A full-time employee is in principle entitled to five days professional training per year. This is based on article 52 of the Act of 3 October 2022 holding various measures concerning employment. The allocation is reduced pro-rata if the employee works part-time or only works for part of the year.
A collective bargaining agreement at joint committee level can stipulate a different number of days professional training.
The previous government intended to introduce mandatory registration for all training days, so complying with the minimum number of days could be checked systematically. The previous government promulgated the Act of 20 October 2023 concerning the creation and the management of the federal learning account.
The federal learning account is an online application where employers and training providers can register professional training days. The application is available at careerpro.be - Federal Learning Account. Initially, the intention was that using the federal learning account would be mandatory by 1 November 2024.
But the application frequently had technical difficulties. Employers increasingly complained that registering all training days was a considerable administrative burden. So the previous government postponed the entry into force of the mandatory registration through the federal learning account from 1 November 2024 to 1 May 2025.
A new coalition government was formed in January 2025. The coalition agreement stipulates that the federal learning account will be abolished. The coalition partners decided that an employer should be allowed to establish by all available evidence that all employees have received the number of days training they're entitled to and that an obligation to register all trainings constitutes an unnecessary administrative burden.
This part of the coalition agreement has not yet been implemented into actual legislation. The coalition parties apparently changed their mind. The Act of 6 April 2025 concerning the temporary postponement of the registration in the federal learning account doesn't abolish the federal learning account. The only point confirmed into legislation is that registering in the federal learning account is not mandatory, but optional, in the period up to 1 September 2025. But there's no particular advantage for an employer that voluntarily uses the system.
New legislation will still need to be introduced in the coming months to regulate the situation as of 1 September 2025. The new government announced they will introduce a system that's less burdensome from an administrative point of view, but it remains unclear what this will be.
Postponing the duty to register training days for each employee separately should not be confused with registering a training plan. Employers with at least 20 employees should have an annual training plan. This plan should explain the policy on professional training, for instance to what extent external trainings will be used. The annual training plan should be completed at the latest on 31 March. If the company has a works council, the council should advise on the training plan by 15 March at the latest. The works council doesn't necessarily have to agree with the training plan.
The annual training plan should be registered at the Federal Public Service of Employment, Labour and Social Dialogue. This should be done electronically at FPS Employment, Labour and Social Dialogue [BE].
Written by Pierre Dion and Laurent De Surgeloose
