Capital gains tax: how will it affect your portfolio?

Investors will soon be required to pay up to 10% over their profits. Discover the impact and how to prepare.

3 July 2025 update

1. What is capital gains tax?

Capital gains tax is a new 10% tax on profits made by private individuals on the sale of investments. The government wants to avoid this affecting small investors and have therefore set an exemption of €10,000 per year. Provided your annual profit does not exceed €10,000, you will not be required to pay this tax. The €10,000 exemption will be indexed each year. Many investors invest for the longer term and hold their investments for several years. Those who do not use the exemption can build up an additional €1,000 exemption each year for five years. This means that f you only make a capital gain every five years, the exemption will increase to €15,000 (€30,000 for couples).

For shareholders with a high stake in a company (at least 20%), the following rates apply:

• Capital gains up to €1,000,000: exemption per five-year period and per person. In other words, €1 million cannot be exempted each year, and each shareholder must reach 20% themselves in order to benefit from the exemption. Family members are therefore not allowed to 'pool' their shares to reach 20%.
• Between €1,000,000 and €2,500,000: 1.25%
• Between €2,500,000 and €5,000,000: 2.5%
• Between €5,000,000 and €10,000,000: 5%
• Above €10,000,000: 10%

Speculative trading and day trading non-professionally are already subject to a 33% capital gains tax.

The tax applies to natural persons (private individuals) and shareholders of all companies, and therefore not to companies themselves.

2. What if you only sell your shares after 10 years?

For a long time, there was uncertainty about a possible exemption for investments held for more than 10 years. This exemption will not be introduced.

Long-term and "hammock" (passive) investors have investment horizons of 10 or 20 years or more, and do not wish to sell prematurely. But the day they do sell their investments with a profit of more than €10,000, they will be taxed on it. The government has partially addressed this problem by introducing a system of transferable exemptions (an additional €1,000 for five years).

3. When will this tax go into effect?

The federal ministers reached an agreement on the details at the end of June. The law is likely to be passed in 2025, with the aim of generating revenue from 2026 onwards. Several practical issues are still unclear at the moment. For example, it is not yet clear whether banks will withhold the capital gains tax for you or not, in which case investors trading with multiple brokers and bank accounts might need to declare the tax themselves.

4. Which assets are subject to capital gains tax?

The tax is expected to apply to:

• Shares
• Bonds
• Investment funds and trackers
• Investment insurance (branch 23)
• Cryptocurrencies

It is still unclear whether physical gold, options, more speculative instruments such as warrants and turbos, and so on fall under the measure.

However, what is certain is that the capital gains from group insurance, pension savings insurance, pension savings funds and long-term savings will be exempt.

Investments that are eligible for a tax reduction under the tax shelter for start-ups or scale-ups will also be exempt. Under this system, a private individual can invest up to €100,000 per year in a start-up or scale-up company and receive a tax reduction of up to 45% on the amount invested.

5. Are unrealised capital gains taxable?

No, only capital gains realised on disposal will be subject to taxation. This means you won’t have to pay as long as you hold onto your investments. That’s the current plan, anyway.

6. What about staggered purchases?

If you bought the same stock at different times, the FIFO method (first in, first out) is applied when selling. This means the price of the shares purchased first is used first when calculating the sale.

7. Are previous capital gains taxable?

No. The capital gains will be calculated based on the situation as at 31 December 2025, when a snapshot of each investment portfolio will be taken, as it were. If the actual purchase price was higher, then that purchase price may be used.

8. Can losses be deducted?

Yes, but only within the same calendar year in which you make a profit of more than €10,000 on the sale of your investments. This means that losses within one year can be used to offset profits, but that the losses cannot be carried over to later tax years, unless the system of transferable exemptions is used (annually an additional €1,000 exemption for five years).

9. Can costs be deducted?

Any potential capital losses may be deducted within the same year and within the same category of financial assets. As far as is known, losses cannot be carried forward to future years.

10. What about the Reynders tax?

The Reynders tax is a 30% tax on the capital gains of certain investment funds or ETFs that invest (partly) in bonds. The Reynders tax continues to exist, but is only applied to the interest portion. Profits that are not yet subject to the Reynders tax will now be eligible for capital gains tax.

11. What about foreign currency investments?

If, for example, you invest in US shares in USD and realise a capital gain that exceeds the exempted limit, but ultimately ends up below it upon conversion to EUR due to an unfavourable exchange rate, it is unclear how this should be calculated. The question is whether the ‘official’ capital gain in EUR should be based on the rate at the time of purchase and sale, or on the basis of your actual received cash flow after conversion.

Furthermore, which exchange rate applies in case of multiple purchases made at different times? Will the calculations use a weighted average or look at the specific rates for each transaction? What about a dollar position you have had for some time, which has meanwhile changed banks or brokers?

As with the other issues, the final legislative texts will reflect the legislator’s decisions on these points.

12. Could the tax rate increase in future?

Although there was no general Belgian capital gains tax before this, investors fear the rate may go up further in future. This is what happened to the withholding tax, which increased from 15% to 30% over the years. Whether the capital gains tax will go up in future is unknown, but history suggests such a course cannot be ruled out.

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