VAT on events in Belgium: which rate for food and drinks?

Status on 12 November 2026: the rates on this page are the rates in force under royal decree no. 20, as amended by the decree of 14 February 2026. No new decree has been published since.

VAT on events in Belgium depends on what you sell and how you serve it. Alcohol is always 21%.

A meal with seating or table service is 12%. Takeaway food and soft drinks, and a festival ticket, are 6%.

Our advice: put the rate on the product, not on the till. Soft drinks at the bar are the classic trap.

Which VAT rate applies to what at your event?

Is food at your event a service or a supply?

Food is a restaurant service when you offer enough support to eat it on site. Without that support, it's a simple supply of food.

EU implementing regulation 282/2011 (article 6) asks for "sufficient support services". The FOD Financiën guidelines say which ones.

What counts as a service element outdoors?

Indoors, it's enough that customers use tables, standing tables or an eating counter. Outdoors, besides a table or counter, you need at least one of these:

• Seating: furniture to eat sitting down
• Cutlery or tableware: disposable counts, or a tray
• Service: at the table, or staff who clear
• Comfort: flooring, heating, shade or music

Why do food trucks at a festival get 6%?

It's an administrative tolerance from the FOD Financiën, accepted "on a trial basis". It only applies when visitors pay the truck directly and there's no indoor eating area.

A truck the organiser hires, which invoices the organiser, supplies a catering service. Food truck festivals and your own bars aren't covered.

What changed on 1 March 2026?

For food, drinks and tickets at events: nothing.

Three planned changes are off for now, VRT NWS reported on 13 February 2026:

• Takeaway meals from 6% to 12%: not for now, still 6%.
• Soft drinks in restaurants and cafés from 21% to 12%: not for now, still 21%.
• Admission to sport, leisure and part of culture from 6% to 12%: not for now, still 6%.

The other changes (lodging among them) don't affect drinks and food at events.

How much VAT is in one bar night?

Your prices include VAT. The VAT inside is the price times the rate, divided by 100 plus the rate.

Say there's a music festival with a bar with standing tables under a stretch tent, a food truck next to it that visitors pay directly, and no indoor eating area.

Put the bar's soft drinks on 6% by mistake and you'll declare €140.34 too little that night.

The burgers can go the other way: at 12%, the market rate with picnic tables, you'd declare €181.94 more than the tolerance asks.

Which rate applies to tickets, packages and drink tokens?

A ticket to a concert, festival, cultural or sports event is 6%. The planned increase isn't in the decree of 14 February 2026.

Three cases need attention:

1. Festival camping: a camping pitch went to 12% on 1 March 2026. Lokerse Feesten, for example, sells a separate camping ticket.
2. VIP and dinner packages: one price for ticket, meal and drinks gets split over the parts. Put that split in writing.
3. Drink tokens and cashless credit: VAT follows what the visitor buys with them, not the top-up.

Why does VAT follow the bar, not the top-up point?

Tokens or credit that buy products at different rates are a multi-purpose voucher. With an open, closed or hybrid cashless system, VAT comes from what's sold.

Unspent balance: no VAT is due on it, as long as the credit buys products at different rates. That's in the FOD Financiën voucher circular 2020/C/121 (point 7.2).

How do you set up VAT in your till?

In Beyond Ordering you set the price including VAT and the rate once per product, in the price list. Every sale then lands live in the cloud report, split by rate.

• One price list per sales point: the cola in a glass at the bar (21%) and the can at the exit (6%) each sit on their own list.
• One report at closing: turnover per rate, ready for your accountant.

That's how it works at KapAlpen, where the skating rink and the food trucks each have their own price list.

Sales can flow on to your accounting software, as the solution for festivals and events shows.

Beyond Ordering is officially GKS 2.0 certified. A certified till is only required above €25,000 a year excluding VAT from restaurant and catering services.

In practice: Maatwerk Festival

The event: an open-air festival with cashless cards in its own festival design, on a closed-loop system.

The challenge: crew and artists drink too, and those drinks don't belong in public turnover.

The setup: fixed terminals and mobile all-in-one terminals for bars, top-up points and food trucks. Crew and artists got a cashless card with internal credit, so paper drink tokens weren't needed.

The result: the back office set that credit apart automatically. Right after the event there was a closing report, split by type of consumption.

For VAT, that split is the starting point. Drinks the crew don't pay for can still count as own use: ask your accountant how to book that line.

Also running on Beyond Ordering: Lokerse Feesten, Couleur Café, Student Kick-off Gent and Sinksen Kortrijk.

Frequently asked questions

Set your VAT per product before the first shift

Draw your site plan and mark every sales point as served or takeaway. Then build one price list per sales point, with one rate per product.

Want to see what that report looks like for your festival? In a 30-minute demo we'll show you with real price lists. Rather ask a question first? Get in touch.