Skip to main content
Country Guide Known as “CV”

Belgian CV Format: How to Write a Belgian CV (2026)

Navigating the Belgium job market requires a document that matches local expectations. The standard Belgian CV format is concise, structured, and built around conventions that differ from the North American resume.

Length is a key signal in Belgium: 1–2 A4 pages; 1 page for graduates and junior roles, up to 2 for experienced professionals..

Belgian recruiters value concise, well-structured CVs.. The photo rule is Common and often expected. Belgian companies traditionally expect a professional headshot on the CV, especially in corporate and banking roles..

It is not legally required, but omitting it can look unusual in traditional sectors.. Dates follow Day / Month / Year (DD/MM/YYYY, e.g. 12/06/2025) or written as “June 2025”. Belgium follows the European convention; never write MM/DD/YYYY.. These are the details recruiters notice first, so they anchor this guide.

Personal details follow a clear local standard: Name, phone (with +32 from abroad), professional email, city, and LinkedIn URL. Date of birth and marital status are optional and increasingly dropped..

Never include your national register number (rijksregisternummer / numéro de registre national), bank details, or religion.. Section order matters too:.

Contact details → Personal profile or objective (2–4 lines) → Work experience (reverse-chronological) → Education → Skills (technical + languages) → Certifications → References (“References available on request” is accepted). Recent graduates may put Education before Work experience.. Each section below explains the reasoning behind the rule, not just the rule itself.

This guide covers the Belgian CV format end to end, with example content for software engineer at every career level. Use it to write a cv that passes the first screening.

Use This CV Example Build Your CV Free

Belgian CV Format at a Glance

Document type
CV: “CV” is the standard term in Belgium. Language follows the region: Dutch in Flanders, French in Wallonia, and either (plus English) in Brussels and international companies. A cover letter is expected for most roles.
Typical length
1–2 A4 pages; 1 page for graduates and junior roles, up to 2 for experienced professionals. Belgian recruiters value concise, well-structured CVs.
Photo
Common and often expected. Belgian companies traditionally expect a professional headshot on the CV, especially in corporate and banking roles. It is not legally required, but omitting it can look unusual in traditional sectors.
Date format
Day / Month / Year (DD/MM/YYYY, e.g. 12/06/2025) or written as “June 2025”. Belgium follows the European convention; never write MM/DD/YYYY.
Paper size
A4.
Personal details
Name, phone (with +32 from abroad), professional email, city, and LinkedIn URL. Date of birth and marital status are optional and increasingly dropped. Never include your national register number (rijksregisternummer / numéro de registre national), bank details, or religion.
Section order
Contact details → Personal profile or objective (2–4 lines) → Work experience (reverse-chronological) → Education → Skills (technical + languages) → Certifications → References (“References available on request” is accepted). Recent graduates may put Education before Work experience.
ATS friendliness
High; Belgian multinationals and EU institutions (Europa, NATO, UCB, Solvay, Colruyt, plus Google and Amazon offices) screen with ATS. Use standard headings, a clean single column, and PDF export. Mirror keywords from the job description.

Belgian CV Examples

Real Belgian CVs written to these conventions across three experience levels. Switch tabs to review each, then load it straight into the builder to make it your own.

T

Thomas Peeters

Software Engineer (Graduate)

Entry Level [email protected] Brussels, Belgium

Professional Summary

Entry Level software engineer (graduate) with experience at Colruyt Group (Halle) and Team.blue (Ghent) in Brussels, Belgium. Skilled in Kotlin, Java and Spring Boot, with a focus on reliability and clean architecture. Following the standard Belgian CV format.

Work Experience

Software Engineer (Graduate)
07/2025 – Present

Colruyt Group (Halle) · Brussels, Belgium

  • Ship customer-facing features in the payments using Kotlin, Java and Spring Boot, following team code review and CI/CD practice.
  • Reduced API response time by 22% by introducing response caching in a payments endpoint.
  • Fixed 40+ production issues across two quarters, maintaining a 99.9% service uptime record.
  • Pair with senior engineers on system design and observability, contributing to the team's on-call rota.
Software Engineering Intern
01/2025 – 06/2025

Team.blue (Ghent) · Brussels, Belgium

  • Built a reporting dashboard in React and Python that cut weekly report generation from 3 hours to 20 minutes.
  • Wrote 60+ unit and integration tests, raising feature coverage on the module to 92%.
  • Presented the project to 150+ staff at the local office; offer extended.

