copy of the deponent’s identity card

• One copy of the general assembly minutes that enables the administrators

• Copy of identity card and passports of all new administrators

• Proof of residence (phone bill, etc) of all new administrators

• RBIS number of all new administrators. RBIS numbers can only be obtained by notaries and take a few days. Notary will need copy of passports and proof of residence.

The publishing tax for ASBLs/AISBLs is of € 157,42 in 2023 (changes yearly - check for the current year) to be paid to IBAN BE48 6792 0055 0227 with the entreprise number as communication.

Associations tax

ASBLs/AISBLs with more than € 25,000 in assets are subject to an annual tax of 0.17% of their declared assets value, not counting liquidities (fonds de roulement). If the ASBL’s assets are less than or equal to € 25,000, it is not subject to the tax. It is, however, still required to fill a declaration and indicate that the assets do not exceed € 25,000.

The declaration must be filed no later than March 31. Each ASBL receives, in principle, an invitation from the Legal Security office to submit a declaration during the month of February.

Social report

Non-profit organisations that employ an average of 20 or more staff per year, including small non-profit organisations, must draw up a social balance sheet.

Insurance

All assocations in Belgium are required by law to insure their volunteers. There is a clear distinction between volunteers and participants. Volunteers are people doing voluntary work for the association, while participants are those who benefit from the activities of the association. Only volunteers need to be insured.

To boost voluntary activity, the Brussels region offers a free volunteers insurance to all associations seated on its territory. A request form must be filled and sent before the year begins, with the planned activities of that year and the requested number of volunteering days/person. This insurance covers any event in Belgium or abroad, except the USA and Canada.

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Employment and contracting

AISBLs can contract workers, either as independent workers or employee workers.

Warning, a member of the AISBL being contracted as a worker (independent or employee) can often be seen as a conflict of interests. Such situations need to be extremely well and clearly formulated and written.

Employee workers

Contracting employees requires a large amount of administrative procedures (FR), mainly register to different social security levels and contract an insurance against work damages. An employee contract can be full or part time, and with no time limit or with a certain time frame, for a certian kind of tasks or not. Part of employment boost measures, Belgium offers several kinds of helps to employers.

Independent workers

An AISBL can contract an independent worker without any regulation or inscription. However, in this case, all the burden of taxes, social securities and everything else is the responsability of the worker. It is therefore important that the worker shows their compliance to this. It is usually done by issuing an invoice where details over the worker’s social security or tax inscription are given, which could allow the AISBL to check that the worker is indeed in order with their tax administration.