Belgian stock exchange tax (TOB): filing it yourself

Yes, as soon as your broker is based abroad and does not withhold it. The TOB (taxe sur les opérations de bourse), Belgium's tax on stock exchange transactions, is still due, and you are the one who files it on MyMinfin, the tax administration's online portal, and pays it by the last working day of the second month after the order. The amounts are small. The fines are not.

Do you have to file the Belgian stock exchange tax yourself?

Only if nobody does it for you. The TOB applies to every purchase and every sale of existing securities by a Belgian resident. Circular 2026/C/42 of 18 March 2026, published by FPS Finance (the federal tax administration, which has a page on this tax in its section on foreign accounts), sets out the rule: a professional intermediary in Belgium withholds it, and when the intermediary is based outside Belgium, the person placing the order becomes liable, unless they can prove the tax has already been paid.

That circular replaces the 2018 FAQ and leaves the principle untouched. A foreign broker may appoint a responsible representative in Belgium to handle the tax, and several have done so.

If you moved here from France, forget what you know: the French financial transaction tax only hits a list of large companies. Here, an ETF bought for 50 euros is taxed.

What are the TOB rates and caps?

Three rates, each with its own cap per transaction.

Rates and caps: FPS Finance circular 2026/C/42 and Wikifin, the financial education site of the FSMA (Belgium's financial markets regulator), consulted on 2 October 2026. ETF breakdown: Curvo guide updated on 11 August 2026. The last column is my own calculation.

The third row is the one that surprises people. Two very similar global ETFs can pay 0.12% for one and 1.32% for the other, simply because the second is registered with the FSMA for public sale in Belgium. Curvo cites the iShares Core MSCI World in the first case and the accumulating Vanguard FTSE All-World in the second. On a 1,000-euro order, that is 1.20 euros against 13.20 euros.

Which broker withholds the TOB, and which leaves it to you?

The country of the head office does not answer the question: DEGIRO is Dutch and withholds the tax, Revolut has a branch in Brussels and does not withhold it on securities.

Sources: Curvo, 7 July 2026; Test-Achats, 22 December 2022, 15 and 29 September 2026.

For Trade Republic's old German account, Curvo lists it among the brokers that take care of the tax, while Test-Achats was still writing in September that it stayed with the client until the switch to a Belgian IBAN. I will not settle that for them. The details of the switch are in our article on Trade Republic in Belgium.

How do you file the TOB on MyMinfin?

Allow a quarter of an hour the first time, five minutes after that.

1. Export the orders executed during the month from the app: date, security, direction, amount excluding fees.
2. Assign each order to one of the three rates and calculate the tax line by line, applying the cap.
3. Log in to MyMinfin with itsme (the Belgian digital identity app) or your electronic identity card and open the miscellaneous taxes section, where the stock exchange tax return sits.
4. Enter the month's totals per rate, then submit.
5. Pay by bank transfer, copying exactly the structured reference given at the end of the return.
6. Keep the acknowledgement of receipt, the proof of payment and the broker statement.

The paper route still exists, with the FPS Finance form posted to the office printed on it. The circular states that the return cannot be filed by email, and that an electronic filing must not be duplicated by post.

I kept this routine for more than two years on my Trade Republic account, opened in 2023 with a German IBAN. A calendar reminder on the 20th of each month, one export, three figures to enter. It is not complicated, it is repetitive, and the month you go on holiday is exactly the one you forget. An account of that kind also has to be reported to the National Bank of Belgium's Central Point of Contact, the register of accounts held by Belgian residents, a step described in our article on holding multiple bank accounts.

What is the deadline to file and pay?

The last working day of the second month following the month of the transaction. An order executed on 14 October is filed and paid before the end of December, an order of 3 November before the end of January. The return must be filed no later than the day of payment.

Nothing forces you to wait for the deadline.

What happens if you file late or forget?

A fine out of all proportion to the tax itself. The circular provides for a fine per week of delay, any week started counting as a full week, capped at what would be due after 52 weeks. Curvo puts it at 50 euros a week, or 2,600 euros at most per return. An incomplete or inaccurate return costs five times the evaded tax, with a minimum of 250 euros, and late payment automatically accrues interest.

Run the numbers on a plan of 250 euros a month in an ETF at 0.12%: the tax is 0.30 euros a month, 3.60 euros a year. The same savings in an ETF at 1.32% cost 39.60 euros a year. One week late on one return: 50 euros.

The mistakes app investors keep making

• Believing an automatic investment plan is not an order.
• Declaring purchases only, when a sale is taxed at the same rate.
• Applying 0.12% to every ETF without checking whether the fund is registered in Belgium.
• Including brokerage fees in the taxable base on a purchase.
• Confusing the TOB with the withholding tax on interest, covered in our article on neobank savings tax in Belgium.
• Paying without the structured reference, which leaves the transfer with no return attached to it.

In short

You only file the Belgian stock exchange tax yourself in one case: a foreign intermediary that does not withhold it, which today mostly means Interactive Brokers, Revolut and Trading 212. The process is six steps on MyMinfin and a two-month deadline. A few dozen cents of tax are no reason to avoid a cheap app, but one slip quickly costs a hundred times the tax. If regularity is not your strong suit, a broker that withholds the TOB is worth its price. For the current account that feeds those investments, our comparator lines up the neobanks available in Belgium.

This article gives general information on fees and obligations; it is neither tax advice nor investment advice.

Sources: FPS Finance, "Taxe sur les opérations de bourse" page and circular 2026/C/42 of 18 March 2026; Wikifin (FSMA), "Les taxes sur vos investissements", consulted on 2 October 2026; Curvo, guides on the TOB and how to declare it, updated on 7 July and 11 August 2026; Test-Achats, "Vos obligations fiscales auprès des courtiers étrangers", 22 December 2022, and articles of 15 and 29 September 2026 on Trade Republic.