A freelancer’s website in Belgium has to show your name, the address where you are established, a way to contact you (including an email address) and your enterprise number. If your activity is subject to VAT, add your VAT number. Regulated professions add their professional body and title. The FPS Economy (FOD Economie) found in 2024 that 47.7% of the 2,158 websites and pages it checked lacked identification details.
What does a freelancer’s website in Belgium need to show?
The FPS Economy lists these details for a business website or social media page, whether or not you sell anything there. The rule also covers the liberal professions.
- your name, or your own name if you have no business name
- the address where you are established
- contact details that allow fast, effective communication, including an email address
- a phone number, if consumers can conclude a contract with you at a distance through the site
- your enterprise number (KBO/BCE)
- your VAT number, written “BTW BE” followed by the enterprise number, if your activity is subject to VAT
- the supervisory authority, if your activity needs a licence
- for a regulated profession: your professional body, your title and a reference to the professional rules
- the code of conduct you are subject to, if any, and where it can be read
Your LinkedIn or Facebook business page counts too. For your own case, ask your ondernemingsloket or an accountant. This is not legal advice. The legal guide goes through each detail.
Do I have to publish my home address?
The FPS Economy asks for the address where you are established. I could not confirm from an official source what that means for a sole trader who works from home, so I leave that question to your ondernemingsloket.
On Google, Google’s own guidelines say a service-area business should hide its business address. The guide to Google Business Profile covers that setup.
Own name or brand name for the domain?
Use your own name when clients buy you personally: a consultant, a coach, a translator. Use a brand when you might hire someone, sell the business or offer a product. I chose a brand, Ovrick, for ovrick.com.
For .be addresses, DNS Belgium is the registry. You register through a registrar, and the holder can be a company, an organisation or a private person. Register the domain in your own name, not your web designer’s, so you can move it whenever you like. How domain, hosting and email fit together is in the guide to domain, hosting and email.
Which pages does a freelancer’s site usually have?
Five cover most cases:
- What you do, in plain words, with your region.
- Proof of work: a portfolio or short cases.
- Who you are.
- How to book or contact you.
- A legal page with your identification and privacy information.
A one-page site can hold all five if the legal details stay easy to find.
Health practitioners have a stricter regime. Article 31 of the Quality of Care Act (22 April 2019) lets a practitioner publish “practice information” that is truthful, objective, relevant and verifiable, and scientifically substantiated. It must not encourage unnecessary examinations or treatments, and it must not aim to recruit patients. If this is your field, check with your professional body before publishing.
Booking and payment: what changes?
If consumers can conclude a contract with you at a distance through your site, for example by booking and paying online, the FPS Economy says you must also list a phone number. Check the fee schedule of any booking or payment tool before you commit, since each one sets its own prices.
Does my website replace LinkedIn or a platform?
No, they do different jobs. In UNIZO’s 2025 Freelancer Focus survey (211 respondents), 88% found assignments through their own network, 53% through intermediaries, 52% through existing clients, 23% through social media, 14% through their own website and 12% through freelance job platforms.
Most work starts with a person. The website is where that person checks you before they write.
What about Dutch, French and English?
Choose by your clients: Flanders mostly needs Dutch, Brussels often needs Dutch, French and English. Give each language its own URL and mark the versions with hreflang annotations, which is how Google documents localised versions.
What does a freelancer website cost?
There are three routes, and the guide to builders, CMSs and custom builds compares them:
| Route | Cost shape |
|---|---|
| A builder you run yourself | Monthly subscription plus your time |
| A freelancer or small studio | One-off fee, plus hosting |
| An agency | Higher fee, more people |
The guide to website costs per year breaks down the yearly total. Ask any provider for the total per year before you sign.
Is anything different if I start in bijberoep?
The website is not. The identification duty is the same, and nothing on the site needs to say you are in bijberoep. What changes are your social contributions. The social security institute for the self-employed (RSVZ/INASTI) describes bijberoep as self-employed work next to a job with an employer, or next to wage-replacement income. For incomes under EUR 17,374.08, the advantageous scheme applies: no contributions below EUR 1,922.16, reduced contributions from there up to EUR 17,374.08, and the same contributions as a main occupation from that amount.
I started Ovrick on 1 October 2026, as a sole trader (eenmanszaak) trading as Ovrick. The small business VAT exemption applies up to EUR 25,000 of yearly turnover, before VAT. On my own site, the footer shows my name, address, enterprise number and VAT number. My terms state that VAT is not charged under article 56bis of the VAT Code.
Where can I read more?
If you want to be found on Google, start with the guide to SEO. If you want to change texts yourself later, the guide to CMSs explains how that works. I build freelancer sites at Ovrick in Turnhout, and the pricing page shows what I charge.
Sources I checked on 11 October 2026:
- FPS Economy: what to show on your business website (22 October 2021, Dutch)
- FPS Economy: inspection results for 2024 (5 August 2025, Dutch)
- DNS Belgium: registering a domain name
- Google: service-area businesses
- Google: localised versions and hreflang
- Quality of Care Act of 22 April 2019, article 31 (Dutch)
- RSVZ/INASTI: self-employed in bijberoep (Dutch)
- FPS Finance: VAT exemption scheme for small businesses
- UNIZO Freelancer Focus 2025 (Dutch)