Belgium CV Format 2026: Official Regional Advice Compared

The safest Belgium CV format is a clear, vacancy-specific document of one or two A4 pages, normally with your most recent experience first. Use the language of the vacancy, describe language ability precisely, and send a PDF when you apply by email unless the employer or portal asks for another format.

There is no single statutory “Belgian CV template.” Belgium's public employment services publish different advice—especially about photos and personal details. This guide compares the current guidance from VDAB (Flanders), Actiris (Brussels), Le Forem (Wallonia) and the Arbeitsamt of the German-speaking Community, then separates it from privacy law, private-market practice and federal recruitment rules.

Editorial boundary: This is application guidance, not legal advice. A live vacancy and its application portal take priority. We cite a rule as law only where a Belgian authority says it is a legal or regulatory requirement.

The 60-second Belgium CV setup

Primary guidance: VDAB, Actiris, Le Forem, Arbeitsamt, and the Belgian Data Protection Authority.

Why official Belgian advice appears to conflict

The regional services are career-guidance bodies, not four versions of one national CV law. Their wording reflects different audiences and application contexts.

This comparison leads to a more useful rule than “Belgian CVs always include a photo” or “photos are forbidden”: a photo is not a general requirement. If a vacancy does not request one, leaving it out is the lower-data, lower-bias default. If you include one, use a current professional image and understand that regional guidance differs. Actiris' CV evaluation page explains its reason: a photo can introduce subjective discrimination.

*Visual summary based on the four regional sources linked in the table above. These are guidance differences, not four legal regimes.*

What personal information should you put on a Belgium CV?

Start with information that lets the employer identify and contact you:

• full name;
• professional email address;
• telephone number with country code if applying from abroad;
• city or current location when it affects availability or commuting;
• a relevant professional profile or portfolio link.

Treat date of birth, place of birth, nationality, marital status, health, religion, political views, union membership and similar details as a separate decision—not as a standard header checklist.

Belgium's Data Protection Authority says recruitment questions may relate only to the nature and conditions of the role and that only personal data strictly necessary for selection may be collected. It identifies health, political opinion, religious or philosophical belief, trade-union membership and sexual life among sensitive categories whose processing is generally prohibited, subject to limited exceptions. It also says a current address can be relevant while a history of private addresses is not. Read the regulator's recruitment guidance.

That rule governs employers' collection and processing; it does not turn every voluntary CV field into an offence. The practical lesson for an applicant is data minimisation: do not volunteer information that does not help assess you for the role. If a regulated job, security-sensitive position or public portal requires a field, follow the stated process and provide it through the designated channel rather than decorating the CV with extra identifiers.

*Applicant guidance derived from the Belgian Data Protection Authority boundary above; it is not a claim that every omitted field is illegal.*

References are a consent decision, not filler

The same regulator says candidate data should normally be obtained from the candidate. An employer seeking information from third parties must inform the candidate and address consent requirements. It also notes that naming a reference in a CV can serve as the candidate's consent to contact that person. Ask the referee first; otherwise write “references available on request” or omit the section until requested.

Which language should your Belgium CV use?

Belgium has three official languages: Dutch, French and German. That constitutional fact does not tell you which language a private employer wants. Use this order of evidence:

1. the language explicitly required in the vacancy or portal;
2. the language used for the vacancy and recruiter communication;
3. the employer's instruction when the first two are ambiguous;
4. only then, regional context.

An English vacancy from an international employer can justify an English CV. A Dutch or French vacancy that asks for applications in that language should receive that language. Do not send two language versions unless the employer asks; duplicates can create inconsistent dates, skill levels or wording.

For federal jobs, language is procedural rather than cosmetic. A Workingfor.be vacancy can require candidates to complete online work-experience fields in the selection language and may say that other-language entries will not be screened. Some roles require a language test when the diploma language differs. This is why a generic “English works in Brussels” rule is unsafe. Check the exact vacancy and the federal recruitment process.

*The vacancy or portal comes first; recruiter communication and regional context are secondary evidence.*

Report language ability so it can be tested

Avoid bars, stars and “fluent” without context. Use CEFR where you can assess it honestly:

Dutch — B2 speaking, B2 reading, B1 writing (self-assessed)

Europass explains that CEFR self-assessment covers listening, reading, spoken interaction, spoken production and writing. A single level can hide an important difference, so split the skills when the vacancy depends on them. Keep certificates separate and never imply that self-assessment is formal certification. Europass CEFR guidance.

Structure: make every section answer a hiring question

1. Header and target

Give contact details, then name the role or professional direction. Actiris recommends making the professional objective visible at first glance; VDAB recommends putting your strongest relevant asset immediately after contact details.

2. Profile: three to five lines

Use the profile to connect your evidence to the target, not to list adjectives.

Weak: “Dynamic team player looking for a challenging opportunity.”

Stronger: “Customer-operations coordinator with four years in B2B SaaS onboarding. Handles Dutch-, French- and English-language cases and turns repeated support issues into documented workflows.”

3. Experience in reverse chronology

For each relevant role, include title, employer, location, dates and two to five evidence bullets. VDAB asks for function, tasks, employer and period, starting with the latest job. Actiris recommends reverse chronology where recent experience best supports the objective.

Build a bullet from four parts:

action + object + operating context + verifiable result or scope

“Resolved onboarding cases” is a duty. “Resolved an average of 38 weekly onboarding cases across email and chat; documented recurring issues for monthly product review” is assessable evidence—provided the number is true and you can explain its source.

