Brussels companies: recover up to EUR 4,000 of your course
Read this first, because it decides everything: the Prime Formation of the Brussels-Capital Region is paid to companies, not to private individuals and not to jobseekers. If you run an SME with an establishment in Brussels, or you are self-employed through your own company, the region can reimburse 40 to 80% of a Code Labs Academy course, up to around EUR 4,000 per enrolment. No provider accreditation is needed for us to be billed. One rule beats all the others: the application must be filed before the training starts.
What the Brussels training grant is, and who it is actually for
The Prime Formation, also called the opleidingspremie in Dutch, is a direct subsidy from the Brussels-Capital Region to Brussels SMEs that buy external training for their staff or their director. It sits inside the region's economic-expansion aid framework and is administered by Bruxelles Économie et Emploi at the regional public service. The beneficiary is always the company. A Brussels resident who wants to pay for a bootcamp out of their own pocket cannot use this scheme, and neither can a jobseeker, so if that is you, skip to the last tab on this page: there are other routes, they are just not this one. The people this page is written for are the founders, managing directors and HR leads of Brussels companies, including the very large number of one-person companies and self-employed directors who invoice through their own structure. For them the arithmetic is genuinely good. The base rate is 40% of eligible costs, rising to 70 or 80% for younger companies, for firms recognised as socially or environmentally exemplary, and for establishments in a development zone. Eligible costs are capped at EUR 5,000 per training, so one enrolment brings back roughly EUR 2,000 to EUR 4,000, and a company can stack applications up to 10 trainings and EUR 20,000 of subsidy per calendar year. What makes this the most usable public scheme we have found in Belgium is what it does not ask for. There is no Brussels register of approved training providers to be listed in, no quality label to hold, and no local presence to prove. The provider simply has to have training as its main activity, to have existed for at least two years, to be independent of the company applying, and to invoice that company directly. Code Labs Academy meets those conditions, which is why our invoice can go into a Brussels file today. Our German AZAV certification is not what unlocks this one, and it does not need to be. Two things deserve honesty rather than a sales line. First, the region assesses each file on its merits, so nothing here is an entitlement: an application can be refused and the administration has the final word. Second, live online teaching is not excluded anywhere in the rules, but the rules do not spell out and guarantee that format either, so state plainly in your file that our classes are taught live by an instructor in a virtual classroom at fixed times, and ask the administration to confirm it before you commit. And then there is the rule that costs people this money more often than any eligibility test: the application has to reach the administration at the latest the day before the training starts. Not the day of. Not the week after your colleague enrolled. Get that order right and the rest is paperwork.
The applicant is a company, never a private person. The grant is paid to an SME with an establishment unit in the Brussels-Capital Region. If you are a Brussels resident paying for your own course as an individual, this scheme is closed to you and the last tab on this page tells you what is open instead.
Self-employed through your own company? You qualify as the company. One-person companies count, and a director who upskills or retrains in tech through their own structure is a normal beneficiary here, not an edge case. Self-employed status without a company, and jobseekers, fall outside the scheme entirely.
The training is for your staff or your director. The learner has to belong to the company that applies, and the training has to serve the company: the eligible domains include technical and digital skills, economic development and economic transition, as well as management, marketing, languages and legal training. Our bootcamps sit in the technical and digital domain.
Your sector has to fall inside the regional aid framework. The Prime Formation sits within the region's economic-expansion aid rules, which exclude certain activities. Check this against your own NACE code before you plan around the money, because it is one of the few things that can stop a file that otherwise looks perfect.
No accreditation is required from us, and we meet the provider conditions. The region asks that the training provider has training as its main activity (NACE 85), has existed for at least two years, is independent of the company applying, and invoices that company directly. Code Labs Academy satisfies all four. There is no Brussels list to be on, so a foreign online provider is not excluded.
Approval is not automatic. The administration assesses each application individually and can refuse one. Treat the grant as money you have applied for, not money you have, and never build a cash-flow plan that only works if it is granted.
Frequently asked questions
I live in Brussels and want to pay for the course myself. Can I use this grant?
No. The Prime Formation is an aid to companies, and the file is submitted by a company with an establishment unit in the Brussels-Capital Region for the training of its own staff or its director. There is no private-individual version of it, and applying as a natural person does not work. If you have your own company, even a one-person one, then you are on the right page and you apply through it. If you do not, your realistic routes are your employer, the Cevora premium if your payslip shows Joint Committee 200, and paying the fee yourself with our interest-free monthly instalments, up to 60 payments made directly to Code Labs Academy, or the discount for paying upfront.
Our course already started. Can we still apply?
No, and this is the hard edge of the scheme. The application has to reach the administration at the latest the day before the training starts. A file introduced on the first day of the course, or afterwards, is out of time, and no amount of good documentation repairs it. The good news is that the fix is cheap if you catch it early: we run several intakes a year, so pick the next one, file the application while there is still room before the start date, and enrol once the file is in. Filing before you start does not mean waiting for the decision, which can take up to four months and often arrives once the cohort is already running.
Do you hold a Brussels accreditation? Does a German online provider count?
There is no Brussels accreditation to hold for this scheme, which is exactly why it works for us. The region does not keep a register of approved training providers here and does not require any regional label or local presence. What it asks is that the provider has training as its main activity (NACE 85), has existed for at least two years, is independent of the company applying, and invoices that company directly. Code Labs Academy meets all four, and a foreign provider is not excluded. Our German AZAV certification is irrelevant to this particular scheme, and that is a good thing rather than a gap: no accreditation gate means nothing to fail. The one point to settle in your file is the delivery format. Live distance learning is not restricted by the rules, but it is not explicitly guaranteed either, so describe the live virtual classroom in the application and ask the administration to confirm it accepts the format.
What happens if the application is refused?
Ask for the reason in writing, because most of the refusals people describe are structural rather than a judgement on the training. The recurring ones are timing (the file arrived on or after the start date), the applicant (a natural person instead of a company, or an establishment outside the Brussels-Capital Region), and sector eligibility under the regional aid framework. The administration assesses each file individually and has the final word, so approval is never automatic. A refusal for a fixable reason usually means a fresh application for a later intake rather than the end of the road. And if the grant does not come through at all, the course still runs: your company can buy the training as an ordinary business expense, and we offer instalments spread over up to 60 interest-free monthly payments made directly to us.
How much do we actually get back on a EUR 17,000 programme?
Not 40 to 80% of EUR 17,000, and this is the number people get wrong most often. The percentage applies to eligible costs that are capped at EUR 5,000 per training, so the grant on one enrolment lands somewhere around EUR 2,000 at the base rate and up to about EUR 4,000 at the highest rate, whatever the sticker price. On a course priced near that EUR 5,000 ceiling the subsidy covers a large share of the bill. On our longer and more expensive programmes it is a substantial contribution rather than full funding, and your company carries the rest. A company can, however, stack up to 10 trainings and up to EUR 20,000 of subsidy per calendar year, so a team of several people is where this scheme really pays.
Can we send several people, or does the director have to be the one training?
Either works. The grant covers external training for staff and for the company's director, so a founder who is retraining in data or security and two developers doing a web development bootcamp can all be covered, up to the annual limits of 10 trainings and EUR 20,000 of subsidy per calendar year. Each enrolment is its own training and needs its own application, filed before that person's own start date, with a minimum of EUR 300 per application. If you are planning a group, tell us early: we can issue a single quote per participant with the dates and hours each file needs, and align start dates so the administrative work happens once instead of five times.
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