Belgium’s VAT Receipt Lottery Moves Closer to Reality

Belgium is edging toward an unusual solution to a stubborn problem: a national lottery that rewards diners for asking for a VAT receipt. The country’s National Lottery has drawn up a working proposal at the federal government’s request, aiming to shrink the black economy by turning correct tax behavior into a game — a plan commentators describe as decidedly un-Belgian.

“Politics looks to us to organize a lottery, because we have the necessary knowledge. That’s why we worked out this plan, but it’s up to the government to give a definitive go,” Stephanie Deleul of the Nationale Loterij told Het Laatste Nieuws.

The mechanism is straightforward. A customer at a cafe or restaurant asks for a VAT ticket, which will carry a QR code. Scanning that code through the National Lottery app tells them almost immediately whether they have won. The measure already features on page 44 of the federal coalition agreement, and Finance Minister Jan Jambon confirmed in early 2025 that the government was examining the idea.

A Prerequisite That Pushes the Timeline

The lottery cannot start before a new type of hospitality cash-register system is rolled out, complete with software to print QR codes on receipts. According to the National Lottery, that makes the earliest possible launch July 2027 — or even early 2028. The official start date will be decided by the government.

Prize amounts remain unsettled, but Deleul indicated they will be modest. “It would indeed be a modest cash prize, but exactly how much is not yet fixed. Of course the amounts have to be high enough to encourage people to ask for a VAT receipt. But we can already say it won’t be prizes of €100,000,” she said. Whether a minimum spend will be required to participate is also undecided.

Belgium would not be a pioneer. Malta, Slovenia, Spain, Italy and Portugal already run comparable lotteries, as do South Korea and Mexico.

An ‘Atypical’ Approach for Belgium

Michel Maus, a professor of tax law at the Free University of Brussels (VUB) and an HLN tax expert, called the plan creative by Belgian standards. “Working this creatively is somewhat atypical for Belgium,” he said. “But I’m certainly in favor of the idea, because it’s a preventive measure. It makes people aware of the fact that we simply have to pay taxes here, and it encourages correct behavior.”

Maus framed the shift as a philosophical one. Rather than pouring money into audits and sanctions, the lottery places the emphasis on prevention — an approach he favors. “I think this is at any rate a better idea than all the repressive measures to intensify the fight against fraud. Because that would again cost hundreds of millions of euros,” he said. “In the search for €10 billion for the budget, every euro is welcome.”

The stakes are substantial. According to the Austrian professor Friedrich Schneider’s model, Belgium’s black economy accounted for 17.2 percent of gross domestic product in 2025, or roughly €110 billion. “That is a gigantic amount and also noticeably worse than in our neighboring countries,” Maus said.

Why the White Cash Register Isn’t Watertight

Since 2016, hospitality businesses with annual turnover of at least €25,000 have been required to use a registered cash-register system — the so-called witte kassa, or white cash register. In theory, it ensures all payments are recorded and auditable. In practice, it is widely circumvented.

“A white cash register works perfectly if you ring everything up. But you can still circumvent it in various ways,” Maus said, describing restaurants that claim their card terminals are “conveniently” down and offer cash discounts. “During tax inspections you even see that the plug of the white cash register has simply been pulled out, ‘accidentally by the cleaning crew’ of course.”

Hospitality Sector Pushes Back

Not everyone welcomes the plan. Horeca Vlaanderen, the hospitality federation, argues its sector is being singled out. “We are disappointed because our sector is once again being targeted, while the hospitality sector since 2016 is the only one working with a registered cash-register system,” Matthias De Caluwe told HLN. He called it “a blow in the face of the many thousands of entrepreneurs who have been working correctly for years,” while conceding that “things do go wrong sometimes, as in every sector and every system.”

De Caluwe questioned the lottery as a matter of principle. “Organizing lotteries is in my view not a core task of the government. Rather work on a real level playing field and extend that registered cash register to other sectors,” he said. Even so, he added that if the VAT lottery proceeds, the sector is ready: “With us people already get that receipt anyway, so go eat, drink or stay in a hotel en masse: who knows, you might win some money.”

A Cautionary Precedent

When Jambon first unveiled the idea in February 2025, he pointed to existing international models as proof of concept, telling VRT NWS that “in Portugal we see that VAT revenues have risen by millions thanks to that lottery.” He also stressed that “most businesses are bona fide, but studies by the Court of Audit show that there is also still a certain black circuit. Levying VAT is, after all, mandatory.”

Yet the international record is mixed. Italy introduced its receipt lottery, the ‘Lotteria degli scontrini’, in 2021, and it pays out substantial sums — €36.6 million in 2024, with consumer prizes reaching €5 million annually. But participation has fallen sharply: 25 million receipts took part in 2024, down 3 million from 2023 and more than 100 million from 2021. That decline is a cautionary data point for Belgium as it weighs how generous prizes must be to keep diners asking for their receipts.

What to Watch

Several questions remain open. The government has yet to give its definitive go-ahead, the prize structure is unfixed, and the timeline depends entirely on rolling out new QR-code cash registers across the hospitality industry. Whether a modest cash prize will prove a sufficient incentive — in a country where a similar preventive experiment has never been tried — is the central unknown. For now, the plan offers a rare glimpse of a tax authority trying to reward compliance rather than punish evasion.