Education

BSc Computer Science
2021 – 2025

KU Leuven · Brussels

Focused on computer science fundamentals, distributed systems, and software engineering.

Skills

TypeScript & JavaScript (Experienced) React & Node.js (Experienced) Python (Skillful) SQL (PostgreSQL) (Skillful) AWS (S3, Lambda) (Skillful) Git & CI/CD (GitHub Actions) (Experienced)

Certifications & Links

  • AWS Cloud Practitioner Essentials
  • GitHub portfolio with 25+ public repositories
  • LinkedIn profile linked in the header
Use This Example

How to Write a Belgian CV: Step-by-Step

1

Open With Contact Details and a Short Personal Profile

Start with your name, phone (use +32 from abroad), a professional email address, city, and LinkedIn URL.

Date of birth and marital status are optional and increasingly dropped.

Never include your national register number (rijksregisternummer / numéro de registre national), bank details, or religion.

Follow with a 2–4 line personal profile:

who you are, your specialism, and what you bring.

Example

"Software Engineer with 4 years' experience building logistics platforms in Brussels. Skilled in Java, Kotlin, and AWS, with a focus on reliability and clean architecture. Fluent in Dutch, French, and English. Seeking a full-time role in a Belgian product team."

Entry Level

Keep the profile to 2–3 lines: your degree, internships, and core languages.

Mid Level

Lead with years of experience, your stack, and the products or teams you have shipped for.

Senior Level

Summarise scope: systems owned, team size led, architecture decisions, and business impact.

2

List Work Experience Reverse-Chronological With Quantified Achievements

List roles most recent first with job title, company, city, and dates in DD/MM/YYYY or month-year format.

Write 3–5 achievement-led bullets per role;

"cut logistics processing time by 40% by introducing caching" beats "responsible for backend development".

Belgian recruiters want results, not responsibilities, so quantify impact in every bullet.

Example

"Software Engineer. Colruyt Group, Brussels, 06/2022 – Present. Migrated a payments service to Kubernetes, cutting deployment time from 40 to 8 minutes and improving on-call resolution by 30%."

Entry Level

Detail internships, thesis projects, and open-source contributions with measurable outcomes.

Mid Level

Quantify features shipped, systems owned, uptime or latency improvements, and team collaboration.

Senior Level

Highlight architecture decisions, team leadership, mentoring, and business impact in revenue or efficiency.

3

Place Education With Belgian Institutions Prominently

Belgian employers recognise the local university system:

KU Leuven, Ghent University, Université Libre de Bruxelles (ULB), UCLouvain, and the University of Antwerp.

List your degree, institution, dates, and grade where strong.

Recent graduates place education before work experience;

experienced engineers keep it after.

Mention certifications (AWS, Azure, Google Cloud) in a separate line.

Example

"MSc Computer Science, KU Leuven, 2018–2020. Thesis: 'Scalable stream processing for logistics analytics' (Grade: magna cum laude)."

Entry Level

Lead with your degree, grades, and thesis or capstone project.

Mid Level

Add professional certifications and any continued education alongside the degree.

Senior Level

Keep education brief; lead with certifications and any leadership training.

4

Show Key Skills and Trilingual Language Assets

Use a short skills section with 6–10 competencies mirroring the job description:

languages (Java, Kotlin, Go, Python, TypeScript), frameworks (React, Spring), and platforms (AWS, GCP, Kubernetes).

Belgian employers value language fluency:

Dutch and French are both spoken, and English dominates in Brussels and tech.

State your CEFR level for each language honestly.

Example

"Java · Kotlin · Go · Python · React · Spring Boot · AWS (S3, Lambda, ECS) · Kubernetes · Terraform · CI/CD (GitHub Actions) · SQL (PostgreSQL) · Dutch (C1) · French (C1) · English (C2)."

Entry Level

List languages and frameworks from coursework and internships honestly.

Mid Level

Add depth: cloud certifications, distributed systems, observability, and testing practice.

Senior Level

Focus on architecture, scaling, security, and leadership skills (system design, incident command, mentoring).

