Copyright Income Tax 2026: IT Freelancers Are Back In, but the Deal Is Different

If you are a software developer working through a Belgian company — or invoicing as a self-employed dev — copyright tax just came back into your life. Here is the version you actually need.

What just changed

For three years (2023, 2024, 2025), you were not allowed to use the favourable copyright tax regime. You earned a salary or a self-employed fee, you paid full Belgian income tax on it. The Constitutional Court dismissed the challenge to that exclusion in 2024, so there is nothing to reclaim for those years.

From 1 January 2026, the regime is back for software. You can route up to 30% of your remuneration through copyright. The effective tax on that 30% is around 15–16%. The remaining 70% you pay normally.

The annual ceiling is €77,220 of copyright income for 2026. Beyond that, it gets reclassified as ordinary income. If you see €75,360 quoted somewhere, that was last year's ceiling — the 2026 figure was only published in August 2026.

The numbers, for a developer paying themselves €150,000

You keep about €18,000 more per year by using the regime. That is a real number, not a marketing number.

If you earn closer to €80,000, the gap is smaller (~€10,000). If you earn closer to €250,000, you hit the €77,220 ceiling on the copyright side — the regime caps out and the advantage flattens.

What used to be better

The "old" regime (pre-2023) allowed a flat 50% cost deduction on the first slice of copyright income. The effective rate was around 7.5% — half of what it is now. Every blog post from 2018–2022 you find online quotes that number. It no longer applies to you unless you hold an artist's certificate, which IT developers do not.

So the regime is back, but it is half as generous as it used to be. Adjust your expectations.

What you actually need to do

1. Talk to your accountant before 30 June 2026 if you want to apply the regime for the full year.
2. Sign a real copyright transfer agreement with your client (or with your own company, if you are a director). The clause must say what code/work is being transferred, when, for what scope.
3. Split your invoices into two lines: services (70%) and copyright transfer (30%). One line, not two invoices.
4. Cap yourself at 30% and €77,220. The 30% is of the total on the engagement — copyright plus the fee for the services — and only the excess gets requalified. Going over is the most common audit trigger.
5. Keep evidence that you are actually creating something. Code reviews, commit logs, design docs, original specs. If you are pure ops or pure project management, the regime does not apply — you are not creating a copyrightable work.

When the regime does not help you

• You are an employee with a flat salary your employer will not restructure. (Most won't.)
• You only do helpdesk, support, or pure ops — no original creative output.
• Your total income is under ~€50,000 — the absolute savings are modest and the administrative cost (separate contracts, fiches 281.45, slight audit risk) may not be worth it.

When it is the most important call of your year

• You are a self-employed senior dev invoicing €100k+.
• You are a founder paying yourself through a BV/SRL — combine this with VVPRbis (see VVPRbis dividends) and you get the lowest legal effective rate available in Belgium.

The one-sentence answer

If you write original code for a living and you earn more than €80,000, set up copyright before the end of June 2026. If not, ignore it.