Philippines vs Belgium Offshore Developer Costs in 2026

A Belgian employer pays a 25% social security contribution on top of every euro of salary, then a double holiday payment in spring and, in many sectors, a thirteenth month in December. A median software engineer in Belgium costs about €79,800 a year before the company has bought a laptop. The same Levels.fyi title in Manila costs about $17,700.

That gap is most of the Philippines vs Belgium offshore developer costs question. The rest is the clock, English, and what it costs to end a contract in each country, and the numbers on those three are closer than the salary gap suggests.

What a software engineer earns in each country

Levels.fyi publishes pay for the same “Software Engineer” title in both countries. Read on 19 October 2026, the Belgium page gives a median total pay of €56,594 a year from 82 submissions. The Philippines page gives ₱967,890 from 97 submissions.

At the European Central Bank reference rates for 19 October 2026, taken through the Frankfurter API, one dollar bought €0.89087 or ₱62.998. That puts the Belgian median at about $63,527 and the Philippine median at $15,364, a ratio of a little over four to one.

The two ranges sit far apart. The Philippine 75th percentile, $23,744, is less than half the Belgian 25th percentile. An engineer at the Philippine 75th percentile earns less in salary than one at the Belgian 25th.

For the same comparison across ten countries, our nearshore vs offshore cost breakdown sets the Philippines against Eastern Europe and Latin America, and our guide to offshore developer rates in US dollars converts the main stacks into monthly figures.

Employer costs in Belgium

Belgium has no separate payroll tax. PwC’s corporate tax summary for Belgium, last reviewed on 10 September 2026, says the only charges on payroll are social security contributions and income tax withholding. The social security part is large on its own, and two sector-wide payments sit on top of it.

Employer social security. PwC puts the employer’s contribution at 25% of pay, made up of a 19.88% base rate and a 5.12% wage moderation charge. It is calculated on pay capped at €86,700 a quarter. A median engineer earns about €14,149 a quarter, so the cap does not apply, and the employer pays about €14,150 a year. PwC notes reductions for low wages and for specific target groups; the low-wage reduction does not reach a median engineer’s pay. The employee pays a further 13.07% from gross pay, also uncapped, per PwC’s individual summary.

Double holiday pay. A white-collar employee gets 4 weeks of legal vacation a year and, on top of normal pay for those days, a double holiday payment equal to 92% of one month’s gross pay, according to EY’s 2026 tax alert. It is usually paid in May or June. At the median that is about €4,340, or 7.7% of annual pay.

End-of-year premium. Belgium sets this by sector, not by statute. Many software employers fall under Joint Committee 200, the committee for white-collar employees of companies that belong to no other committee, as EY describes it. It covers more than 480,000 employees in about 50,000 companies, according to the ACV union’s sector page. In JC 200 the premium equals the December gross salary for an employee who worked the full year and is paid in December, as ACV’s guide to the premium sets out. That is one month’s pay, or 8.3% of the year.

Automatic indexation. JC 200 salaries rise every January with the health index. The increase on 1 January 2026 was 2.21%, applied to actual wages as well as sector minimums, and employers cannot opt out, according to Securex. A Belgian salary agreed today will cost more next year without any decision by the employer.

Employer costs in the Philippines

The Philippine items are smaller, and the largest of them stop rising at low salary levels.

SSS. The Social Security System charges 15% of the monthly salary credit, split 10% employer and 5% employee, on a credit capped at ₱35,000, according to SSS. The employer adds ₱30 a month for employees’ compensation cover. On a median engineer’s ₱80,658 a month, the employer’s share stops at ₱3,530, or 4.4% of pay.

PhilHealth. The premium is 5% of monthly basic salary between a ₱10,000 floor and a ₱100,000 ceiling, per PhilHealth Advisory 2025-0002, and a 2026 advisory keeps the rate. Employer and employee split it equally, as Sprout’s worked example shows, so the employer pays 2.5%.

Pag-IBIG. Employers remit 2% of a monthly fund salary capped at ₱10,000 since February 2024, per Forvis Mazars’ summary of Circular 460. That is ₱200 a month at most.

