The number of French residents crossing the border to work in Belgium has continued to climb, highlighting the growing importance of cross-border employment to both
countries’ labour markets.
Nearly 52,000 cross-border workers were employed in Belgium by the middle of 2025, according to figures from Belgium’s official health insurer analysed by HR services group SD Worx. French nationals accounted for the overwhelming majority, with almost 40,000 people travelling from France to work in Belgium.
The Netherlands was the second-largest source of cross-border labour, with just over 10,000 Dutch residents working in Belgium. Germany accounted for roughly 1,000 workers, while several hundred came from Luxembourg.
The number of French cross-border workers has risen steadily over the past decade. There were just over 39,000 in 2024, compared with slightly more than 36,000 ten years earlier. In 2007, the figure stood at just under 30,000.
Much of this workforce is concentrated in Belgium’s southern provinces. Hainaut and Namur employ the largest numbers of French cross-border workers, although the trend extends well beyond the immediate border regions.
West Flanders had 3,157 French cross-border workers by mid-2025, while East Flanders recorded another 2,356, underlining the wider reach of the cross-border labour market.
The flow is considerably larger in the opposite direction. More than 85,000 people living in Belgium were working abroad as cross-border employees by mid-2025, although this represented a modest decline from the previous year.
Luxembourg remained by far the main destination, employing more than 48,000 Belgian cross-border workers — over half of the total. The Netherlands ranked second, with more than 21,000 Belgians working there.
However, the number of Belgian workers commuting to the Netherlands has continued to fall, pointing to a changing balance in the region’s cross-border labour market.
The figures underline the increasingly interconnected nature of employment across Belgium’s borders, with thousands of workers now routinely living in one country while earning their salaries in another.