4. Education and qualifications

List the most relevant qualification, institution, country and completion year. Do not translate a foreign award into a Belgian degree title unless an authority has granted that equivalence. If recognition matters, name the original award and add the recognition decision or status separately.

Belgium.be directs people with foreign qualifications to the competent Community and NARIC services. It does not say every private-sector applicant needs recognition before applying; requirements vary by qualification, profession and use. Start with the official diploma-equivalence overview. For regulated healthcare professions, for example, the federal process has specific recognition, visa and language-evidence steps. FPS Public Health is the relevant authority, not a CV blog.

5. Skills and languages with evidence

Group tools, methods and languages so they can be scanned. VDAB recommends substantiating skills with examples. Replace “Excel — expert” with the work you actually performed: “Excel — monthly reconciliation using pivot tables and lookup formulas.”

PDF, DOCX and ATS: follow the submission route

For an emailed application, VDAB recommends converting the CV and letter to PDF so the layout does not change. Actiris also advises saving the CV as PDF, while its ATS guidance says both PDF and DOCX are widely compatible and warns against non-standard formats, multiple columns and complex graphics. Those statements are compatible: PDF is a strong email default, but the receiving system's instruction is decisive.

Use this rule:

• Email with no format specified: searchable PDF with a clear filename such as `Noor_Janssens_CV.pdf`.
• Portal specifies DOCX, PDF or a size limit: obey it exactly.
• Portal asks you to type work history: complete the fields; do not assume the uploaded CV replaces them.
• Design-heavy portfolio role: keep a readable CV and link a separate portfolio unless the vacancy asks for another package.

Before submission, copy text from the final PDF into a plain-text window. If headings, dates and bullets disappear or read out of order, an ATS or screen reader may face the same problem. See our ATS-friendly CV guide for the technical checklist.

Private-sector CV versus federal online CV

Federal vacancies can screen exact experience duration, tasks and diploma evidence from structured fields. This is not proof that all Belgian employers prefer a federal-style online CV. It is a separate selection contract. Read each vacancy's admissibility conditions and deadline literally.

Annotated fictional Belgium CV

The sample below is entirely fictional. The person, employers, contact details and numbers do not identify a real individual or organisation.

Noor Janssens

Brussels · +32 470 00 00 00 · [email protected] · linkedin.com/in/noor-janssens-example

Customer Operations Coordinator · B2B SaaS onboarding

Profile

Customer-operations coordinator with four years of experience handling B2B onboarding and support workflows. Works across Dutch, French and English and translates recurring customer issues into product-ready documentation.

Experience

Customer Support Specialist — ExampleCloud SRL, Brussels · 2023–2026

• Resolved an average of 38 weekly onboarding cases across email and chat; categorised recurring issues for monthly product review.
• Rewrote 12 help-centre articles with product and sales colleagues; recorded the change in the fictional team's editorial log.
• Prepared concise escalation notes for technical cases, including reproduction steps, account context and customer impact.

Support Assistant — Northstar Services SA, Brussels · 2022–2023

• Maintained the knowledge-base change log and summarised weekly case themes for the team lead.
• Coordinated customer follow-ups after hand-offs between support and sales.

Education

Professional Bachelor in Office Management — Example Institute, Belgium · 2022

Languages

Dutch — B2 professional use · French — B2 professional use · English — C1 professional use *(fictional self-assessment)*

Tools

CRM case management · help-centre publishing · spreadsheet reporting

*The sample person, contact details, employer and metrics are entirely fictional.*

A five-step vacancy evidence check

Actiris advises applicants to compare the organisation, function, candidate profile and working conditions with their own knowledge, training, experience, skills, personal strengths and motivation. Turn that comparison into a small ledger before editing:

Tailoring means choosing and explaining relevant truth. It does not mean changing employers, dates, qualifications, work authorisation or language ability to resemble the vacancy.

Where Belgium's vacancies were in Q1 2026

Statbel counted 140,462 vacancies in Belgian enterprises in Q1 2026: 65.73% in Flanders, 21.39% in Wallonia and 12.88% in Brussels-Capital. The survey covers enterprises with at least one employee but excludes households, self-employed activity and extraterritorial organisations such as EU institutions and NATO. The shares describe where surveyed vacancies were located; they do not measure your chance of being hired, remote work, application language or the quality of any regional service. Statbel job-vacancy survey.

Final submission checklist

• Does the language match the vacancy or portal instruction?
• Is the CV one or two pages, with only role-relevant evidence?
• Are recent experience and strongest evidence easy to find?
• Is every date, qualification, language level and result defensible?
• Have you removed sensitive or unnecessary personal details?
• If a photo is requested, is that request clear and is the image professional?
• Does the PDF contain selectable text in a logical reading order?
• Do portal fields match the uploaded CV?
• Have you checked foreign-degree or regulated-profession requirements with the competent authority?
• Have you saved the exact version submitted and the vacancy text?

For a broader workflow, compare CV and LinkedIn alignment, remote-job CV keywords, ATS checker versus resume builder, and CV formats for fresh graduates.

Research method and limits

This article was rebuilt from a Gemini Deep Research dossier and then independently checked against Belgian and EU primary sources by the Airesume editorial workflow. We compared current Dutch, French, German and English guidance rather than translating one region's convention into a national rule. Major job boards and recruiter pages were used only as market context. We do not claim first-hand recruiting experience, legal advice or guaranteed hiring outcomes.