Electronic registrations of presences on construction sites: also for moderate works

In order to tackle fiscal fraud and social dumping in the construction sector, all workers present on construction sites need to register their presence daily, by electronic means, to the national social security administration (ONSS). The administration must indeed be able to have a clear vision of the people present on a construction site and carry out controls accordingly.

This system, called ‘check-in at work’ was previously applicable for projects where the cumulative value of the construction works  was superior to 800.000 € (excl. VAT); this threshold has now been lowered to 500.000 €. All construction sites without exception should be concerned as from January 1st, 2018.

Under “Construction work” is understood any work of construction, transformation, completion, development, restoring, maintenance, cleaning and demolition of all or part of a building.

The people which have to check-in are the main contractor, the sub-contractor, the employer, the private contractor, the project manager in charge of the conception as well as the manager controlling the execution or the safety coordinator. As a reminder, the intervention of a safety coordinator is mandatory on all construction sites where more than one contractor is working, even if these various contractors are never simultaneously present on the site.

Therefore, each person working on the site will have to register and there will always be someone responsible for the enforcement of the registration system.

Sanctions in case of infringement are very harsh; the administrative fines can go from 600 € for the worker or the private contractor who didn’t register, up to 6.000 € for the project manager or the neglectful employers (fine to be multiplied by the number of people infringing the measure!).

If you wish to have more information on this subject, do not hesitate to contact Mr. Carl Vander Espt (carl.vanderespt@cairnlegal.be).

Best regards, The Cairn Legal team.

Partners Frédéric de Patoul | Frank Weinand | Didier Chaval | Bernard Vandenkerckhove | Carl Vander Espt | Arnaud Massart | Guillaume Rue | Jonas Deryckere

Associates Dorothée Cardon de Lichtbuer | Virginie Schoonheyt | Bojana Salovic | Stoffel Werbrouck