Your employer clients will have to offer a mobility budget. The largest have until 31 December 2026, the others a year longer. Most of them do not know yet, and when they find out, they will come to you.
This article does not repeat the regulatory detail: that sits in our reference article on the mandatory mobility budget. What follows is what you, as an accountant, payroll agency or adviser, can concretely do for your clients in the months ahead.
What changes for your clients, in three lines
The law will require employers who have been providing company cars for more than 36 months to also offer the mobility budget as an alternative.
- 50 employees and more: by 31 December 2026 at the latest
- 15 to 49 employees: by 31 December 2027 at the latest
- Fewer than 15 employees: permanently exempt
The amount still rests on the total cost of ownership (TCO) of the vehicle the employee would have been entitled to. The employee then splits that budget across an electric car, sustainable mobility solutions, and the balance in cash, subject to a special employee contribution of 38.07%.
On the 36-month period. The preliminary bill ties the obligation to 36 months of company cars being made available, but removing that period is among the points still open. Advise your clients not to build their planning on it: a client who started their fleet recently may fall under the obligation earlier than expected. The conditions are set out in full in the reference article.
The three questions to ask a client to know whether they are affected
Three questions are enough to qualify a case, in this order.
- What is the total headcount? Not the number of cars, nor the number of people entitled to one: the entire workforce. That figure sets the deadline.
- Are there company cars? No company cars, no obligation. This is the fastest filter for clearing part of your portfolio.
- For how long? The threshold is 36 months, and that period may have been interrupted. A client who started their fleet two years ago is not affected today — but will be, and that is precisely the client to warn early.
What has to be ready, and in which order
The order matters: each step produces the material for the next. Starting with communication before the budgets have been calculated is the surest way to have to redo everything.
- The car policy. It is the calculation basis for everything else: who is entitled to which vehicle, under what conditions. A client whose car policy is vague or unwritten cannot move forward. See our article on the car policy as the foundation of the mobility budget.
- The TCO calculation. Per vehicle and per beneficiary, not an average. This is the longest and most underestimated step.
- The choice of pillars. Pillar 2 is mandatory to offer, pillar 1 remains the employer’s choice, pillar 3 applies automatically to the balance. The client has to decide whether to open pillar 1.
- The legal framework. A written mobility budget policy, aligned with the existing car policy: access conditions, when a request can be made, terms for returning to a company car.
- Payroll alignment. Treatment of pillar 2, exempt from withholding tax (bedrijfsvoorheffing / précompte professionnel) and from RSZ/ONSS contributions, and withholding of the special contribution on pillar 3.
- Internal communication. Last, once the answers exist.
Steps 2 and 3 are where a tool changes things: recalculating each TCO and tracking individual budgets over time becomes unmanageable in a spreadsheet beyond a few dozen cars.
The two questions your clients will ask first
They always come in this order, before the question of timing.
“Is this going to cost me more?”
No, in the vast majority of cases. The budget is calculated on the TCO of a car the employer is already financing: leasing, fuel, insurance, maintenance, taxes. An employee who switches does not add a line to the payroll, they redirect the one that already exists. What changes is the allocation, not the amount.
The real costs sit elsewhere, and they are one-off project costs: implementation time, legal support, the management tool.
“Do I have to get rid of company cars?”
No. The obligation lies with the employer, who must offer the choice — not with the employee, who remains free to keep their car. A client can comply fully without a single employee changing anything. That is often the answer that unblocks the conversation.
Managing several clients in parallel
A single case can be steered by hand. A portfolio cannot: each client has their own car policy, their own deadlines, their own TCOs, their own individual budgets to track month after month.
That is the problem RewardPilot solves, by centralising the steering and administration of plans on behalf of your clients in a single interface.
