Belgium Pension & Mortgage Bonus Logement Calculator 2026

This calculator combines two very different but commonly-paired questions Belgian homeowners approaching retirement ask together: "what will my legal pension actually be?" and "does my mortgage still get the old tax break, or did I lose it?"

The legal pension (pension légale / wettelijk pensioen) is Belgium's first-pillar, government-run pension for employees, built up year by year across your career. Each year of work contributes a fraction toward your eventual pension based on that year's revalued salary, at either 60% (an "isolated" individual) or 75% (a single-income "household" rate for a married/legally-cohabiting couple), divided by 45 -- a full Belgian career. There's also a minimum guaranteed pension for anyone who completes a full 45-year career, regardless of how low their calculated result would otherwise be.

The bonus logement was a valuable regional mortgage-interest/capital tax benefit that Belgium's three regions each abolished for new loans at different dates -- but, crucially, existing loans taken out before each region's cutoff keep the benefit for the rest of that loan's term. This is exactly the kind of detail that's easy to lose track of over a 20-25 year mortgage: your loan might still be quietly saving you money on your tax bill today even though nobody signing a mortgage in your region this year gets the same deal.

Legal pension, summed across each career year (using a single simplified average salary applied to every year in this calculator):

If you complete a full 45-year career and this result falls below the minimum guaranteed pension, the minimum applies instead.

Bonus logement, only if your loan predates your region's abolition cutoff:

A single Flemish employee has averaged EUR 45,000 gross across a 40-year private-sector career and is still paying down a mortgage taken out in 2012, on which capital and interest come to EUR 6,000 a year. Two separate entitlements are in play, and they are computed independently.

Step 1 -- Check the salary against the ceiling. EUR 45,000 is below the EUR 67,266.74 ceiling, so no year is capped

Step 2 -- The pension right earned by one career year. EUR 45,000 / 45 x 60% (isolated rate) = EUR 600.00

The divisor is 45, the statutory full career, not the number of years actually worked. That is why an incomplete career is proportionally short rather than scaled up.

Step 3 -- The annual legal pension. 40 years x EUR 600.00 = EUR 24,000.00

Step 4 -- Expressed monthly. EUR 24,000.00 / 12 = EUR 2,000.00 a month

Step 5 -- Test against the minimum guaranteed pension. EUR 2,000.00 exceeds the EUR 1,844.93 isolated minimum, and in any case the minimum requires a full 45-year career, so it does not apply

The Mortgage Side

Step 6 -- Identify the regime by origination year. A 2012 Flemish loan falls in the 2005 to 2015 band: the original woonbonus, still live for existing loans (Flanders only closed it to new loans from 2020)

Step 7 -- Cap the eligible payment. min(EUR 6,000.00 paid, EUR 1,520.00 annual cap) = EUR 1,520.00

Step 8 -- Apply the regime rate. EUR 1,520.00 x 40% = EUR 608.00 a year

Step 9 -- Combined annual value. EUR 24,000.00 + EUR 608.00 = EUR 24,608.00

Step 7 is where most of the disappointment lives. The household pays EUR 6,000 a year on the loan and only a quarter of that counts, so the benefit is effectively fixed at EUR 608 regardless of how large the mortgage is. It is also the only figure here that will disappear: the pension is an accrued right, while the woonbonus ends with the loan and cannot be replaced, because a new loan in Flanders gets no benefit at all.

• Real career salary progression. This calculator applies one flat average salary across every career year for simplicity. Belgium's official calculation instead revalues each individual year's actual salary using officially published annual revaluation coefficients -- your real result will differ, likely significantly, if your salary changed a lot over your career.
• The exact current salary ceiling ("plafond salarial"). The last figure independently confirmed for this module is €67,266.74 (year 2024); the precise 2026 indexed figure could not be confirmed this session and is not guessed at -- check mypension.be (myPension, the official portal) for your exact current ceiling.
• Mixed employment types. Self-employed years, public-sector statutory years, and periods with equated benefits (unemployment, illness, career break) all follow different rules than straightforward private-sector salaried years, which is all this calculator models.
• Precise historical bonus logement caps by exact vintage year. The regime rates and caps used here (e.g., a representative €1,520 basic cap) are illustrative of the general regime shape for each vintage band, not a year-by-year indexed table -- the exact amount for your specific loan's exact contract year may differ. Wallonia's Chèque Habitat (2015-2024 loans) is modeled as a direct capped credit; it also includes a roughly €125-per-dependent-child supplement not modeled here.
• The 2027-2031 pension and tax reforms already in progress, including changes to the minimum pension conditions and other measures in the July 2026 tax reform law, which may affect these figures for future assessment years.

• Assuming "bonus logement" and "chèque habitat" are the same thing. They're related concepts (both are the regional replacement for the old federal mortgage tax deduction) but structured differently -- Wallonia's Chèque Habitat is a direct capped tax credit, not a percentage-of-payment rate like Brussels' or Flanders' bonus logement.
• Believing bonus logement is gone everywhere. It is abolished for NEW loans in all three regions as of 2025, but loans predating each region's specific cutoff date keep the benefit for their full remaining term -- check your own loan's actual signing date, not today's date.
• Forgetting the minimum guaranteed pension requires a genuinely full career. A 40 or 42-year career, however low the calculated result, does not qualify for the floor -- only a full 45 years does.
• Using gross salary before social security instead of a career-average figure. This calculator wants your revalued average across your whole working life, not a single current-year gross salary.
• Ignoring that pension figures shown here are annual/monthly amounts BEFORE the standard deductions retirees face (health insurance contribution, solidarity contribution, professional withholding tax) -- your actual net pension payment will be somewhat lower.

• Belgian Federal Public Service Finance, the official authority for the national tax authority this calculator relates to. finance.belgium.be

Also consulted: Wikifin.be (the FSMA's official financial-education site): legal pension formula (revalued salary ÷ 45 × 60%/75%, summed per career year) and the per-region bonus logement abolition timeline and rates; INASTI/RSVZ (official self-employed social security institute, which republishes general-scheme figures): minimum guaranteed monthly pension for a full career, effective 1 March 2026 (EUR 2,305.44 household rate, EUR 1,844.93 isolated rate); Claeys & Engels (Belgian employment-law firm): historical annual salary ceiling figures used in the legal pension calculation (EUR 67,266.74 confirmed for 2024; the precise 2026 figure could not be independently confirmed this session -- flagged explicitly above and in the calculator's help text).