SNCB Faces Competition After 2032 as Cabinet Approves Phased Rail Tendering Roadmap
Belgium's federal government has approved the strategy and guiding principles for opening the country's subsidised passenger rail market to competition. The decision was taken at the Council of Ministers' final sitting before the 2026 summer recess and published by the federal government on 18 July 2026, on a proposal from Mobility Minister Jean-Luc Crucke. It is the first formal step towards ending the direct award of public service contracts to SNCB/NMBS.
The timing is set by the existing contract. The public service contract between the Belgian state and SNCB runs from 2023 to the end of 2032, and under the European regulatory framework governing public passenger rail services Belgium must have reformed the organisation of those services by that point. According to the government's announcement, subsidised services will not be tendered as a single block: they are to be divided into separate contracts and brought to market progressively, with SNCB able to bid alongside rival operators.
For services not yet opened to competition when the current contract lapses, the government intends to negotiate and directly award a transitional contract to SNCB — described in the federal release as a contract in extinction — so that operations continue without interruption. The approved principles also provide for a strengthened federal public authority responsible for the strategic planning of passenger services, for organising the tenders and for managing relations with operators; the government notes this body will require sufficient human, technical and regulatory expertise.
Much of the reform remains undefined. Crucke has been tasked with developing the detailed architecture and the implementation timetable, including the sequence of tenders and the arrangements needed to manage a network run under several parallel contracts, and must return the plan to the cabinet for validation. No tender calendar has been published, the number and shape of the contract lots have not been set, and no date has been given for a first competitive award.
As reported by Railway-News, the reform is intended to bring Belgium into line with European legislation on the organisation of public rail passenger transport. The federal release does not attach a budget to the reform and does not indicate what share of the network would be tendered in the first phase.