Charging your electric car with your mobility budget: how does it work?

Anyone getting a mobility budget for the first time makes almost exactly the same mistake: the car sits in pillar 1, so the electricity to charge that car must come out of pillar 2, somewhere between the train pass and the bike. It does not. And this is no accounting footnote: it directly determines how much cash you have left at the end of December. Below you will find who pays what, at home and on the road, what happens to your charging point, and the three situations that come up in practice.

Short answer: which pillar covers your charging costs?

Your charging costs come out of pillar 1, together with the car itself. Electricity, the charging card and the charging point are explicitly listed in the exhaustive list of costs charged to pillar 1, provided your employer’s company car policy covers their financing.

Discover and try our app

Exclusive price and features

Rated 4,5/5 by users

Download the app

Which leads to something most colleagues never see coming. Your mobility budget is a single pot. Everything the car costs, energy included, comes off it first. Whatever is left you can spend in pillar 2 or have paid out through pillar 3. Driving more efficiently and charging more cheaply therefore literally increase your balance.

A quick refresher: the three pillars in 2026

Pillar 1, since 2026 fully electric cars only

Since 1 January 2026, only one type of car still qualifies for pillar 1: an environmentally friendly company car with zero CO2 emissions, so a fully electric or hydrogen vehicle. Important: that standard is assessed on the date of the signed order form or of the concluded leasing contract, not on the delivery date or the registration. If that date falls before 1 January 2026, nothing changes for how your car is treated.

The car you pick in pillar 1 gets exactly the same social security and tax treatment as a classic company car. So you pay a benefit in kind (BIK) on it, and your employer pays a CO2 solidarity contribution.

Two limits that often cause disappointment: you cannot bring in your own car as a pillar 1 car, and you cannot buy a car with your budget either. Only a car made available by your employer qualifies.

Pillar 2, sustainable mobility and housing

Everything you spend in pillar 2 is fully exempt from social security contributions and taxes. This pillar covers soft mobility (bike, speed pedelec, scooter, electric motorcycle), public transport passes, including for the family members living with you, organised collective transport, shared solutions such as carpooling, car sharing and taxis, and housing costs within a radius of 10 kilometres of your normal place of work. Those housing costs include rent, mortgage interest and capital repayments, but not moving costs. In 2026, the bicycle allowance is tax exempt up to €0.37 per kilometre, with an annual cap of €3,700.

Watch out for two things: plane tickets do not qualify, and since 1 January 2026 the motorised vehicles in pillar 2 must be zero emission too.

Pillar 3, the balance in cash

Whatever you do not spend is paid out once a year, at the latest with the January salary. That balance is fully exempt from taxes and from ordinary social security contributions, but a special employee contribution of 38.07% is due. In return, the balance counts towards your pension and towards your sickness and unemployment benefits.

For 2026, the mobility budget amounts to a minimum of €3,233 and a maximum of €17,244 per calendar year, on top of the statutory cap of one fifth of your total gross pay.

The amount itself is calculated on the basis of the TCO formula for your reference car, so the total annual cost of the company car you were entitled to. The more expensive that reference car, the bigger your budget.

Charging costs of a pillar 1 car: who pays what?

Cost item	Charged to	Condition
Administrative fees on fuel and charging cards	Pillar 1	Same
Charging point and installation	Pillar 1, as an annual depreciation of 20%	Same
Maintenance and repair of the charging point	Pillar 1	Same
Management fees for the charging point and cable	Pillar 1	Same
Toll and parking costs	Pillar 1	Same
Charging a shared car	Pillar 2, shared solutions category	Unless the same employee is the main user of that shared car
Charging your private car	No pillar	A personal car does not qualify for pillar 1

Source: *mobiliteitsbudget.be*, official FAQ ‘Waar kan je het mobiliteitsbudget aan besteden?’, consulted on 26 August 2026.

What your car policy needs to say

The condition is twofold, and it is rarely spelled out. A charging cost can only be charged to your budget if it is not already included in the leasing or rental contract, and if the company car policy explicitly provides for its financing.

If your car policy says nothing about charging costs, they will not be deducted from your budget. But your employer will not pay them either. So three questions to ask before you sign: does my employer cover home charging, do I get a charging card for the road, and are those costs charged to my budget or not?

Home charging and the reimbursement of your electricity

If your employer reimburses your home consumption, that is usually done at the flat rate that CREG (the Belgian federal energy regulator) publishes each quarter and per Region. For the third quarter of 2026, that flat rate is €0.3222 per kWh in Flanders, €0.3719 in Brussels and €0.3783 in Wallonia. Your employer applies the rate of the Region where you live or, if it wants a single rate for the whole company, the lowest of the three.

That flat rate is a maximum, and it comes with four conditions: the charging point is made available by your employer, it has a communication system that measures consumption, the reimbursement is set out in the car policy, and only the electricity for the company car is reimbursed. Since the circular of 17 June 2025, this flat rate regime has become permanent, instead of a tolerance extended year after year.

In practice, the reimbursement is therefore per kWh, based on the metering of your charging point, and not a flat monthly amount. Good news for your tax return: that reimbursement does not create an extra benefit in kind. The BIK on the car already covers the electricity.

Charging on the road with a charging card

Yes, you can pay for your charging card with your mobility budget, but out of pillar 1 and not pillar 2: both the kilowatt hours and the card’s administrative fees land on the car. There is a catch here that few colleagues spot: at the very same charging point, the price can differ by tens of percent depending on the card you use, because of session fees, time surcharges and roaming margins. So compare charging cards before you pick one: the effort pays for itself many times over within a year. Public fast charging in Belgium typically costs between €0.55 and €0.75 per kWh.