5

Close With References and a Clear Right-To-Work Line

Belgian convention is to write "References available on request" (referenties op aanvraag / références sur demande);

never list referee contact details on the CV itself.

If you are not an EU/EEA citizen, state your work permission clearly:

"Work permit holder" or "EU Blue Card holder".

Belgian employers sponsor work permits for skilled roles, and being upfront about your status saves everyone time.

Example

"References available on request. Right to work: EU Blue Card holder (sponsorship current)."

Entry Level

Use your university careers office and a thesis supervisor or internship mentor as referees.

Mid Level

Prefer two professional referees: a current engineering manager and a senior colleague.

Senior Level

List a director of engineering and a peer tech lead who can verify leadership outcomes.

6

Use Dutch, French, or English; A4; and an ATS-Clean Layout

Dutch is standard in Flanders, French in Wallonia, and English or the local language in Brussels and international companies.

Write in the language of the job ad.

Use A4 with a clean 10–11pt font and 2.54cm margins.

Save as a PDF named Voornaam_Achternaam_CV.pdf.

Use a single column;

Belgian multinationals run ATS and multi-column layouts parse badly.

Proofread carefully.

Example

"Save as Peeters_Thomas_CV.pdf and mention relevant keywords from the job description."

Entry Level

Have your university careers office review the CV before applying.

Mid Level

Check every date and certification is exact; gaps read as hiding something.

Senior Level

Verify all certifications and permits have current dates; keep it to two pages.

What Makes the Belgian Cv Different

To stand out in Belgium, match the local conventions exactly.

The cv here follows 1–2 A4 pages;

1 page for graduates and junior roles, up to 2 for experienced professionals.

Belgian recruiters value concise, well-structured CVs., treats the photo as Common and often expected.

Belgian companies traditionally expect a professional headshot on the CV, especially in corporate and banking roles.

It is not legally required, but omitting it can look unusual in traditional sectors., and formats dates as Day / Month / Year (DD/MM/YYYY, e.g.

12/06/2025) or written as “June 2025”.

Belgium follows the European convention;

never write MM/DD/YYYY..

Write every experience bullet with numbers.

Belgian recruiters compare candidates on measurable outcomes:

latency reduced, revenue grown, costs cut.

Each bullet should start with a strong action verb and end with a quantified result.

Finally, tailor the document to the specific job ad.

Identify the top three requirements and mirror them in your summary, skills, and experience bullets.

Generic CVs are screened out quickly in this market.

Brussels software engineer salaries in 2026 run roughly €30k–€45k for juniors, €45k–€70k for mid-level, and €60k–€110k+ for senior roles (WhatIsTheSalary, 2026), and Brussels hosts the EU institutions, NATO, and major Belgian and multinational employers.

Key Skills Valued in Belgium

Technical Skills

Programming languages relevant to the roleCloud platforms (AWS, GCP, Azure)Container orchestration (Kubernetes, Docker)CI/CD and IaC (GitHub Actions, Terraform)Databases and data pipelines (PostgreSQL, Kafka)Observability (Prometheus, Grafana)

Soft Skills

Clear written and verbal communicationTeam collaboration and code reviewProblem-solving under pressureTime management and delivery focusStakeholder communicationContinuous learning

Keywords and Terminology for Belgian Cvs

Using the right keywords is the only way to pass an ATS screen and reach a human recruiter.

Extract them from the job description and mirror the exact wording:

job title, required skills, and tools.

Job-ad keywords (mirror the wording exactly)Languages and frameworks the team usesPlatforms and tools (cloud, CI/CD, databases)Practice terms (agile, testing, observability)Local qualification and certification terms

How Experience Is Presented in a Belgian Cv

Experience is the core of the document, written reverse-chronologically with the most recent role first.

Each role shows the job title, company, city, and dates, followed by achievement-led bullets with numbers.

Entry Level

Focus on internships, projects, and transferable skills; show reliability and a fast learning curve.

Mid Level

Show ownership: features shipped, systems run, and improvements measured in numbers.

Senior Level

Show scale: teams led, architectures owned, budgets or revenue impact, and mentoring outcomes.

Tailoring Your Cv to Belgian Employers

Tailoring means adjusting the lens, not rewriting your history.

