Tax Residence Certificates (TRC)
A Tax Residence Certificate (TRC) is needed in order to benefit from the application of double tax treaties and comply with local tax regulations.
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About TRCs
In some countries, Swift payments are subject to the application of local withholding tax at the applicable domestic tax rates. In such situations, as per Swift’s general terms and conditions, customers are responsible for the levy, the reporting and the payment of such local withholding tax.
Belgium has concluded double tax treaties with a number of countries to prevent or reduce the burden of such taxation. In application thereof, customers can benefit from a reduced treaty withholding tax rate provided that Swift attests, with the required documentation, its qualification as true Belgian tax resident. In order to justify such qualification, the Belgian tax administration is issuing yearly Tax Residence Certificates (“TRC”) in a standard Belgian electronic format. In the current pandemic situation, the Belgian tax administration has indicated that original documents are hardly provided. TRC are generally issued in the course of February of each new financial year.
When required by local tax administration, Swift is also providing local forms on an ad hoc basis.
Electronic version (PDF)
You can obtain an electronic version of the TRC and the ad hoc forms by using the below link.
We are publishing all the TRC as soon as we receive them. Therefore, if the document is not published, this means that the tax administration has not yet provided the document for the required financial year.
Hard copy
Should you absolutely need to obtain an original form or a specific document, please follow the below process:
- Step 1: Download a request form, save it on your desktop and fill in the required fields.
- Step 2: Send the completed form to Tax_experts_TRC_customers_requests@swift.com
In the subject of the email, please make sure to quote the following structure in order to have your email handled smoothly: Country_TRC_customer name_document required (i.e. TRC, Local Form number / specific document, other).
In the core of the email, please clearly list the documents that you need, clarify the name and full address of your institution, the country, the year for which certificates are requested and any other document.
If, next to the standard TRC, you need some specific documents, we will send you our standard templates, which are also available in electronic version.
Documents will not be provided if the above process is not followed.
We currently have very limited access to our offices. Therefore during this pandemic, we are barely able to send out original documents. Consequently, only pdf of TRC and relevant documents will be sent by emails. As indicated above, the Belgian tax administration has also limited the number of originals they agree to provide us with.
Thank you for your understanding.
Swift Tax Team
