Belgium restores police pay perks for external recruits

King Philippe has signed a royal decree restoring the allowances and indemnities that police personnel lost when they re-entered the integrated police through external recruitment. The decree of 5 August 2026, published in the Moniteur Belge of 19 August 2026 (p. 45362), amends the pecuniary legal position of police services personnel subject to external recruitment, and was proposed by the Minister of the Interior and the Minister of Justice.

The text modifies the RPPol (the royal decree of 30 March 2001 on the legal position of police personnel) and related instruments covering the administrative and technical secretariats, the general inspection of the federal and local police, and the management-support services of the federal police. It follows negotiation protocol 598/2 of 16 October 2024 and the opinion 79.295/2 of the Council of State of 8 June 2026.

Who benefits

The restored entitlements apply to members of the integrated police who were already in service and, without interruption, immediately took up a new post within the integrated police through external recruitment. The reference date for entitlement is 1 November 2022.

• Personnel who lost a monthly flat-rate allowance or indemnity can recover it if, within one year of their nomination, they are again assigned to a post that opens the right to it.
• Officers who lost a flat-rate function allowance, a trainer’s allowance, or the flat-rate indemnity for real investigation costs are covered by the same one-year rule.
• Staff who already receive a bilingualism allowance and are promoted to a higher cadre or level keep it during their basic training and after nomination.
• Officers re-entering the integrated police in the Brussels-Capital Region retain their allowance, and basic training in a police school in the region is not treated as an interruption.

Scope and entry into force

Articles 3, 4 and 5 of the decree apply only to personnel who entered service after 31 December 2022, or who, after that date, re-entered via external recruitment, whether immediately and without interruption or not. The decree enters into force on the first day of the month following the expiry of a ten-day period counted from the day after its publication in the Moniteur Belge.

The measure is a corrective one: it reverses the loss of pay entitlements that external recruitment had triggered for serving police staff, restoring them from the entry into force of the decree where the one-year re-assignment condition is met.

Why it matters

For the thousands of federal and local police officers who left and rejoined the integrated police through external recruitment, the decree removes a financial penalty that had discouraged mobility between the two levels of the force. By anchoring the reference date at 1 November 2022 and allowing recovery within a year of nomination, it gives serving officers a clear and predictable path to keep their allowances, supporting recruitment and retention across Belgium’s integrated police.

Source: Moniteur Belge / Belgisch Staatsblad, No. 185 of 19 August 2026, p. 45362 (official reference: C-2026/005187).