Belgian certificates of residence issued electronically accepted by Austrian Ministry of Finance (BMF)

On 21 June 2023, a consultation agreement between Austria and Belgium on the mutual recognition of certificates of residence was concluded. Therefore, certificates of residence issued separately by the Belgian (and Austrian) tax authorities are to be recognised in future for relief at source or in the refund procedure.

From an Austrian perspective, the consultation agreement concerns cases in which a payment – which is subject to Austrian withholding taxes (e.g. dividends, royalties or remuneration for the provision of staff) – is made to a person residing in Belgium. Until the conclusion of the agreement, it had been necessary to confirm the place of residence of the Belgian recipient on the Austrian forms (such as ZS-EUMT, ZS-Qu2, ZS-RD-DIGMBH, etc.) for relief at source and the refund procedure.

It was now agreed that if a certificate of residence is required under Austrian national law, the Austrian authorities are obliged to recognise the certificate of residence issued separately by the Belgian tax authorities. This also applies to certificates of residence issued electronically by the Belgian tax authorities.

The agreement also applies in the reverse case, if an Austrian certificate of residence is submitted to Belgian tax authorities. The specific requirements for this mutual recognition can be found here.

The aforementioned legal consequences apply to all open and future requests as of the signing of the consultation agreement (Article 3 para. 1 consultation agreement (Konsulationsvereinbarung)).

In conclusion, this means that Austria recognises the following foreign certificates of residence:

• Belgium
• Chile
• Mexico
• Portugal
• Spain
• Thailand
• Türkiye
• USA

For all other countries, the place of residence must still be confirmed on the Austrian forms.