Cleaning and facility services are built on a workforce that is almost impossible to track the traditional way: one cleaner might visit three office buildings in a morning, another works a single site at 5am before anyone else arrives, and none of them clock in at a head office. That scattered, unsupervised pattern is exactly why cleaning is a recurring hotspot for NSSO and SIOD inspections, and why proving hours matters so much. Flexi-jobs suit the sector’s variable demand well, and since 1 July 2026 the scheme is open to almost all sectors, but you must confirm your joint committee (paritair comite) has not opted out before hiring. Once eligibility is clear, the practical problem is capturing hours with no fixed clock. Suivo’s Check-in and out at Work solution lets each worker register arrival and departure from a mobile device at whichever building they are cleaning, giving you a real-time, verified record per site.
Why is the cleaning sector an audit hotspot?
Inspectors focus where hours are hardest to verify, and cleaning ticks every box:
- No fixed workplace. Workers are spread across client buildings, so there is no single site an inspector or an employer can point to for a clock record.
- Unsociable, unsupervised hours. Much cleaning happens early morning or late evening, often with no manager present, so the only proof a shift happened is the record the worker created.
- High share of flexible contracts. The sector leans heavily on part-time, short-shift, and now flexi-job arrangements, each with its own registration rule.
- Easy to under-record. When hours are logged on paper or from memory, the gap between hours booked and hours actually worked is where an inspector finds problems.
Since 1 July 2026, electronic time registration is mandatory for any employer engaging flexi-job workers, and Belgium moves to mandatory working-time registration for all employers from 1 January 2027. For a sector already under scrutiny, a digital record is no longer optional. The FPS Employment requires employers to produce working-hours records on demand for all worker categories, and for flexi-jobs that record must now be electronic.
Can cleaning businesses use flexi-jobs in 2026?
In principle yes, but check your sector first. The 1 July 2026 reform opened flexi-jobs to almost all private and public sectors, replacing the old short list. Each sector can still request a full or partial exclusion, and during the 2026 transition sectors can opt out on a quarterly basis, with opt-outs set by Royal Decree. Before you engage a flexi-job worker, confirm your joint committee’s current position with the FPS Employment or your social secretariat. If your sector has opted out, flexi-jobs are not available to you, and it is better to know that before you plan a roster.
Two things must be in place before anyone starts:
- A written framework agreement (raamovereenkomst) between you and each flexi-job worker, signed before the first shift.
- A same-day Dimona declaration (DimDay) for every shift, filed before the worker starts. There is no grace period and it cannot be filed retroactively.
How do you track cleaners with no fixed clock?
The solution is to let the building become the clock. Instead of routing cleaners through a central location, each worker registers where they actually are.
With mobile check-in and check-out, a cleaner opens the app on arrival at a client building, registers the start of the shift, and checks out when they leave. Suivo’s Check-in and out at Work solution captures real-time registration per worker per site, so you can see who is working which building right now and how long each shift actually ran. Where a site has recurring staff or shared devices, badge scanning or a fixed check-in point at the building can capture the same data.
That turns a scattered workforce into a clean record:
- Hours per person per building, so you can bill clients and pay workers on verified data, not estimates.
- Real-time visibility, so a supervisor knows a site was covered without driving there.
- An electronic record ready to produce for a SIOD inspector, instead of reconstructing shifts from memory.
What happens if a flexi-job cleaner works without a valid DimDay?
The DimDay is the declaration that a specific worker is coming in on a given day. The time registration record proves when they actually arrived and left. You need both.
If a cleaner starts a shift without a valid DimDay on file, Belgian social security law treats that day as regular employment:
- Full employer social security contributions apply to that day’s wages.
- The worker’s flexi-job tax advantage disappears for that day.
- Repeated across multiple workers and days, the retroactive NSSO assessment can be significant.
Because cleaning shifts are often confirmed at short notice and start before dawn, the DimDay is easy to forget. Suivo’s workforce management platform can flag when a scheduled flexi-job worker does not yet have a DimDay for that day, so you file before work starts rather than discovering the gap during an audit.
What should a facility services employer do next?
Work through this order before your next flexi-job hire:
1. Confirm your joint committee has not opted out of flexi-jobs for the current quarter.
2. Sign a framework agreement with each flexi-job worker before their first shift.
3. Put mobile check-in and check-out in place so hours are captured per site electronically.
4. File a DimDay before every shift, without exception.
For the full 2026 rules, see our complete employer guide to flexi-jobs in Belgium. If your buildings host cleaners alongside other worker types, our guide to managing a mixed workforce explains how to apply the correct rule to each category.
Prove every cleaning shift, on every site
Suivo gives cleaning and facility businesses the electronic time registration now required for flexi-jobs: mobile check-in and check-out per building, DimDay support, and one verified record per worker, on a connected platform you can start small and expand.
