As a self-employed, you make all kinds of trips with your vehicle. First, we need to differentiate between 3 types of trips:
Private journeys: these trips are not made as part of your self-employed activity and therefore cannot be deducted. For example: dropping off your children at school, visiting family or friends, etc.
Commuting from home to workplace: if you are self-employed and have a fixed workplace, such as an office, you can opt to pay 15 cents per km commuting. These journeys are not considered to be business trips. For this reason, they are deductible in a different way.
Other purely pro travel: this trip is directly linked to your professional activity as a self-employed. Examples: visits to your customers, your banker, meetings. In this case, you cannot use the fixed mileage rate and must deduct your actual expenses.
Ways of deducting your travel expenses:
In Belgium, it is possible to deduct vehicle-related expenses incurred as part of your self-employed activity according to three methods: actual expenses, flat fee expenses and commuting expenses.
1. Commuting expenses
As a reminder, these trips are not considered professional. However, if you are self-employed and have a fixed place of work, such as an office, you can claim a mileage allowance of 15 cents per km for travel related to this activity.
What is considered a workplace for self-employed workers?
The tax authorities consider a fixed workplace to be any place where you carry out self-employed activity for at least 40 days a year, whether it's an office, a visit to a regular client, your practice or something else.
🚨 If you work and commute to the same place for at least 40 days a year, that place is automatically considered a fixed workplace. |
🚨🚨 It's important to consider a maximum distance of 100 kilometers (one way) between home and workplace. |
It is also possible to have several fixed workplaces in the course of a year. In this case, travel between the place of residence and each fixed workplace is no longer considered as purely business travel. As a result, you can deduct a mileage allowance of 0.15 cents per kilometer for these home-workplace journeys.
💡 In Accountable, you can't encode this lump sum in your expenses and thus should keep an Excel spreadsheet, for example, to record the kilometers traveled as part of your home-work commute. You will need to enter the amount in part 2 of your IPP declaration under code 1606 (if you work in the commercial sector) or 1657 (if you work in the liberal sector). |
Examples:
You are a doctor who goes to your practice every day for consultations with your patients.
You are an IT specialist and go at least 40 days a year to the same customer.
→ Your home-work commute is 40 km (round trip) 200 days a year: 200*40*0.15= €1,200.
2. Actual expenses
When you deduct your car purchase and related expenses with Accountable, the App does the deductibility calculations for you. You'll find all the information in this article.
Actual expenses cover not only your car expenses, but also all your business expenses! That's why you need to include all receipts and invoices in your expenses.
Examples:
You're a consultant, and you need to visit potential customers to prospect.
You're an entrepreneur and need to visit your customers in the course of your business.
You need to visit your banker.
Travel for professional training.
→ You can deduct the cost of fuel, car insurance, road taxes and maintenance in proportion to the % of business use, which also depends on the type of vehicle.
💡 In Accountable, you need to encode all invoices/receipts for all your business expenses. |
3. Flat fee expenses
If your total actual expenses (travel and other) are below a certain threshold (see below), you will benefit by default from flat fee expenses.
Flat fee expenses, also known as lump sum, cover all business expenses, including those related to the use of your vehicle for commuting to and from work + all expenses related to your vehicle for purely business purposes (insurance, gas, etc.).
🚨 If you choose flat fee expenses, you can't additionally deduct home-work trips expenses at 15 cents per km, as these are included in the flat fee expenses. |
💡 You need to enter all receipts and invoices for your business expenses into the App, since the app calculates for you whether opting for flat fee or actual expenses is more advantageous! |
From the Taxes screen, in the Income tax submission section, at point 6 "Income", the system will tell you what is most interesting for you. In the blue box, you'll see a message telling you which is the best method for deducting your business expenses. Simply click on "Click here" to change method:
For your information :
Fiscal year 2025–2024 revenues | Flat fee |
Commercial activity* | The flat fee deduction for professional expenses is limited to €5,750. |
Liberal Activity ** | The flat fee deduction for professional expenses is limited to €5,050. |
* Here is how the flat fee is calculated for a commercial activity with a threshold of €5,750:
Income bracket in € | Percentage |
From 0.01 to 19,166.64 | 30% |
** Here is how the flat fee is calculated for a self-employed activity with a ceiling of €5,050:
Income bracket in € | Percentage |
0 - 7.310 | 28.7 % |
7.310 - 14.520 | 10 % |
14.520 - 24.160 | 5 % |
24.160 - 82.460,83 | 3 % |
82.460,84 | 0 % |
Examples:
Travel from home to work.
Travel to potential customers for prospecting purposes.
Travel to your bank.
→ If your actual expenses are not significant, then you can deduct a maximum lump sum of €5,750 or €5,050 (depending on the type of activity).
If you have any questions, please don't hesitate to contact us via chat or by e-mail at the following address: support@accountable.eu.