Dear colleagues,
2021 has presented itself quite turbulently when it comes to the Covid-19 pandemic. Even though the numbers in Belgium have been evolving in the right way recently, our neighbouring countries still see high numbers of contaminations. In an effort to prevent a third wave, the Belgian government has tightened up the rules for travelling to and from Belgium and this until at least January 15th. During the past few days, critical details regarding travelling have been changing regularly.
Measures remaining unchanged
For foreign subcontractors, the rules for returning to Belgium remained fairly unchanged since the Christmas holidays, but some extra measures have been announced. All requirements can be found in the Subcontractor Management protocol on our Covid-19 Toolkit.
For Belgian residents returning from holiday or a stay abroad lasting more than 48 hours, the requirements are clear as well. They can be found in the Travel Management protocol on our Covid-19 Toolkit.
Measures under discussion
For business travel and frontier workers, the rules have been changing during the past few days. The government has introduced the Business Travel Abroad form, which could allow you to travel for periods longer than 48 hours abroad without any testing or quarantine measures. This has also been included in the current version of our Travel Management protocol. However, since yesterday this form has been taken offline without further communication. Since we have no clear view on when it will be online again and under which conditions it can be used, we decided to publish what was issued by the government until now. If you can ensure that your stay abroad or in Belgium (for frontier workers working abroad) lasts less than 48 hours, please do so because in this case it is not required to complete a PLF.
What’s next?
We will keep monitoring the decisions of the authorities closely. As soon as we have a clear view on what the requirements will be regarding frontier workers and business travel, we will inform you and also organise an online Q&A session.