13th-month pay. Presidential Decree 851 requires one-twelfth of the year’s basic salary, paid by 24 December. It adds 8.3% to annual pay, the same share as the Belgian end-of-year premium.

Night shift differential. Article 86 of the Labor Code adds at least 10% of the regular wage for each hour worked between 10pm and 6am. A Manila engineer who works Brussels hours finishes at 11pm in summer and midnight in winter, so one or two hours of each shift qualify. Averaged over 2026, that adds about 1.8% to annual pay.

Computed from the sources above at each country's Levels.fyi median, 19 October 2026.

The two countries scale differently with salary. Belgian social security stays at 25% all the way to €86,700 a quarter, about €347,000 a year, so it is proportional for almost every engineer. The Philippine SSS and Pag-IBIG caps bite early, so their share falls as pay rises.

Time zones and working overlap with Brussels

Brussels runs on Central European Time, UTC+1, and moves to UTC+2 for summer time. Under Directive 2000/84/EC, EU summer time starts on the last Sunday of March and ends on the last Sunday of October, which in 2026 means 29 March and 25 October. Manila stays on UTC+8 all year and has not observed daylight saving since 1991, as the Philippine Standard Time entry records.

Manila is therefore 6 hours ahead of Brussels from late March to late October and 7 hours ahead for the rest of the year. A Brussels 9am start is 3pm in Manila in July and 4pm in January.

This is a smaller gap than the one US buyers face. A Filipino team on a normal Manila day already shares its last hour or two with a Brussels morning, enough for a daily stand-up. Shift the Manila day to 1pm to 9pm and the overlap reaches 5 to 6 hours with no night premium at all, because the shift ends before 10pm.

Full coverage takes a 3pm to 11pm shift in summer and 4pm to midnight in winter. That is the schedule behind the 17.2% figure above, and the night differential on it costs about 1.8% of pay.

English in Belgium and the Philippines

The EF English Proficiency Index 2025 ranks Belgium 9th of 123 countries with a score of 608, up 16 points on the previous edition. The Philippines ranks 28th with 569. Both sit well above the global average of 488.

The national scores hide a language border. EF scores Belgium’s Dutch-speaking regions at 654 and its French-speaking regions at 543. The Brussels Capital Region scores 579, and the city of Brussels 588, below Manila.

For a company in Brussels, the language question is often Dutch or French rather than English, and a Filipino offshore developer will work in English only. For an international company that already runs in English, both pools are deep. We test every offshore developer at C1 or above before a client sees a profile, whatever the country average.

Notice periods and ending a contract

Belgium prices an exit through notice. The Philippines prices it through the reason for leaving. Neither summary below is legal advice.

Belgium. For contracts that started on or after 1 January 2014, one notice scale based on seniority applies, published by the Federal Public Service Employment. An employer that dismisses an engineer gives 8 weeks’ notice after one year, 13 weeks after three years, 18 after five and 33 after ten, or pays the salary for that period instead. The scale keeps rising with service.

Two laws changed the scale in 2026:

• For contracts starting on or after 1 June 2026, the employer’s notice stops at 52 weeks, reached at 17 years of service. The cap comes from the Act of 18 May 2026, as Grant Thornton reports. Older contracts keep the uncapped scale.
• For contracts starting on or after 1 August 2026, the notice in the first six months is one week either way. DLA Piper notes that this applies automatically, with no trial clause needed, and describes it as reintroducing a degree of probationary flexibility.

An employee who resigns gives at most 13 weeks’ notice, reached after eight years, per the FPS resignation table.

The Philippines. The Labor Code allows probation of up to six months. An employee who resigns without just cause gives at least one month’s written notice. An employer that cuts a role for redundancy serves written notice on the employee and the labor department at least one month ahead and pays at least one month’s pay per year of service.

The Philippine leave figure comes from Article 95 of the Code. Measured in months of pay, a Philippine redundancy after five or ten years costs more than Belgian notice for the same service. Measured in money, it costs far less, because the salary underneath is about a quarter of the Belgian one.

