How long does it take to get VAT back from Belgium?
The period within which the Belgian tax authority must decide on a complete VAT refund request is four months, counted from the moment the request arrives there. This is the period that Directive 2008/9 uses as a starting point for refund requests between EU countries. In practice, you will find that the clock often starts later than you think, and that the period extends as soon as questions are asked.
The four months are not a guarantee of payment within that period. It is the period for a decision: approval, rejection, or a request for additional information. As soon as the latter occurs, the clock restarts from the moment you respond, with a new period that can extend to six or eight months after the original request. That difference between 'decided' and 'paid' is precisely where many entrepreneurs are caught off guard.
Where the clock really starts running
The request you submit via the Dutch portal first goes to the Dutch tax authority, which checks whether it is formally complete before forwarding it to Belgium. Only after that forwarding does the Belgian period of four months begin. If your request is held up in the Netherlands due to missing information, that time does not count towards the four months, but it does count towards the time you experience between submission and receiving payment.
This is one of the reasons why two entrepreneurs with a request of comparable size experience quite different processing times. One has a complete file at once, the other delivers in parts or has to replace a receipt afterwards. Those who want to see exactly what a refund country considers complete will find that on the detailed page for each situation.
The three places where it gets stuck in practice
The first delay occurs with incomplete or illegible receipts. A fuel receipt where the VAT number of the supplier is not legible, or a hotel invoice without a specified VAT amount, almost always leads to a question from Belgium before anything else is looked at.
The second delay occurs when an item is assigned to the wrong expense category. Belgium checks per expense category whether the expense qualifies, and an expense item submitted under the wrong category comes back with a request for clarification instead of being directly rejected or approved.
The third delay occurs from the timing of submission itself. Those who wait until just before the deadline and then submit a whole year's worth of receipts at once risk that questions from Belgium cannot be answered in time within the window that remains open. Spreading over the year provides more room to respond to a question without pressure.
What you can do to limit delays
The most important factor within your control is the quality of the file at first submission. A request that is complete at once, without missing specifications or ambiguous expense items, has the best chance of receiving a decision within the regular four months. A request that raises questions extends the processing time by the time needed to respond plus the new assessment period that follows.
Whether your own situation relates to a longer or shorter processing time depends on how many countries, periods and expense categories you submit at once. An indication of what applies to you can be obtained with a few questions that provide an initial estimate. For questions that go beyond the processing time itself, for example about what a specific rejection means for your file, it is advisable to consult a VAT specialist; that is something different from the execution of the request itself.
What this means for when you need to submit
Because the four-month period only starts after complete receipt, and because the right to refund definitively expires on 1 October of the following year, submitting earlier is almost always more advantageous than submitting later. It provides room to answer a question from the refund country without running up against the final deadline. Read more about how this information is compiled and which sources are used on the page explaining where the data comes from.
Would you like to know how long your own request will approximately take, or where the most time can be saved in your situation? Do the free quick-scan or browse through the other topics in the knowledge base; both can be consulted without an account.