A workplace accident during your student job: what to do in the first eight days

In short

Every employer in the Belgian private sector must be affiliated with an approved workplace accident insurer. That applies to you as a student worker, and it applies to the hours inside your 650-hour allowance as well. An accident at work and an accident on the way to or from work are both covered. You have only one obligation, and it is a small one: report the accident to your employer as soon as possible. Your employer then has eight days to file the claim with the insurer, counting from the day after the accident. The insurer reimburses your medical costs at the national health insurance rate and, if you cannot work, pays a daily allowance of 90 per cent of your average daily pay. If you work through a staffing agency, that agency is your employer and files the claim.

You probably recognise the situation

A shift in a warehouse near Antwerp, half past six in the evening, a wet floor by the loading dock. You slip, you break the fall with your wrist, and you think it is nothing. You finish the shift, you go home, and three days later you cannot turn your hand. At that point the question is no longer whether it hurts, but whether anyone reported that accident.

That is exactly where things go wrong for student workers. Not with the serious accidents, which always get reported. With the ones that look trivial at the time.

Are you insured as a student worker?

Yes. Every private sector employer must be affiliated with an approved workplace accident insurer, writes Fedris, the federal agency for occupational risks. That obligation does not depend on your type of contract, on the number of hours you work, or on your age.

This is worth stressing, because social protection in student work does not always follow that logic. Inside your 650-hour allowance you pay the solidarity contribution, and that is why you do not build up holiday pay, according to Student@work. Workplace accidents work differently: your employer's duty to insure is separate from the contribution deducted from your wage. You are covered from your first hour.

Does the journey to work count?

Yes. Fedris describes the victim as the worker who has an accident at the workplace or on the way to or from work. That second case matters more for students than for almost anyone else: you drive to a shift that starts at six in the morning, you cycle home from a hospitality job at night, and you often do both in the dark and in winter.

If you fall on that journey, it is not a private accident to settle with your own insurer. It belongs in the same declaration.

What do you do in the first hours?

One thing, and you are the only person who can do it: report the accident to your employer as soon as possible.

Fedris adds explicitly that reporting matters even when there is no immediate discomfort and the work does not have to be interrupted, because the consequences of an accident can surface later. That is the sentence that rescues the wrist from our opening.

Then do this:

• Have a doctor record the injuries if there is anything at all to record. That medical certificate of first findings belongs with the declaration and goes to the insurer as soon as it is available.
• Tell the doctor or the hospital that this is a workplace accident. The bill then goes straight to the insurer and you do not have to pay up front.
• Write down what happened, with the time, the place and any witnesses. It feels excessive until an insurer asks about it three weeks later.
• If you work through a staffing agency, call the agency, even if you have already reported the accident on site. Your employer is the agency, not the company where you are standing.

What is the deadline for the declaration?

The employer must declare the accident to the workplace accident insurer within eight days, counting from the day after the accident. That is the Fedris rule, and it is the only deadline you really need to remember.

Three qualifications go with it:

• A minor workplace accident is not declared but recorded. It is an accident where first aid within the company was enough, no doctor had to be involved, and there was no incapacity for work and no loss of pay. Those three conditions apply together. Such an accident goes into the first aid register, and the eight-day deadline does not apply to it.
• Does your condition worsen afterwards? The accident must then still be declared, within eight days counting from the day the employer was informed about it. Here too the ball is in your court: you have to say that things are getting worse.
• The eight-day deadline is not a cut-off. Even once it has passed, the accident must still be declared, at the latest within the three-year limitation period. An employer who declares late or not at all can face criminal prosecution.

What does the insurer pay if the accident is accepted?

Three things, and it helps to know what you are entitled to before you start an argument.

Medical and pharmaceutical costs are reimbursed at the national health insurance rate. Supplements stay with you. If a specialist charges thirty euros for a consultation worth 23.15 euros at that rate, you get 23.15 euros back and pay 6.85 euros yourself, as Securex illustrates.

Travel costs for medical reasons, for example to a physiotherapist, are reimbursed at 0.4427 euro per kilometre in 2026, provided the return journey is at least five kilometres. On public transport you hand in the ticket and the actual price is refunded.

A daily allowance for temporary incapacity, at 90 per cent of your average daily pay. That average daily pay is your reference wage divided by 365, and the allowance runs per calendar day, weekends included. For 2026 the law sets a minimum and a maximum on that reference wage: 8,666.78 euros and 58,096.10 euros. Social security contributions of 13.07 per cent and withholding tax of 11.11 per cent are deducted from the daily allowance.

That last point explains something that surprises many students. A student worker rarely works a full year, so the reference wage the insurer calculates with rarely comes close to a full-time annual salary. The legal minimum of 8,666.78 euros is therefore not a detail. It is precisely the floor that keeps your allowance at a reasonable level.

Who is your employer if you work through an agency?

