The Flemish Chain Liability Grace Period Is Over: What Changes

The transition window has closed. On 1 July 2026, the Flemish grace period for the strengthened chain liability rules ended. Companies can now face sanctions if an inspection finds illegal employment and the applicable due-diligence conditions were not met.

This is not simply a deadline for updating a contract template. The practical question is whether your organisation can show, person by person and contractor by contractor, what it checked, when it checked it, and what happened when evidence was missing.

In short: if covered work is performed in your contractor chain, “we trusted our subcontractor” is not an evidence file.

What changed on 1 July 2026?

The underlying rules took effect on 1 January 2026. They strengthened the position of professional principals, main contractors, and intermediate contractors when a direct contractor employs illegally residing third-country nationals—whether as workers or self-employed people.

During the first six months, the Flemish government applied a grace period. That period ended on 1 July. The official enforcement notice is direct: businesses can now be sanctioned when they do not meet the conditions. VLAIO published the same update for companies.

A signed contractor declaration is still necessary, but it is no longer enough on its own. To exclude liability, organisations also need an active due-diligence file. Skipping that file leaves you exposed if illegal employment is found.

In practice, that file means you:

• request the applicable evidence from direct contractors;
• assess whether documents are valid and not obviously falsified;
• retain the evidence for five years after the collaboration ends;
• follow up when documents are missing, invalid, or clearly falsified; and
• report unresolved cases through the official meldloket of the Vlaamse Sociale Inspectie if the contractor does not correct the file.

What are the potential sanctions?

The official Flemish notice states that sanctions can range from an administrative fine to criminal prosecution.

Serious illegal-employment offences are typically treated as level 3 or level 4 sanctions — the highest categories. Fines can be applied per infraction or per person involved, so exposure can rise with the size of the workforce (up to €35,000 as an administrative fine, or up to €70,000 as a criminal fine). In the most serious level 4 cases, PwC Legal notes that judges can also impose an operating ban or exclusion from public tenders.

Operational and commercial consequences can arrive earlier than a final penalty: delayed access, a stopped work package, an urgent audit scramble, exclusion from a customer site, and reputational damage across the supply chain.

Your sector may not be the deciding factor

The enhanced due-diligence framework targets four risk sectors in Flanders:

1. Construction
2. Cleaning
3. Meat processing
4. Parcel delivery on behalf of postal service providers

The activity in the contract chain matters. A chemical plant, hospital, logistics operator, or office owner can enter an in-scope relationship by commissioning cleaning or covered construction work.

The official framework also contains thresholds and exceptions. For example, certain smaller construction or cleaning assignments and specific parcel-delivery situations can fall outside the enhanced duty. Scope should therefore be assessed assignment by assignment, not with a single company-wide label.

What evidence should be ready for an inspection?

The required documents depend on the worker's nationality and employment situation. The official Flemish checklist sets this out by posting and employment type. In practice, the compliance file can include:

• the written declaration from the direct contractor;
• contractor identification and contact details;
• proof of legal residence;
• a valid work authorisation or professional card;
• a Limosa declaration where applicable;
• A1 or other social-security evidence where applicable; and
• the record of validation, approval, expiry, correction, and escalation.

The exact checklist is only half the job. Inspectors may need to see a defensible timeline. A folder containing the latest PDFs does not automatically show who reviewed them, whether they were valid on the day of access, or how an exception was handled.

A practical four-step response

1. Map where covered work enters your chain

Identify every construction, cleaning, meat-processing, and parcel-delivery activity in Flanders, including facilities, maintenance, shutdowns, and local purchasing. For each assignment, record the principal, direct contractor, known subcontractors, contract value, and any applicable exceptions.

2. Translate legal requirements into access rules

Define which evidence applies by contractor, worker type, nationality, role, and site, and assign who reviews it, what blocks access, and who owns an exception. “Check work authorisation” must become a named requirement with an owner, validity period, approval status, and escalation path.

3. Make follow-up provable

If evidence is absent or clearly falsified, request a correction from the direct contractor, retain that communication, and report unresolved cases through the official meldloket of the Vlaamse Sociale Inspectie. Only that report completes the due-diligence process if the contractor does not correct the file. The audit trail must show both the gap and the response.

4. Test your inspection response

On one live site, confirm you can identify every contractor and third-country national, produce the evidence valid on their start date, show who approved it, see upcoming expiries, and export the full history without searching inboxes. If that depends on one person assembling a spreadsheet, the process is not yet resilient.

Why manual compliance becomes the risk

Chain liability evidence changes over time. Residence and work documents expire. Workers move between sites. Contractors add subcontractors. A document that was valid at onboarding may no longer be valid three months later.

Email and spreadsheets struggle with that moving state:

• requirements are applied inconsistently;
• expired evidence remains in otherwise “complete” folders;
• approvals cannot be reconstructed reliably;
• site teams lack the same view as compliance teams; and
• inspection files take hours or days to assemble.

Automating this workflow does not replace legal judgement. Instead, it embeds your compliance policy directly into access control: evidence collection before arrival, role-based requirements, expiry monitoring, exception handling, access decisions, and timestamped records in one place.

Go beyond the deadline: build a resilient contractor programme

The deadline is a reason to act, but the goal should be broader than passing one inspection. A mature programme connects three layers:

1. Identity and site visibility: know who is on site.
2. Social and safety compliance: verify the right to work, social-security position, training, and competence.
3. Corporate vetting: monitor the legal, financial, and ownership risk of the companies in the chain.

What actions to take

Do not start by digitising every document you already have. Start by identifying the covered activities and the evidence needed for the people performing them.

Then run one live contractor chain through the complete workflow:

1. scope the assignment;
2. request the evidence;
3. verify and approve it;
4. resolve one exception;
5. confirm the access decision; and
6. export the audit trail.

That test will reveal more than another policy review. It shows whether your company can turn legal due diligence into a process that works at the gate, on the site, and during an unannounced inspection.

Talk to our team about making contractor due diligence operational.

Sources

• Gedoogperiode ketenaansprakelijkheid loopt af — Departement WEWIS
• Einde gedoogperiode voor ketenaansprakelijkheid — VLAIO
• Ketenaansprakelijkheid bij illegale tewerkstelling — official Flemish guidance, including the due-diligence steps, document checklist, thresholds, and meldloket
• The Contractor Compliance Imperative — 9ID × PwC Legal Belgium joint report
• Alles wat je moet weten over de nieuwe Wet Ketenaansprakelijkheid 2026

This article provides general information and does not constitute legal advice. Confirm how the Flemish rules, thresholds, exceptions, and sanctions apply to your organisation with qualified legal counsel.