Identify the top three priorities in the job ad and make sure they appear in your summary and your first skills.

Match the ad's language exactly.

Common Belgian Cv Mistakes to Avoid

Avoid these errors that regularly get applications rejected in Belgium:

1. Getting the length wrong: 1–2 A4 pages; 1 page for graduates and junior roles, up to 2 for experienced professionals. Belgian recruiters value concise, well-structured CVs. is the local standard.

2. Ignoring the photo rule: Common and often expected. Belgian companies traditionally expect a professional headshot on the CV, especially in corporate and banking roles. It is not legally required, but omitting it can look unusual in traditional sectors.

3. Using the wrong date format: use Day / Month / Year (DD/MM/YYYY, e.g. 12/06/2025) or written as “June 2025”. Belgium follows the European convention; never write MM/DD/YYYY. consistently.

4. Including personal details that local practice excludes: Name, phone (with +32 from abroad), professional email, city, and LinkedIn URL. Date of birth and marital status are optional and increasingly dropped. Never include your national register number (rijksregisternummer / numéro de registre national), bank details, or religion.

5. Listing duties instead of achievements; quantified results win every time.

Belgium Job Market and Salary Outlook

The Belgium job market in 2026 remains active for software engineers, with demand concentrated in the major cities.

Understanding the typical salary brackets for your level helps you calibrate your examples and negotiate with confidence.

LevelTypical annual salary (EUR, gross)Typical CV length
Entry Level€30,000–€45,0001 page
Mid Level€45,000–€70,0001–2 pages
Senior Level€60,000–€110,000+2 pages

Source: WhatIsTheSalary + Talenture Brussels software engineer salary data, 2026 (approximate gross ranges, see sources)

Key Tips for Writing a Belgian CV

  • Tip 1: Save as a clean, selectable PDF named FirstName_LastName_Role_Cv.pdf.
  • Tip 2: Use a professional email address; never a personal-sounding handle.
  • Tip 3: Include the correct international dialling code on your phone number.
  • Tip 4: Keep the length to the local standard: 1–2 A4 pages; 1 page for graduates and junior roles, up to 2 for experienced professionals. Belgian recruiters value concise, well-structured CVs..
  • Tip 5: Mirror the job ad's keywords verbatim for ATS screens.
  • Tip 6: Have a careers service or a trusted colleague proofread before sending.

Frequently Asked Questions

Do I need a photo on my Belgian CV?

A photo is common and often expected. Belgian companies traditionally expect a professional headshot on the CV, especially in corporate and banking roles. It is not legally required, but omitting it can look unusual in traditional sectors.

Which language should I write my Belgian CV in?

It depends on the region: Dutch in Flanders, French in Wallonia, and English or either language in Brussels and international companies. Write in the language of the job ad, and list your language levels with CEFR grades so recruiters can assess fit quickly.

Should I include my date of birth or national register number on a Belgian CV?

No. Date of birth and marital status are optional and increasingly dropped. Never include your national register number (rijksregisternummer / numéro de registre national), bank details, or religion on a CV, as they are sensitive personal data.

How long should a Belgian CV be?

One to two A4 pages: one page for graduates and junior roles, up to two for experienced professionals. Belgian recruiters value concise, well-structured CVs, so every line must earn its place.

What does a software engineer CV look like in Belgium?

A 1–2 page, ATS-clean single column: contact details, a short personal profile, work experience reverse-chronological with quantified achievements, education (KU Leuven, Ghent, ULB), a keyword-matched skills section with trilingual language levels, and "References available on request".

Brussels tech salaries run roughly €30k–€45k at entry, €45k–€70k mid, and €60k–€110k+ for senior roles, so tailor your examples to the level you are applying for.

Conventions verified for 2026 and based on well-established Belgian recruitment practice.

Sources

Facts on this page are checked against the following authoritative sources.

Related Countries

Netherlands France Germany United Kingdom

Related Resume Guides

Software Engineer Resume Guide Software Developer Resume Guide Full Stack Developer Resume Guide Data Scientist Resume Guide Devops Engineer Resume Guide

Build Your Free Belgian CV

Our AI-powered builder helps you create a professional, ATS-optimized cv in minutes. Choose a template, customize the content, and download as PDF for free.

Start Building Your CV