Volunteer expense allowance 2026: amounts, rules and obligations

At Give a Day, we regularly get the same question: “Our volunteers incur expenses, how do we reimburse them correctly?” The answer starts with a single insight that determines everything: according to the letter of the law, voluntary work is unpaid. Any allowance a volunteer receives is therefore a reimbursement of expenses, never a reward for performance. In this blog, we review the two reimbursement systems, travel expenses, and the administration that goes with them. And hey, did you know that the Give a Day expense claim module for volunteer organisations completely unburdens you from A to Z?😉

Who can receive an expense allowance?

Any volunteer can receive an expense allowance. The Volunteer Act of 2005 defines who a volunteer is: he or she who gives their time on an unpaid, voluntary basis to a non-profit organisation.

Do bear in mind that some volunteers receiving benefits (unemployment, sickness or invalidity benefits, living wage) have a reporting obligation (in advance, to the RVA, the advisory doctor of the health insurance fund, or the case manager at the OCMW respectively). So ask before starting. Non-compliance can lead to suspension.

Furthermore, the organisation decides itself whether it reimburses expenses and according to which system. You communicate this choice to your volunteers before they start. This is part of the legal information obligation. You do this via the information note or volunteer agreement. If you change the arrangement later, you must inform them again before the change takes effect. However, a switch between the flat-rate and the actual expense system for an individual volunteer is only possible from the following calendar year.

Why an expense allowance is not a wage (and must not look like one)

Because an expense allowance is not income, the volunteer pays no taxes on it and does not have to declare it to the tax authorities as long as the threshold values are respected. No NSSO contributions are due either. Therefore, as an organisation, do not prepare tax sheets: this is not only unnecessary, but also risky: there have been past precedents where such a sheet triggered an investigation into bogus self-employment.

For the same reason, avoid allowances per hour or per piece. These are difficult to justify to the tax authorities and you will quickly exceed the legal maximums.

Two paths for volunteers: actual costs or a daily flat rate

The law allows two ways to reimburse expenses. A volunteer chooses one path per calendar year; combining both is not possible, even if they are active in different organisations. As an organisation, you can reimburse different volunteers using different systems. In that case, work with clear categories so you can justify the choice.

Path 1: actual expense reimbursement

You fully reimburse the actual costs upon presentation of supporting documents: invoices, receipts, transport tickets. There are no legal caps, but keep it reasonable: the costs must demonstrably arise from the volunteer work. This path is best suited for volunteers with high or highly variable expenses.

Path 2: the flat-rate expense allowance

You pay a fixed amount without supporting documents. In return, two indexed caps apply that you must both respect: a maximum per day and a maximum per calendar year. The annual maximum is absolute and applies across all organisations where the volunteer is active. As an organisation, you only see what you pay. For example, if you receive a flat-rate expense allowance of €30 during the day at organisation 1 and another €30 in the evening at organisation 2, you are above your daily maximum and the tax exemption for the entire year may be voided. So point out their responsibility to your volunteers.

The increased annual cap. For a limited number of categories, the annual maximum is higher, while the daily maximum remains the same. This concerns volunteers who perform certain roles in the sports sector, volunteers who perform night and sitting services for people in need of care, and volunteers in non-urgent lying patient transport. If a volunteer combines ordinary and increased activities (e.g. at different organisations), the total of all allowances remains below the increased annual cap and the portion from ordinary volunteer work remains below the ordinary annual cap. Specifically for the sports sector: anyone receiving benefits is not eligible for the increased cap and falls back on the ordinary flat-rate scheme.

Travel expenses: the main exception

Travel represents the largest expense for many volunteers, and that is precisely where the law provides one relaxation of the combination ban: on top of a flat-rate allowance, you may reimburse the actual travel costs, up to a maximum of 2,000 kilometres per year per volunteer. This kilometre limit is waived for volunteers who regularly transport people.

Kilometre allowances can be provided for personal motorised transport and for bicycles, in each case within the legal maximum rates. From 1 July 2026 to 30 June 2027, the maximum for cars is €0.4761 per kilometre; for bicycles, the rate in 2026 is €0.37 per kilometre. These rates are indexed, so check them annually with official sources. You can also opt for the quarterly indexing of the kilometre allowance: from 1 July to 30 September 2026, the maximum is then €0.4440 per kilometre. For simplicity, we only use and facilitate the annual indexing in Give a Day.

You can always provide a lower allowance per km or reimburse a percentage of the travel cost. You decide this yourself as an organisation. However, you must communicate this in accordance with the information obligation before the start of the volunteer work.

You can reimburse public transport tickets, but not a season ticket.

Keep supporting documents of every journey: routes or transport tickets with the name, date, and signature of the volunteer, e.g., via the Give a Day expense claim module.

What if the rules are not followed?

