No, an amicable debt collection agency can neither seize your belongings nor threaten to. It writes, it phones, and it may turn up at your door after a formal notice and 14 days, but you can refuse the visit. On a card with a credit facility, a reminder costs at most €7.50, plus postage.
Can a debt collection agency come to my home or seize my belongings?
It can ring your bell, it cannot take anything away. Amicable collection means any act aimed at getting an unpaid debt paid without an enforceable title (article I.22/1 of the Code de droit économique, the Belgian Code of Economic Law). Collection agencies must be registered with the FPS Economy, the federal economy ministry. Lawyers and bailiffs do not have to be, according to Wikifin, the financial education site of the FSMA, the financial markets regulator.
Seizing a salary, a car or furniture belongs to another world: it takes a judgment or a notarial deed. People who do amicable collection may never threaten to seize.
In the files I handled, the confusion almost always came from the letterhead. A letter signed by a bailiff's office, at the amicable stage, carries no more force than a reminder from the issuer. The word to look for is judgment. If it is not there, nobody can seize.
In what order do reminder, formal notice and visit arrive?
Always in the same order, and each step opens a period. Book XIX of the Code de droit économique, in force since 1 September 2023 (law of 4 May 2023), sets the timeline. It applies to any late payment of a consumer's debt to a business, with one reservation for credit cards that I detail below.
| Step | Allowed | Your period |
|---|---|---|
| First reminder | Must be free, no penalty | 14 calendar days |
| Second reminder | Late-payment interest and compensation, if the contract provides them | Varies |
| Collector's formal notice | Itemised amount, mention of the right to dispute and to ask for a plan | 14 calendar days |
| Amicable collection acts | Calls, letters, home visit | No call or visit before this period ends |
| Judgment, then bailiff | Seizure | After a court decision |
For a postal letter, the 14 days start on the third working day after dispatch. By electronic means they start the next day, according to the documentation of mediationdedettes.be, the Belgian debt mediation resource site.
If the creditor sent no free reminder before handing the file over, the collector must restart the procedure from the beginning. It cannot skip the step.
What fees can a collector add to an unpaid card?
Less than some statements suggest. The figure to keep: the collector is entitled to no fee for its own intervention. Article XIX.13 forbids it, and the collector must itself check that the amounts claimed respect the caps before writing.
What remains is to know which rules apply to your card. There are two, depending on whether it opens a credit line.
| Your card | Applicable regime | Reminder fee | Late interest | Lump-sum compensation |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Credit facility (carried balance possible) | Book VII, article VII.106 | €7.50 maximum per letter, one letter a month, plus postage | Agreed borrowing rate, plus 10% at most | Only if the contract is terminated or the term is accelerated: 10% of the balance up to €7,500 |
| Deferred debit with no credit | Book XIX, article XIX.4, in principle | First reminder free, then €7.50 maximum plus postage | Policy rate plus 8 points at most | €20 up to €150; €30 plus 10% of the €150 to €500 band; €65 plus 5% above €500 |
I read this split from the rule that a complete specific law applies alone, Book XIX only filling its gaps, as set out by mediationdedettes.be. I did not find it settled in black and white for a deferred-debit card: read it as a cautious reading, not a certainty.
A worked example with the Beobank Visa Classic. Rate checked with the issuer on 6 October 2026: €5 annual fee, APR 14.49%, actuarial borrowing rate 13.98% on a €2,150 credit facility. On a used balance of €900, the minimum monthly payment is one eighteenth, or €50, with a floor of €25.
You miss that €50 payment. At the cap of article VII.106, the issuer can charge interest of about €0.64 a month on the overdue capital (my calculation: 13.98% times 1.10, on €50), and a €7.50 reminder plus postage. No €20 lump sum at this stage.
The 10% compensation only appears if the contract is terminated or the term is accelerated. On €900 of remaining balance, it then caps at €90. Over twelve months of unpaid balance with no termination, the reminders alone would reach €90 at most (12 times €7.50), postage aside: the same order of magnitude as the compensation, but spread out.
Argenta applies the same regime to its Mastercard Green (€24 annual fee, APR 9.50%, rate checked with the issuer on 3 September 2026), with its own borrowing rate as the base for late interest.
Any clause providing penalties not authorised by Book VII is deemed unwritten (VII.106, § 6), and a judge may reduce an excessive penalty of their own motion (VII.213). The text of VII.106 that I could consult dates from July 2021: reread the consolidated version in the Code de droit économique before quoting an amount in a letter.
The issuer must also give you, free of charge, a detailed statement of what it claims, up to three times a year on request. It is the first document to ask for.
