The Investment Officers of Flanders Investment & Trade are your first contact, when looking into Flanders to set up a business. They will provide you with tailor-made information you are looking for. You can find your Investment Officer in Brussels via www.investinflanders.com
When looking deeper into the opportunities the different Flemish provinces have to offer you, the local accountmanager of Enterprise Flanders will assist the FIT Investment Officer in
Wondering how to set up a business in Flanders and what procedures you have to comply with?
Then contact Enterprise Flanders. Our account managers will inform you about formalities to be fulfilled and offer you their experience to guide you with practical advice.
You may also learn more via following portals and documents:
Both Regional (Flanders) and Federal (Belgium) authorities offer support under the form of direct subsidies and fiscal measures.
Fiscal incentives belong to the core business of the Federal Authorities. The most important are
The Regional Authorities support new and existing companies with subsidies given by their different agencies such as Enterprise Flanders, IWT and PMV. They also provide in risk capital.
Enterprise Flanders offers you different products, the most important are
IWT - The Agency for Innovation by Science and Technology
encourages innovation in Flanders though financial support, networking and by facilitating international cooperation. To this end IWT support both small and large businesses, organizations, research centers and researchers via different support programmes. Get acquainted with the IWT support via www.iwt.be
PMV
offers financing solutions to all companies that operate in Flanders. They cover a company’s entire development cycle, from its earliest inception to its growth and internationalisation. Depending on the situation or the purpose of the SME or large company in question, PMV offers risk capital, guarantees for capital loans, advantageous loans or investments via external funds. Learn more about PMV support via www.pmv.eu.
Business centers and business incubators in Flanders
Flanders has dozens of business centers and business incubators, spread over its 5 provinces. These centers are excellent locations to start and to grow your company, and they offer several kinds of facilities for rent: business offices, semi-industrial units or storage rooms. Some of these business centers also provide specific support services, such as a general reception, telephone services, a secretariat, meeting room facilities, etc. Others only offer rooms for rent. In comparison to the conventional real estate market (with rigid contracts), these centers are characterized by their flexibility: one can rent for a short period, end the tenacy on a short notice or easily move to a larger or smaller unit if preferred.
Some of these centers – the so called Innovation & Incubation Centers – are intended only for companies specialized in innovation & research.
To facilitate your search, Enterprise Flanders has published a useful sitemap per province of these business centers. By visiting the individual websites, you will find out more about the availability and the services offered by each center.
In case you might have particular needs, the staff of Enterprise Flanders will be pleased to offer you any assistance. If needed, they can even organize site visits during your prospecting time.
Or are you rather looking for appropriate business premises? No problem, Enterprise Flanders has an up-to-date and accurate inventory of available business premises in Flanders.
Industrial area’s in Flanders
Enterprise Flanders manages a geographic information system, designed to capture, store, manipulate, analyze, manage and present all types of geographically referenced data. Especially, Enterprise Flanders manages an updated geographic inventory of industrial sites available for industrial and/or logistic investment projects.
Apart from this, we maintain a close relationship with municipalities, project developers, investment companies and real estate agencies offering business real estate (parcels of land, projects and buildings), enabling us to propose to you tailor-made buildings (office space, industrial and logistic buildings).
Our accountmanagers are stand-by to find the most suitable solution for your project ; apart from screening possible solutions they will organise site-visits and bring you in contact with local organisations and possible partners.
Meanwhile, as a general introduction to our local trump cards, have a look at following maps
‘International and European Schools in Flanders and Brussels’
Flanders’ education system has an excellent reputation. According to the PISA surveys (Programme for International Student Assessment, OECD) ranking students from 70 different regions/countries, our students are amongst the best. For mathematics for example, only Finland is doing better in the Western world, and for sciences, only Finland and Lituania are performing better.
Official schools (depending from local authorities or from indepent organisations) provide education in Dutch. They are open to every child, and have a great expertise in foreign kids, thanks to the openess of our society (about 10 % of the population in Flanders does not speak Dutch at home). They are free of charge.
Apart from our official local schools, we also house a wide range of International Schools, thanks to the presence of the EU, the NATO Headquarters and many foreign companies in our country. Certain of them have an official background, such as the Japanese or European Schools, other are privately run.
They all offer excellent education in a foreign language. We herewith offer you a non-limitative list of International Schools in Flanders, Brussels and the surrounding area.
Koning Albert II-laan | 35 bus 12 |
1030 | Brussels |
T | 0800 20 555 |