What five engineers cost for a year

Put the pieces together for a team of five at each country’s median pay. These are direct employment figures: salary plus the statutory and sector costs above, converted at the 19 October rates.

The direct figures leave out the cost of employing anyone at all:

• In Belgium, a payroll provider, the benefits the local market expects, and next January’s indexation.
• In the Philippines, a local entity or employer of record, payroll, recruiting and equipment, which a foreign company needs before it can hire one engineer directly.
• In both, the time spent replacing a hire who leaves.

Even with those left out, a Belgian team at the median costs about five times a Philippine one on the same title. At the bottom of our range, five Filipino offshore developers cost about a third of five Belgian hires, with the entity, payroll and equipment already inside the fee.

When Belgium wins, and when the Philippines does

Belgium fits when

• The work needs Dutch or French with customers, regulators or a local team.
• The engineer will be on site in Brussels, Ghent or Antwerp several days a week.
• You need EU-based staff for a contract, a public tender or data rules that require it.
• Budget per engineer matters less than being in the same room.

The Philippines fits when

• The team works in English and in writing: tickets, pull requests, recorded demos.
• A 1pm to 9pm or later Manila shift gives you the overlap you need with Brussels.
• You are hiring several engineers and want the per-head saving to compound.
• You would rather not carry a Belgian payroll, sector rules and annual indexation.

Some buyers split the work: a local lead who owns the product and the stakeholders, and a Filipino team for the build. Our guides on vetting offshore developers and managing offshore developers cover how that set-up runs day to day.

Hire offshore developers with Hire Offshore

We hire in the Philippines, Vietnam and India, and we shortlist 6 to 8 vetted offshore developers within 24 hours and complete the hire in about 2 weeks. The monthly fee of $2,499 to $5,999 covers salary, payroll, equipment and employment, with no upfront cost and a 90-day replacement guarantee.

We agree the schedule before the offer, so a Filipino offshore developer can start on a shift that overlaps your Brussels day. Filipino offshore developers cover stacks such as PHP and Java. See how it works, check pricing or send us the role.

FAQ

Is Belgium or the Philippines cheaper for software engineers?

The Philippines, by a wide margin. Median software engineer pay on Levels.fyi is about €56,600 ($63,500) a year in Belgium against $15,400 in the Philippines, and Belgian employer costs add about 41% to base pay against about 15% in the Philippines.

How much does a Belgian employer pay in social security?

About 25% of gross pay, according to PwC: a 19.88% base rate plus a 5.12% wage moderation charge, on pay capped at €86,700 a quarter. The employee pays a further 13.07%. Double holiday pay and, in JC 200, an end-of-year premium of one month’s salary come on top.

How many hours does Manila overlap with Brussels?

One to two hours on a standard 9 to 5 day in both cities. Manila is 6 hours ahead of Brussels in summer and 7 in winter, so a 1pm to 9pm Manila shift shares 5 to 6 hours and a 3pm to 11pm or 4pm to midnight shift covers the Brussels day.

Do Filipino offshore developers get a night premium on European hours?

Only for hours after 10pm. The Labor Code adds at least 10% to pay for work between 10pm and 6am. A shift covering the full Brussels day ends at 11pm or midnight, which adds about 1.8% to annual pay. A 1pm to 9pm shift adds nothing.

What is the notice period in Belgium in 2026?

It depends on seniority and the contract’s start date. An employer gives 8 weeks after one year and 18 after five. For contracts starting from 1 August 2026, notice is one week in the first six months, and for contracts from 1 June 2026 it is capped at 52 weeks.

Which country has better English, Belgium or the Philippines?

Belgium ranks higher nationally, 9th of 123 on EF’s 2025 index against 28th for the Philippines. In the capitals the order flips: Manila scores 603 and Brussels 588. Flemish cities such as Leuven and Ghent score above both.

Is a Belgian end-of-year premium required by law?

Not by national statute. It comes from sector agreements. In Joint Committee 200, which covers more than 480,000 white-collar employees, the premium equals the December gross salary for a full year’s work. The Philippine 13th-month pay, by contrast, is set by Presidential Decree 851.