Belgium - Survivors’ benefits

This chapter tells you what you need to know in order to claim survivors’ benefits in Belgium.

If you have worked and paid social insurance contributions in another European Union country, your period of work and the contributions you have paid can be taken into account as part of the benefit calculation.

In what situation can I claim?

In the event of death, the survivor's pension enables the surviving spouse to obtain a pension calculated on the employment or self-employment career of his/her deceased spouse. Originally, the survivor's pension was reserved for widows but since 1984 it has also applied to widowers.

What conditions do I need to meet?

In order to benefit from a survivor's pension you must:

have reached the age of 49 years (if death in 2023);
have been married to the worker for at least a year at the time of the death (or in a situation considered as similar);
be an unremarried widow or widower. If remarried, the survivor’s pension is suspended;
not have been recognized as unworthy of inheriting because of offences committed against your spouse.

Situations considered as similar to a year of marriage:

the marriage was directly preceded by a period of legal cohabitation and the total of these periods (cohabitation + marriage) is at least 1 year;
a child was born from your marriage or your child was born within three hundred days of the death of your spouse;
at the time of death, a child was a dependant for whom you or your spouse were receiving family benefits;
the death was due to an accident subsequent to the date of the marriage;
the death was due to an occupational disease contracted in the exercise or on the occasion of the exercise of the profession: the origin or the exacerbation of this disease, however, must be later than the date of your marriage;
the death was due to an occupational disease contracted in the course of an assignment from the Belgian government or in the context of Belgian technical assistance: the origin or the exacerbation of this disease, however, must be later than the date of your marriage.

A surviving spouse who does not fulfil the age condition but fulfils the other conditions to be eligible to the survivor’s pension is entitled to a transitional allowance for:

Duration of the transitional allowance	Family situation
18 months	If no dependent children
36 months	If dependent children aged 13 or more exclusively, or
48 months	If at least one dependent child under 13 (*) If at least one dependent child with disability, or If one child is born within 300 days from the death.

(*) Children reaching the age of 13 during the calendar year of death are considered as being 13 years of age for the full year. There is no ceiling to the combination of the transitional allowance with social benefits and professional income.

More information on the SFP website: http://www.sfpd.fgov.be/fr.

What am I entitled to and how can I claim?

Generally, it is necessary to apply for a survivor's pension. However there are instances where the assessment is carried out automatically, without prior request.

You can apply for your survivor's pension via this website: http://www.mypension.be.

Amount

For the employees’ scheme, the parameters used to calculate the amount of the survivor's pension vary depending on whether your spouse was a pensioner or not.

If our spouse was receiving a pension (calculated at the household rate or at the single rate). The amount of the survivor's pension amounts to 80% of the pension calculated at the household rate of the deceased spouse (which corresponds to a pension at the single rate);
If your spouse was not yet in receipt of a pension. The survivor's pension is then 80% of the projected retirement pension which would have been awarded to the spouse. However, certain special rules are aimed at reducing the inequalities.

The calculation of your transitional allowance is always the same: it follows the rules applied to the calculation of the survivor’s pension when the deceased spouse was not yet retired.

More information available on the SPF website: http://www.sfpd.fgov.be/fr or on https://www.socialsecurity.be.

For the self-employed workers’ scheme, the pension calculation varies depending on the fact that your deceased spouse had reached the pension age and/or was receiving or not a retirement pension when he/she died.

The pension amount is determined among other factors by:

the duration of the professional career of the deceased spouse;
the importance of the employment earnings received for each valid year of the professional career of your deceased spouse.

If the conditions for creating a right to the minimum pension are fulfilled, the amount of your survivor’s pension is also calculated on the basis of the flat-rate minimum pension and the duration of the career of your deceased spouse.

Only the highest pension amount (according to employment earnings or according to the minimum pension) is granted.

In case a personal pension (retirement and/or survivor’s) is received, the amount of the survivor’s pension may be limited.

If only the age condition is not fulfilled, you will be entitled to a transitional allowance.

More information available on the INASTI website.

For the civil servants’ scheme, the calculation of the survivor’s pension amount depends on the relation with the deceased civil servant (spouse or ex-spouse). Survivor’s pensions for orphans are also provided.

The amount of the survivor’s pension received as spouse is calculated as follows: 60% of the reference salary multiplied by the ratio between, on the one hand, the eligible periods and services expressed in terms of months, identical to those who would be taken into consideration for a retirement pension starting on the same date and, on the other hand, the number of months between the 20^th birthday and the death, with a maximum of 480 months. This ratio can never be higher than 1. The reference salary corresponds to the average salary of the last 10 years in the career of the deceased civil servant.

When a spouse and an ex-spouse are taken into consideration for a survivor’s pension when the death occurs, the survivor’s pension of the spouse is shared between the spouse and the ex-spouse. The share paid to the ex-spouse is calculated on the basis of the number of career years coinciding with the marriage. When the survivor’s pension is shared, the surviving spouse always receives at least half of the survivor’s pension amount. Possible orphans may be entitled to a part of the pension.

The transitional allowance is calculated in the same way as the survivor’s pension for the spouse. It is granted in its entirety to the surviving spouse. There is no sharing with orphans or ex-spouses from another marriage.

Survivor’s pensions and transitional allowances are capped by ceilings.

More information available on the SPF website: http://www.sfpd.fgov.be/fr et sur https://www.socialsecurity.be.

Jargon busters

SFP: Federal Pensions Service. Public social security institution responsible for administering old-age and survivor's pensions for employees and of civil servants: http://www.sfpd.fgov.be/fr.
INASTI: National Insurance Institute for the Self-employed (Institut national d'assurances sociales pour travailleurs indépendants). A public social security institution, INASTI administers pensions for self-employed workers. http://www.nisse.be/en?_ga=2.158811133.65664522.1497365541-1987368120.1497365541

Know your rights

The links below allow you to find out more about your rights. These sites are not dependent upon the European Commission and so do not represent the viewpoints of the latter;