Anyone who exceeds the caps or incorrectly combines systems will find their expense allowances become taxable: the volunteer loses the tax exemption on all his or her expense allowances for that year and must declare them in their personal income tax, with all the fiscal consequences that entails. For the organisation, this could mean reclassifying the volunteer as an employee or self-employed person.

Three combinations deserve extra attention here.

• Doing volunteer work and association work within the same organisation is only possible if it concerns fundamentally different activities, in each case in exchange for a normal expense allowance. Alternating between both statuses for the same activity within the same calendar year is not permitted. On the other hand, volunteer work in organisation A and association work in organisation B is allowed. Furthermore, the increased flat rate cannot be combined with association work within the same organisation or for the same activity.

• The amateur arts allowance (AKV, the successor of the small compensation scheme since 2024) can never be combined with a volunteer allowance on the same day. However, within the same calendar year, the combination is possible, provided that the activities take place on different days and the clients are different.

• A flexi-job and volunteer work are combinable as long as they involve clearly different tasks: for example, youth team coach as a flexi-jobber, and additionally volunteering behind the bar.

Giving an extra is allowed: occasional gifts

If you would like to surprise volunteers once in a while, this is perfectly possible alongside expense allowances. Gifts do not count towards the caps, as long as you stay within the limits accepted by the NSSO:

• gifts in kind, in cash, or as vouchers for Saint Nicholas, Christmas, or New Year: up to 40 euros per volunteer per year, plus 40 euros per dependent child;

• for an honorary distinction: up to 120 euros per volunteer per year;

• for a marriage or declaration of legal cohabitation: up to 245 euros per volunteer.

The administration: nominative list and expense claims

As an organisation, you keep a nominative list of all paid expense allowances per calendar year: the name of the volunteer, the amount, the expense allowance system, and the date of each allowance. This list is your burden of proof during inspections that the daily and annual maximums & the combination ban were respected. You register the payments themselves in the accounts as operating costs.

About the national registration number there is often confusion: processing it is reserved for organisations authorised to do so, such as government bodies, e.g. for the purpose of unique identification in government software such as digital government accounting. If you are not authorised, do not include it and identify your volunteers in another way with at least their name. In any case, secure the list in accordance with GDPR and limit who has access to it.

Does an expense claim need to be signed? The legislation leaves room for interpretation here: there is no clear circular mandating a signature. A signature is only required when the expense claim serves as official proof in the accounts, when it contains a declaration of honor, or when you pay in cash and require a signature for receipt. Our advice: have it signed off if this can be done without heavy administrative burden — then you are always safe. For a flat-rate allowance, the volunteer can declare on their honor not to exceed the daily and annual maximums; for actual costs, that the expenses incurred effectively arise from the volunteer work. You can also include such a declaration in the information note or have it signed separately on an annual basis.

Did you know that you can track all expenses through the Give a Day expense claim module? You can track all expenses of all your volunteers from all your sub-operations in a GDPR-compliant manner in the Give a Day expense claim module. What is more, we automatically check the conditions across all the volunteer's engagements. So exceeding maximums is a thing of the past. With one click of a button, you can export the nominative list for inspection. In addition, we provide tailor-made integrations and/or exports to easily import these into your accounting package. For governments, we connect, for example, via the Arco integration or Peppol.

Conclusion

Remember the core message: an allowance covers expenses and does not reward performance, you choose one system as a volunteer, you respect the caps, and you keep your administration in order. This way you avoid almost every pitfall. Do you have doubts about a specific situation? Then consult the sources below.

Sources

•     Give a Day, Helpdesk document Volunteering and the law, version 28 August 2026

•     Vlaams Steunpunt Vrijwilligerswerk vzw, Expense allowances, www.vlaanderenvrijwilligt.be/wetgeving/kostenvergoedingen

•     Act of 3 July 2005 on the rights of volunteers and the Royal Decree of 20 December 2018

•     National Social Security Office (NSSO) and FPS Social Security - annually indexed maximum amounts

•     AKV https://www.cultuurloket.be/kennisbank/bijverdienen-wat-zijn-je-mogelijkheden/amateurkunstenvergoeding-akv

•     Flexi-jobs https://sportwerk.be/flexi-jobs-in-de-sport/

•     Association work and volunteer work https://www.korfbal.be/?oid=1126&pid=30902&aid=101318&lg=2

•     Gifts https://www.socialsecurity.be/employer/instructions/dmfa/nl/latest/instructions/salary/particularcases/giftcheques.html

Amounts valid for 2026; the maximums are indexed annually.

About the author

Bart Wolput is the founder of Give a Day. He holds a PhD in Civil Engineering with expertise in Social Smart Cities, and teaches the postgraduate course in Volunteering at AP University of Applied Sciences and Arts. Each year, he provides training to more than two thousand non-profits on recruitment, appreciation, digital tools, the volunteer act, and volunteer policy. Strengthening solidarity is what drives him, and he prefers to do this by effectively solving problems.

Follow Bart on LinkedIn for more on volunteering and solidarity.