Saturday, 19 December 2020, a new Ministerial Decree introducing additional corona measures was published. Foreign employees or self-employed workers who come to work in Belgium might need to provide evidence of a negative result of a corona test.
A quick reminder of the current measures with respect to foreign workers
As you have read in our newsletter of 2 September, some companies currently have an obligation to register each employee or self-employed worker living or staying abroad whom the company engages on a temporary basis.
This registration obligation applies in specific industries only, i.e. construction, agriculture, horticulture, meat processing and cleaning. Frontier workers - i.e. workers who have their residence in another Member State to which they return on a daily or (at least) weekly basis - and individuals who do not reside in Belgium for more than 48 hours are excluded from the scope.
New measure: a negative test before the start of the work in Belgium
This Saturday, 19 December 2020, a new Ministerial Decree introducing additional corona measures in this respect was published.
Foreign employees or self-employed workers coming to work in Belgium in any of the above industries now must provide evidence of a negative corona test before starting to perform any work in Belgium. These negative test results must be kept in a special register by the company (see above).
The Ministerial Decree makes a distinction between the situation where the worker travels with a ‘carrier’ in the sense of the Decree (i.e. a public or private air carrier, a public or private maritime carrier or an inland waterway carrier) or travels to Belgium without using such a carrier.
Travelling with a carrier from a ‘red zone’
In this case the employee or self-employed worker living or residing abroad must provide evidence of a negative result of a corona test carried out within 48 hours before arrival on Belgian territory.
The company that makes temporary use of these workers must check - before the start of the work - whether such a negative test result can be presented.
Travelling without a carrier
Workers who have not travelled with a ‘carrier’ in the sense of this Decree must in any case provide evidence of a negative result of a corona test carried out within 48 hours before starting to perform any work on Belgian territory.
In the absence of a negative result, the company cannot call on the services of the worker in question to work in Belgium and the worker must place himself/herself in quarantine until a negative result can be produced.
If you would have any questions with regard to the above, or about COVID-19 measures in general, do not hesitate to contact us.