And the charging point at your home?

The charging point itself is also financed out of pillar 1. If it is included in the leasing contract, the cost is already built into the lease price. If your employer owns the unit, the full purchase price is not charged, but an annual depreciation of 20% of the cost of the charging point and its installation. Maintenance, repairs and management fees for the unit and cable follow the same logic. No separate benefit in kind is added.

One question remains that the legislation does not answer: what happens to that unit if you change employer? Formally, the device is company equipment you hand back, just like the car. In practice, it is fixed to your home, which can trigger a discussion about accession (natrekking). The only real protection is contractual: have the car policy set out who owns it and what happens when you leave, preferably through a building lease right (opstalrecht). Ask before you have a charging point installed, not after.

Three situations, three answers

You choose an electric car in pillar 1

Your car and all its costs come off the budget first: leasing, insurance, road tax, solidarity contribution, and therefore your electricity too. What is left goes to pillar 2 or pillar 3. Your leverage lies entirely in consumption and in where you charge.

You skip the car and use shared mobility

Without a pillar 1 car, your entire budget frees up for pillars 2 and 3. If you charge a shared car, that cost falls under the shared solutions category of pillar 2, and is therefore fully exempt. One nuance: if you are essentially the sole user of that shared car, the legislator treats it as a pillar 1 car, with all the consequences that entails.

You have no driveway

If you live in an apartment or rent without a private parking space, home charging is not an option, and the cheapest rate drops out. Your charging mix then becomes the office plus public fast charging. Sort this out before you order your car: that your charging card works at the stations in your neighbourhood and on your route, that your employer is invoiced directly so you never have to pay upfront, and that you get a preferential rate instead of the public rate at the charging point. With a network of fast charging points at fixed spots along your route, charging becomes a twenty minute routine instead of a weekly hunt. You can read more in our overview of public charging in Belgium.

How to keep more of your budget

Five levers, from the most to the least rewarding.

Pick an efficient car. Every kilowatt hour you do not use stays in your budget. Two cars in the same segment can differ by 4 kWh per 100 kilometres, which adds up fast over a year.

Charge at home or at the office as much as you can. Take two colleagues with the same budget, the same car and 15,000 kilometres a year at 17 kWh per 100 kilometres, so 2,550 kWh. The one charging at home in Flanders, at the CREG flat rate for Q3 2026, uses around €822 of the budget. The one charging only at public fast chargers at €0.65 per kWh uses €1,658. At the end of December, the first keeps well over €800 more, for exactly the same kilometres.

Look at your charging card, not just the charging point. See above: the same electricity, a different invoice. What charging really costs you depends more on your contract than on your car.

Ask which formula your employer uses. Under the flat rate formula, the consumption cost is set to zero if you have neither a fuel card nor a charging card. Under the actual cost formula, every kilowatt hour counts. That changes the calculation completely.

Plan your pillar 2 spending before the year ends. Whatever you do not spend is paid out after a 38.07% deduction. Spending in pillar 2 is fully exempt, so it delivers more than the same amount in cash.

Are you an employer? Set out at least four things in your car policy: which charging costs you cover, at what rate you reimburse home charging, who owns the charging point and what happens to it when someone leaves, and whether you apply the actual cost formula or the flat rate formula. Note as well that the mobility budget is still voluntary today. The announced obligation for employers has been postponed: it would take effect at the earliest on 1 January 2027 for companies with at least 50 employees and on 1 January 2028 for companies with 15 to 49 employees, with an exemption below 15 employees. The legal texts have not been published yet.

Frequently asked questions

Can I charge my electric car with my mobility budget?

Yes, if it is a pillar 1 company car and your car policy provides for the financing of the charging costs. Charging your own private car is not possible under any pillar.

Which pillar covers the charging costs of my company car?

Pillar 1. Electricity, the charging card, the charging point, maintenance and management fees all five appear in the exhaustive list of costs charged to pillar 1.

Does my employer pay for my home charging point?

Only if your company car policy provides for it. The cost is then charged to pillar 1, as an annual depreciation of 20% of the unit and its installation.

What happens to my charging point if I change employer?

The law does not settle this. It all depends on what your car policy says about ownership and leaving the company. Have it set out contractually, ideally through a building lease right (opstalrecht).

How much is the mobility budget in 2026?

A minimum of €3,233 and a maximum of €17,244 per calendar year, on top of the statutory cap of one fifth of your total gross pay.

Key takeaways

Your charging costs sit in pillar 1, not in pillar 2. That single fact changes how you pick your car and your charging habits: every euro of electricity your employer pays comes off the same budget that funds your train pass, your bike or your cash balance. Drive efficiently, charge at home or at the office as much as possible and choose a charging card with a sharp rate, and you easily keep a few hundred euros more over a year. If you have no driveway, sort out how and where you will charge on the road before you place the order.

On the Electra network you charge at fast charging points delivering up to 400 kW, with Autocharge: the session starts automatically, no badge or app needed. Two plans lower your cost per kilowatt hour, and both give you the Electra charging card for free.

Electra+ Essential: €1.99 per month with no commitment, €0.10 off per kWh on every charge on the Electra network.

Electra+ Smart: €4.99 per month with no commitment, €0.20 off per kWh on every charge on the Electra network.

Both plans also give you access to a preferential rate at Atlante, Fastned and Ionity, detailed on our pricing page. Paying annually cuts 16% off the subscription.

Source: *Electra+*, consulted on 26 August 2026.

Want to find the Electra stations near you? Download the app from the App Store or Google Play.

Status as of 26 August 2026. The rules on the mobility budget keep evolving: check your employer’s car policy and mobiliteitsbudget.be for your own situation.