Legal & regulatory information

Legal framework

Universal service obligation

bpost is the designated provider of the Universal Service Obligation until 31 December 2028. This entails:

• Collection, sorting, transport and distribution of postal items up to 2kg and single piece postal packages up to 10kg (and up to 20kg for packages coming from Member States)
• Providing services for registered items and insured items

Furthermore, as Universal Service Provider, bpost is required to:

• Apply uniform tariffs and an identical service across the territory
• Propose at least 1 access point per municipality in Belgium for the deposit of items
• Collect and distribute postal items at least 5 times a week (excluding Sundays and official holidays)
• Cover the full territory of Belgium for collection and delivery of items belonging to universal service

Licensing

Any operator who performs letter mail service falling in the scope of the USO requires a license issued by the Belgian postal regulator IBPT/BIPT.

To obtain a license, the operator in question needs to employ contractual workers to ensure a level playing field.

Services of General Economic Interest

bpost also renders several Services of General Economic Interest (SGEI) which are described in the Seventh Management Contract concluded with the Belgian State, and for which it is remunerated by the Belgian State. 

They entail among others:

• Maintain an extensive retail network of post offices and post points
• Payment at home of pensions and other social allowances
• Acceptance in post offices and post points of deposits on third-party payment accounts
• The execution of operations related to the basic banking service in post offices
• A specific rate for correspondence sent by the associations
• Distribution of elections printed matters at a reduced tariff
• Delivery of letter post items that fall within the freepost system

The Seventh Management Contract is covering a 5-year period from 1 January 2022 until 31 December 2026. bpost receives a maximum compensation (excluding inflation) of EUR 126.42m for 2022, EUR 127.70m for 2023, EUR 129.54m for 2024, EUR 125.77m for 2025 and EUR 124.93m for 2026. These amounts will be increased with inflation on an annual cumulative basis. The fluctuation in the compensation during the term of the contract is based on forecasts of the net cost and the gains in efficiency with regard to SGEI. There is also a claw-back mechanism to avoid any risk of overcompensation.

Mail pricing principles

For services falling within the USO, general pricing principles of affordability, cost-orientation, transparency and non-discrimination are applied. In addition, tariffs for single piece items must be uniform across the country. 

Single piece domestic mail items & USO parcels falling within the “small user basket” are subject to a price-cap formula, which takes into account inflation, volume decline and efficiency gains.  The unused part of the price increase margin is accrued for 3 years, every year on a rolling basis. 

Price increases are in practice done on a yearly basis on 1 January.

Belgian regulator

The Belgian Institute for Postal services and Telecommunication (IBPT/BIPT, www.bipt.be) regulates the postal sector in Belgium.