12/13/2006

Each year, the Belgian Ministry of Employment and Labor reviews the salary requirements for those workers applying for Belgian work permits. The salary requirements are enforced by the Belgian regional employment office where the work permit application or renewal is filed, i.e., VDAB in Flanders, ORBEM/BGDA in Brussels or FOREM in Wallonia. The Ministry of Employment and Labor has published new salary requirements for Type "B" work permit applications in the Belgian Official Gazette (Belgisch Staatsbad/Moniteur Belge), which apply to initial Type "B" work permit applications as well as Type "B" work permit renewal applications filed from January 1, 2007. The new salary requirements are as follows:

• The annual base salary requirement for highly skilled foreign workers will be raised from EUR33,082 to EUR33,677.
• The annual base salary requirement for senior manager and executive-level foreign workers will be raised from EUR55,193 to EUR56,187.

The Ministry and regional employment offices will not accept work permit or work permit renewal applications that fail to evidence the new minimum salary requirements. Under Belgian immigration law, only foreign nationals applying as "trainees" are exempt from the minimum salary requirement.

Source: http://pubweb.fdbl.com/news1.nsf/c8abb103352ef95a86256e3100809438/df19a02d11b5d70a8525724300614cd9?OpenDocument