91 - LIBRARIES, ARCHIVES, MUSEUMS AND OTHER CULTURAL ACTIVITIES Companies in Belgium

Analysis

What this data actually tells you

Arts, Entertainment and Recreation in Belgium has never had a genuinely separate social-security statute for artists — those earning artistic income do so as ordinary employees or self-employed workers, like any other profession. What changed is access to favourable rules within that ordinary system: a law adopted 1 December 2022, effective 1 January 2024, created the Kunstwerkcommissie and, alongside it, the kunstwerkattest (art-work certificate), required to access special social-security arrangements. Three certificate types exist — standard (article 1bis employee-style social security without a traditional employment contract), plus (unemployment-benefit rules for artists), and starter (relaxed unemployment-benefit conditions for new artists).

A separate authorisation, the artist visa, is still required specifically for commissioned creative work done without an employment contract or self-employed status — writing a script or creating artwork on commission, for example — and remains necessary to use the article 1bis arrangements even as the certificate system is implemented. For verification, a Belgian arts or entertainment counterparty’s actual social-security and payment arrangements for the artists it engages depend on checking both the kunstwerkattest type held and, separately, whether an artist visa applies to the specific commissioned work in question.