The Federal Learning Account: employers face new administrative obligations

Employers are now required to register all formal and informal training in a separate database, the Federal Learning Account (FLA).

Does your company have to use the FLA? 

As an employer, you will have to register your employees’ training rights and completed training courses in the online FLA. However, not every employer has to register the same information.

The user guide, the content-related and technical information and frequently asked questions (FAQs) can be found on the FLA website.

What training rights do you have to register?

Only individual training rights can be registered. 

An employee’s annual individual training right depends on the size of the company, the work regime and the length of employment, as well as on any sectoral agreements.

Generally speaking, the number of training days depends on the number of employees in your company:

• In principle, employees in companies with fewer than 10 employees have no training rights. For them, you only register the training courses that have been completed.
• Companies with at least 10 and fewer than 20 employees: 1 day
• Companies with at least 20 employees: 5 days

However, a different arrangement may apply to your company if it appears in a sectoral collective labour agreement concluded in a joint (sub)committee. You can check what arrangement applies to your company on FederalLearningAccount.be. It is therefore crucial to check what collective labour agreements apply to your company.

It is not possible to register collective training rights in the FLA.

Timing

Both the rights that employees possess and the training courses they have completed must be registered before 1 December 2024. 

Training courses completed from 1 January to 30 September 2024 must be recorded in the FLA by 30 November 2024 at the latest. There is a further stipulation that the employer must register, for each calendar quarter, the training courses attended during that quarter (with basic characteristics) and the number of associated training days or hours.  The training provider, or someone authorised by the employer, can also register this information. The law states that this must be done within one month after the end of the quarter.

This new legislation [1] places a heavy administrative burden on employers.

 
[1] Law of 20 October 2023 on the establishment and management of the ‘Federal Learning Account’, Belgian Official Gazette 1 December 2023.