How to get and use restaurant titles?

The employer is not obliged to hand over restaurant vouchers to its employees. It can also choose:

• provide them with a canteen or a dining room
• or pay them a lunch premium.

If your employer has chosen to award restaurant vouchers, you are entitled to one meal voucher included in your daily work schedule, whether you are an employee (full-time or part-time), a trainee or an acting employee.

You do not have to accept restaurant vouchers, unless a collective agreement provides for it for all employees. If you do not wish to use titles, it is recommended that you inform your employer in writing.

The restaurant voucher is partially financed by the employer, who pays for it between 50% and 60% of its value.

Your employer can give you titles in several formats:

• Checkbook Paper Tickets
• Prepaid and rechargeable smart card (usable in the same terminals as bank cards)
• Access an app on your mobile phone (smartphone).

When you have a card or app on your smartphone, you can freely access (by SMS for example) the balance of your personal restaurant voucher account.

Restaurant titles are personal. You're the only person who can use it.

You can use your restaurant titles business days only, unless you have to work on Sundays or public holidays.

You can pay for all or part of your meal with your restaurant vouchers

• in restaurants and certain similar shops (cold cuts, caterers, bakeries, food distribution shops, etc.)
• and with fruit and vegetable retailers.

Titles are valid for food that is immediately edible or that will be used to prepare your meal:

• prepared dishes or salads,
• sandwiches,
• fruits and vegetables, dairy products, etc.

Restaurants and shops are not obliged to accept restaurant vouchers. Each store chain sets its own list of products payable by restaurant title. So there can be differences from one brand to another.

You can use your restaurant titles within the limit of €19 per day.

When you use a card or an app on your smartphone, you are charged the exact amount to pay.

If you use paper securities, the merchant has no right to give you back the money.

You can only pay for your meals by voucher in the department where you work and in the neighboring departments. Your employer may grant you credentials valid outside these limits if you are traveling on business.

Restaurant vouchers can be used during the calendar year of their issue and in January and February of the following year.

If you have not used them all, you must return them to your employer within 15 days of the end of their period of validity. You will get an equal number of titles valid for the current year.

If you leave your business with unused restaurant vouchers, you can claim a refund from your employer.

The employer freely determines the amount of the discharge value (face value) of the restaurant vouchers.

The title restaurant is partly financed by the employer, who must pay for it between 50% and 60% of its value. He stays between 40% and 50% the value of the ticket paid by the employee.

A company that decides to set up a system of restaurant vouchers for its staff must obtain them from one of the private companies specializing in the issue of the vouchers.

The employer must make the payment of the order of the restaurant vouchers at the latest on delivery of the vouchers and for the full value of their release.

The company issuing the securities must refund those presented to it by the restaurateurs and traders authorized to accept them in the course of their commercial activity, within a maximum period of 21 days from the delivery date.

In order to be exempt from social security contributions, the employer's contribution must be within the €5.55 by title for 2020 titles.

If the employer's contribution exceeds this limit (which is not prohibited), the portion of the contribution exceeding the legal ceiling is reinstated in the company's social security contributions base.