What can a collector do, and what is it forbidden to do?
It can phone and write. It cannot harass. After the 14 days, a collector may carry out amicable collection acts: a call, a new letter, a home visit. The limits come from Book XIX and from the list of unfair practices carried over from the 2002 law.
At each home visit, the person identifies themselves, says which collector they represent and for which creditor, and hands you a document stating that you are not obliged to accept the visit and may end it at any time. If you say you have trouble paying, they must explain payment facilities and debt mediation. Any payment collected on the spot gives rise to a receipt.
Forbidden:
- any call or visit between 10 pm and 8 am;
- approaching neighbours, family or employer;
- any collection attempt in front of a third party, unless you agree;
- any inaccurate legal threat or any document suggesting a court origin;
- harassing a debtor who has disputed the debt with reasons;
- any move to make you sign an acknowledgment of debt or a bill of exchange.
What if I dispute the debt or ask for a payment plan?
Write, and within the 14 days. A reasoned dispute or a payment plan request sent during that period blocks any collection act until a decision is taken. If nothing is decided after 30 days, interest stops running in the meantime.
A debt mediation request or an application for collective debt settlement (règlement collectif de dettes) also suspends the acts, for up to 45 days. It is up to you to warn the collector and give it the details of the service concerned.
In the files I handled, cardholders who phoned the collector "to sort it out" had nothing to show afterwards. Those who had written, with the date and the reason, had a document the issuer read. By letter or email, never by phone alone.
If part of the debt is correct, pay it and dispute the rest in writing. That is what mediationdedettes.be recommends.
When do a bailiff and a seizure become possible?
Only after an enforceable title. The creditor must go to court and obtain a judgment, or hold a notarial deed. Some public services, such as the FPS Finance, are an exception and can proceed without a judgment, according to Wikifin, but that does not concern a card issuer.
At the amicable stage, a bailiff cannot apply the tariff of the royal decree of 30 November 1976. A statement that reproduces its lines before any judgment deserves to be disputed.
Does an unpaid card lead to the Credit Register?
Not through a collector's letter alone. For a credit facility, a registered default requires an overdue amount unpaid for three months. Retention periods and the consultation procedure are detailed in the article on the Individual Credit Register.
Who can I turn to if the amount or the behaviour is a problem?
Three doors, depending on the problem. For abusive behaviour by a collector: the FPS Economy contact point, which oversees registered agencies. For a dispute with the issuer itself, after a written complaint: Ombudsfin, the financial services ombudsman, free of charge, non-binding opinion. For a debt the budget can no longer repay: the CPAS of your municipality or an approved debt mediation service, free of charge, which negotiates with creditors.
This article does not replace a qualified service looking at your situation, and no amount given here is personalised advice. To compare the cost of a carried balance card by card, the ranking of Belgian credit cards, the comparison tool and the selection guide use the same checked rates. On a rate rise during the contract, see the article on the bank raising your card rate.
Sources, consulted on 6 October 2026. Book XIX "Consumer debts", law of 4 May 2023: text published in the Moniteur belge. Free reminder, 14 day periods, home visits, suspension on dispute: mediationdedettes.be (2024 content). Compensation caps and ban on collector fees, articles XIX.4 and XIX.13: Les Échos du crédit. Consumer credit, articles VII.106 and VII.213: Credit2Consumer, FPS Economy and VII.213. Registered agencies, no power of seizure: Wikifin and FPS Economy. Banned practices: Droits Quotidiens, 2 February 2018. Mediation: Ombudsfin. Annual fee and APR of the Visa Classic checked on 6 October 2026 on the public page of Beobank; those of the Mastercard Green checked on 3 September 2026 on the site of Argenta. No link in this article is paid for.
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Delphine a passé sept ans au service litiges et rétrofacturation d’un émetteur de cartes belge, à Liège, entre 2015 et 2022 : le bureau où atterrissent les contestations de porteurs, les retraits facturés deux fois et les cautions d’hôtel qui restent bloquées trois semaines. Elle a donc lu, ligne par ligne, plusieurs milliers de relevés de cartes belges, et elle sait où se logent les montants que personne ne regarde avant de signer. Depuis 2023 elle relève chaque trimestre les tarifs publiés des émetteurs belges et tient le tableau de coûts qui sert de base à ce site. Ce qui l’agace : les brochures qui annoncent une carte à 0 € sans mentionner que le premier retrait au distributeur coûte 5 € fixes plus 1,8 % de commission, et que les intérêts courent dès le jour du retrait.