The staffing agency. Legally that agency is your employer: it takes out the workplace accident insurance, organises the health assessment and informs you about the workstation sheet. The company where you actually work, the user, draws up that sheet, checks your qualifications, supplies the protective equipment and work clothing, handles your induction and training, and appoints a mentor. That is how Securex sets it out, based on the Belgian temporary agency work act of 24 July 1987 and the well-being act.

This split is not an administrative curiosity. It decides who you call. If you report an accident only to the team leader on site and not to the agency, there is a real chance the declaration stays with someone who is not responsible for it.

What if your employer does nothing?

If the employer refuses to declare the accident, or does not do so in time, your rights as a victim remain intact. Fedris advises contacting the agency itself as soon as possible in that case.

If the employer is not insured at all, every accident at the workplace or on the way to and from work must be declared to Fedris. If the accident is recognised, Fedris compensates you as an insurance company would, then recovers all amounts paid out from the employer and charges a contribution for compulsory affiliation. The employer can also face criminal prosecution.

In other words: an uninsured employer has a problem, and it is not your problem.

What changes on 1 January 2027?

One practical point, mostly for employers. Today a declaration can still go through the social security portal. That option disappears from 1 January 2027, Fedris announces. From then on the declaration goes directly to the workplace accident insurer.

For you as a student nothing changes about the eight-day deadline or about your duty to report. But it is the kind of change that makes a January declaration sit around longer than a December one. One more reason to ask yourself whether the file has actually gone out.

Conclusion

A workplace accident is one of the few subjects in student work where you are legally in a strong position without having to arrange anything. The insurance is compulsory, the commute is covered, the deadlines are fixed, and an employer who ignores the obligations damages themselves rather than you.

What you do have to do yourself fits on one line: report it, even if it looks like nothing, and report it to the right employer. Everything else follows from that.

Ready to start?

Looking for a student job where the paperwork and the insurance are in order from day one? Register free of charge as a student at https://www.recruitastudent.be/be-en/vacatures/inschrijven, or browse our current vacancies first at https://www.recruitastudent.be/be-en/vacatures. CV not ready yet? You can put one together in fifteen minutes with our CV generator at https://www.recruitastudent.be/be-en/cv-generator/cv-maken.

Recruit a Student is the specialist student staffing agency of Belgium. We are your employer, which means the accident insurance, the report and the declaration land with us, not with you.

Student jobs throughout Belgium, including near you

We have two offices in Belgium, in Antwerp and in Brussels, plus a student pool in Ghent. From Antwerp we also place students in Zeeland. Our candidate pool holds 500 active students, and we have been active in Belgium since 2015, starting with the logistics process at Brussels Airport. That is well over ten years of experience with exactly the kind of questions in this article.

Personal contact at our offices

Would you rather talk to someone than fill in a form? You can.

• Antwerp: Silversquare Antwerp Tower, Frankrijklei 5 (401), 2000 Antwerp. Soukayna Theijs, known as Suki, is your contact: `soukayna@recruitastudent.be`
• Brussels: Silversquare North, Koning Albert II Laan 4, 1000 Brussels. Max Pierre is your contact: `max@recruitastudent.be`

Phone: `+32 14 15 17 35`. WhatsApp: `+32 475 555 299`. Email: `info@recruitastudent.be`. Or ask us to call you back at https://www.recruitastudent.be/be-en/contact/contact-voor-studenten.

Frequently asked questions

Am I insured as a student worker, even within the 650 hours?

Yes. Every private sector employer must be affiliated with an approved workplace accident insurer, according to Fedris. That obligation is separate from the hours allowance and from the solidarity contribution.

Within what deadline must my employer declare the accident?

Within eight days, counting from the day after the accident. If that deadline has passed, the declaration must still be made, at the latest within the three-year limitation period.

Does an accident on the way to my shift count as well?

Yes. Fedris counts both the accident at the workplace and the accident on the way to or from work as workplace accidents.

I fell but it seemed like nothing. Should I report it anyway?

Yes. Fedris explicitly points out that reporting matters even without immediate discomfort and without interrupting work, because the consequences can surface later. If your condition then deteriorates, a fresh eight-day period runs from the moment your employer knows about it.

How much do I receive if the accident keeps me from working?

The daily allowance is 90 per cent of your average daily pay, meaning your reference wage divided by

1. For 2026 that reference wage sits legally between 8,666.78 euros and 58,096.10 euros. Social

security of 13.07 per cent and withholding tax of 11.11 per cent are deducted from the allowance.

I work through a staffing agency. Who files the declaration?

The agency, because it is legally your employer. The agency also takes out the insurance and informs you about the workstation sheet. The company where you work draws up that sheet and handles induction, training and protective equipment.

My employer is not insured. Am I left with nothing?

No. In that case the declaration goes to Fedris. If the accident is recognised, Fedris compensates you as an insurer would and afterwards recovers the amounts from the employer.