Copyright Tax Reform: The Bill Now Before Parliament

As this blog already announced in December, the new reform of the favourable tax regime for copyright is progressing, with a bill submitted in December 2025 and distributed to the Chamber of Representatives on 13 January 2026.

Background

As I already covered in the past, the reform led to the following legal situation:

• The copyright tax regime was to apply only to income from the assignment or licensing of works covered by Book XI, Title 5, of the Code of Economic Law, which currently restricts its scope to “classic” literary works and excludes computer programs (covered under Title 6) and databases (Title 7);

• Various professions close to the IT sector remained eligible (notably level design in video game development);

• The proceeds from the assignment must be subject to effective exploitation (though this concept is not clearly defined);

• Provided that the beneficiary holds a certificate of artistic work, or alternatively;

• That, as part of the assignment or licensing, the rights holder transfers or licenses their copyright-protected work or related rights to a third party for the purpose of public communication, performance, public representation, or reproduction;

• Rights may not exceed a cap of 30% of total remuneration, including payment for services rendered. A transitional period was provided, with a cap of 50% in 2023, 40% in 2024, and 30% from 2025 onwards.

In a ruling of 16 May 2024, the Constitutional Court upheld the exclusion of the IT sector from the scope of the regime.

However, the new majority resulting from the 2024 elections decided to reverse the 2022 reform and, consequently, to reinstate IT professionals within the copyright tax regime. The bill has therefore been debated in the Chamber and aims to restore the IT sector’s eligibility with effect as of 1 January 2026.

Reforming the Reform

In practical terms, this reform will simply add Title 6 of Book XI of the Code of Economic Law to the scope of the current Article 17, §1, 5° of the CIR/92 (Income Tax Code). All other conditions remain unchanged.

In a previous post in December, I highlighted the government’s intention to abolish the flat-rate expense deduction, which would bring the tax rate on copyright income to 15%. This particular aspect of the reform has been brought to Parliament’s floor by the means of another legislation.

In Practice

The application of the new copyright regime to the IT sector remains to be precisely defined. Indeed, the conditions of Article 17, §1, 5° regarding public communication and reproduction have not been defined by the legislator.

Logically, this lack of definition should refer the reader (and thus the tax authorities) to the civil law concepts of copyright.

However, the tax administration has adopted a singular approach to copyright, including the adoption of a somewhat surprising (and extra-legal) definition of the concept of communication to the public. As a result, it has been observed that some auditors do not hesitate to add extra conditions to the law, either regarding the existence of copyright or its exploitation.

Moreover, the regime has also been marked by significant instability since 2022.

As a consequence, a cautious approach is recommended: securing the application of the new regime through (i) a meticulously prepared agreement and (ii) an advance ruling from the Ruling Service to ensure that the agreement will be interpreted in accordance with the law.