Expat life in Ghent?

4POSTS

13 years ago

Hi,

Soon, I will have the opportunity to move to Ghent with my employer. I'm British and currently live in Eindhoven, in the Netherlands. I'm trying to find out what life is like for an expat living in Ghent, but I can't find much information online. Can anyone say anything about the expat community in Ghent, and any meet ups, activities, etc that take place?
Eindhoven has a large and well organised expat community - see e.g.聽 meetup.thehubeindhoven.nl/. It's a very easy place to make friends and build a good social life. The lack of something similar in Ghent would be a major deterrent to making the move.

On another topic, is anything similar to the Dutch tax "30% rule" in Belgium? (I would be on a local Belgian contract). Without it, I may be looking at a substantial pay cut...

Many thanks, and perhaps meet some of you in Ghent one day.

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hannahhadman Serial expat

951POSTS

13 years ago

Hello cant help you with the tax. However I actually organise some of the Ghent expat events as well as ending up being the resident expat babysitter of ghent. Its such a lovely place and there is quite a few expats around ghent. I havent done many latey with moving but i was doing one drink meet up a month but the fb group is very active Sadly not a very good international school.

However is probably no were near as big than in the Sunderland but your also very close to the Nederlands to. So thats a bonus

schoolmum Serial expat

726POSTS

13 years ago

Belgian salaries as a general rule are quoted GROSS and MONTHLY, after a year of working, you'd get a 13th MONTH before Christmas and almost a 14th MONTH in the Summer.

Belgian salaries as a general rule come with a few tax avoidance perks / incentives eg free company car, free or very cheap public transport, lunch cheques (generally worth 7 euro each of every day of work, for which you pay something like聽 a euro and pay no tax on), eco vouchers, sports vouchers. You'd have to ask what perks you'd get and try and put a monetary value on them.

A "witholding tax" will be taken from your gross salary and social security, then you'll have communal taxes to聽 pay too. Each year you'll do a tax return, hopefully you'll have some costs to off-set and get a tax refund. It depends on personal cicumstances what you can offset, if renting, you can offset things like central heating servincing, some insurances, if cycling a bit of refund, for people who own houses, tax relief on mortgages and renovations, for those with children under 12, tax relief on childcare. Hard to know how much you can get back, some employers have a free tax advice service and and tax consultant could help you find things to offset and eventually you'd get hopefully a refund of some of the tax paid.

You need to look online for a salary calculator, to get examples of GROSS to NET monthly salary. Here is one, though I don't know how well it works.

anony_mouse New member

4POSTS

13 years ago

Thanks both for your help. I'll check out the Facebook group - it's this one? facebook.com/groups/10386390365
Regarding tax - that's useful information.I think the cost of living is a bit cheaper. The houses I saw on a property website do look nice and the beer must be better than here in Eindhoven. :-)