Households with their own water source will see changes in their wastewater treatment payments starting from levy year 2026. Not all households will continue to receive a levy notice from the VMM (Flemish Environment Agency).
Those living in an individually optimizable rural area (red cluster on the zoning plan) will continue to pay a water pollution levy to the VMM. These households will receive their levy notice for 2026 this week.
Residents in a central area or collective rural area will no longer pay a levy to the VMM from 2026. Instead, their water company will charge them an inter-municipal sanitation fee for the purification of wastewater from their own water source. This fee will be in addition to the municipal fee already charged for wastewater discharge.
Households that will no longer pay a VMM levy from 2026 will receive a letter this week with further explanation. For questions regarding the sanitation fee charges, they can contact their water company.
For those receiving a levy notice, the payment term is two months from the dispatch date. The VMM applies the social tariff and the exemption for an individual treatment system (IBA) as much as possible automatically. If this is not applied correctly, affected individuals can apply for the social tariff or exemption themselves.
The revenue from the levy contributes to the costs of water purification.
