Social internet tariff in Belgium: do you qualify?

Yes, provided you fall into one of the six categories set out in Belgian law: integration income, aged 65 or over under an income ceiling, a recognised disability of at least 65 %, profound hearing loss, laryngectomy, or war blindness. The right is never granted automatically, and only three operators offer it. Amounts, conditions and how to apply, collected on 30 August 2026.

Do I qualify for the social internet tariff in Belgium?

You qualify if you belong to a specific category, not simply because your income is low. That distinction explains most refusals.

Since 1 March 2024 the scheme has been called the social internet offer. It no longer reduces your bill: it caps the price of your fixed internet subscription at €19/month, or €40/month with television. The conditions sit in article 22/2 of annex 1 to the law of 13 June 2005 on electronic communications, and the FPS Economy, the federal public service for the economy, verifies the right against your national register number. A practical limit comes on top: one contract per household and per address, in Belgium, excluding business customers and communal living.

Who can get the social internet offer, category by category?

Six situations open the right, and a seventh, very common one does not.

Where it applies, the income ceiling follows the increased reimbursement scale of INAMI, the national health and disability insurance institute: on the order of €28,100 gross a year per household as at 1 March 2026, raised by roughly €5,200 per additional person, with a revision on 1 September. These amounts move twice a year.

Does BIM status grant the social internet offer?

No. VOO puts it unambiguously on its dedicated page, and this is the most frequent source of confusion in Belgium.

The misunderstanding comes from the income ceiling, borrowed from the increased reimbursement scale. Borrowing a threshold is not granting a right: the ceiling only comes into play once you already fall into one of the six statutory categories. Someone with BIM status who is neither 65, nor on the integration income, nor recognised as disabled therefore stays outside the scheme.

€19 a month: the real package, operator by operator

Same price, same legal framework, very different packages. The law sets a floor, not a ceiling on generosity, and the three operators have positioned themselves far apart.

Collected on 30 August 2026 from the three operators' official pages.

The table reads in a second. For the same regulated price, VOO gives more than triple the volume of Proximus, and Telenet more than triple the speed. The legal minimum comes down to three figures: 30 Mbps, 4 Mbps, 150 GB. Proximus meets it exactly. Note finally that Proximus and VOO still quote €19 and €40, whereas the regulatory ceiling communicated by the FPS Economy has since been indexed to €20 and €41.

Which operator offers the social internet tariff near you?

Proximus, Telenet and VOO, and nobody else. Those three run their own fixed network and are therefore legally required to sell the offer; no other operator has volunteered so far.

The consequence is regional, even though the right itself is strictly federal. Only the network available at the address varies. In Wallonia the choice lies between Proximus and VOO, so the 500 GB version is available there. In Flanders it lies between Proximus and Telenet, with the latter's 100 Mbps. In Brussels the three networks cross street by street, and it is the only region where all three packages coexist. Two households with identical rights therefore do not get the same connection depending on their postcode; our guide on checking availability at your address explains how to find out which network serves your street.

How do you apply for the social internet tariff?

In three steps, in this order, without skipping one.

1. Check your eligibility using the FPS Economy online tool, with your electronic identity card or itsme. The result is indicative and grants no right, but it saves a pointless trip.
2. Approach Proximus, Telenet or VOO. At Proximus, signing up must go through a store; at VOO, store, customer service and an online form coexist.
3. Answer within seven days. The operator queries the FPS Economy; if the answer is favourable, you have seven calendar days to accept. After that, everything starts again.

That seven-day window is the silliest trap in the scheme. Write it down the day you apply.

I had the old social telephone tariff: will I lose it?

Not as long as nothing moves. The old scheme, a discount of roughly €11.50 on the bill, survives for those who held it before 1 March 2024, and the Telecommunications Ombudsman Service confirms that no automatic switch is planned.

Six situations bring it down, and the loss is permanent:

• a change of address, so any house move;
• a change of telecom operator;
• a change of contract or tariff plan with your current operator;
• the disappearance of the eligibility conditions for the old tariff;
• someone already holding the social internet offer joining your household;
• the death of the person who signed the contract.

Once lost, the old tariff cannot be reapplied for. The social internet offer stays open, but the conditions of the two schemes do not overlap: having qualified yesterday guarantees nothing today.

What happens if you no longer meet the conditions?

The FPS Economy reviews your file every six months and writes to you if the right lapses. You then have three months to pick another tariff plan or cancel; at VOO that grace period runs at the unchanged social rate. If you do nothing, the operator moves you onto a commercial plan at a price that is no longer capped, exactly as described in our analysis of the fibre price after the promo.

€19 a month: is it really a good deal?

Almost always, but not for everyone. On price alone, no Belgian commercial plan comes down to that level for a fixed connection.

The weak point lies elsewhere: 150 GB a month, at Proximus and Telenet, goes fast. An evening of high-definition streaming swallows several gigabytes, and the television app included in the €40 package draws on the same counter. A household with teenagers will hit the cap before month end.

The most telling figure in the scheme is not a price at all. One year after launch the FPS Economy counted 20,722 signed contracts against a target audience estimated at half a million people, while 52,000 citizens had used the eligibility tool and nearly 23,000 of them had been told they qualified. Between those informed and the contracts actually signed, the gap is modest; between the target audience and real take-up, it is vertiginous. The scheme's problem is not its generosity, it is its visibility.

Nobody will come and offer you this tariff. An eligible household that never applies will pay full price for years without ever knowing it had a right to something else. For the rest of the market, our ranking of the best fibre internet plans in Belgium and our comparison between bundle and internet only give the current price benchmarks.