Tax-Loss Harvesting in Belgium After 2026 CGT

📅 Last updated: 8 May 2026
 ·  🏷 Topic: Tax-loss harvesting, capital gains tax
 ·  🇧🇪 For: Belgian investors

Tax-loss harvesting = selling positions at a loss in order to use the tax losses against future capital gains. A popular strategy in the US — does it also work in Belgium since the new 2026 capital gains tax?

How it works (in countries with traditional CGT)

In e.g. the US:
1. Buy Apple shares for €10,000.
2. Apple drops to €7,000.
3. Sell → €3,000 tax loss registered.
4. This loss can be offset against future share-based capital gains.
5. Immediately (or after 31 days due to the “wash sale rule”) you buy back a comparable product.

In Belgium — does this work?

Since 1 January 2026 there is the new 10% capital gains tax. The Belgian regime does allow loss-offsetting within the same tax year, but no carry-forward of losses to subsequent years.

Practical implication:

• Losses within the same calendar year can be offset against capital gains in that year (FPS Finance official examples confirm this).
• Losses CANNOT be carried forward to future years — that is, however, the case in e.g. France or the US.
• The annual €10,000 exemption applies to net capital gains (after loss-offsetting within the same year).
• Carry-forward of unused exemption is possible: €1,000/year over 5 years can be saved up, with a total cumulative exemption that can rise to €15,000 (€10,000 base + max €5,000 carry-over). That is on unused exemption, not on losses incurred.

⚠️ The withholding does not happen automatically with loss-offsetting. With Belgian broker withholding (from 1 June 2026), 10% is withheld on the gross gain of every sale, without the €10,000 annual exemption being applied at source. Anyone who wants to offset losses or claim the exemption must do so themselves via the personal income tax return with the relevant codes.

What DOES work: managing year boundaries

What you CAN do in Belgium:

1. Realising losses in years with capital gains: in a year where your net capital gains exceed €10,000, selling a loss-making position can lower your net capital gain.

Example: you realise €15,000 profit on one position + €4,000 loss on another position = net €11,000 > €10,000 exemption = tax on €1,000 = €100.

Without loss-realisation: tax on €5,000 (the amount above the exemption) = €500.

Difference: €400 less tax by tactically realising losses within the same year.

2. Not across year boundaries: losses cannot be carried forward to the next year in Belgium (in contrast to e.g. France or the US).

Wash sale rule in Belgium?

In the US: you cannot buy back a “substantially identical” position within 61 days (30 days before + 30 days after the sale), otherwise the loss is not recognised. In Belgium there is no formal wash sale rule in statute. However, repeated buy/sell purely for tax gain risks being recharacterised as speculation (taxed at 33% as miscellaneous income) under the general anti-abuse doctrine — there is no bright-line frequency test, so the safe practice is to switch into a non-identical comparable product.

⚠️ Too-frequent loss-realisation may attract the tax authority’s interest as “outside normal asset management”. Belgian tax law gives no specific number of transactions as a threshold — speculation is assessed on the facts based on frequency, scale, leverage and use of professional tools. When in doubt: ask a tax advisor.

When is it worthwhile in Belgium?

Worthwhile:
– ✅ You have net capital gains above €10,000 in a year.
– ✅ You simultaneously have unused losses.
– ✅ You keep it within normal asset management (1-3 transactions).

Not worthwhile:
– ❌ You have no capital gains to offset against.
– ❌ You expect a price rise — selling in order to buy back costs TOB and possibly higher capital gains tax later.

Conclusion

In Belgium, tax-loss harvesting is of limited use — only within a single year, not across years. For most retail investors with a buy-and-hold strategy and occasional sales: an irrelevant optimisation.

For those realising above the €10k exemption: it can save hundreds to thousands of euros. Run the numbers with your accountant.

🔗 See Belgian investment taxes(NL) for the full capital gains tax context.

Sources

1. PwC Belgium — Capital gains tax 2026
2. EY Belgium — New CGT 2026

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