Your operator must tell you if a cheaper plan exists

Few people know it: your operator is legally required to tell you when a cheaper tariff plan exists for you. Not as a commercial courtesy — as an obligation. And according to the regulator itself, that obligation has been poorly met for twenty years. Here is what you can ask for, and what changes this year.

What the law has required since 2005

Belgium's electronic communications law has required every operator, since 2005, to inform subscribers at least once a year of the tariff plan best matching their actual usage. You do not have to ask: the initiative lies with the operator.

The reasoning is simple. Your usage changes — the children watch television differently, you call less, you stream more — but your subscription stays the same. After three or four years you are often paying for a package that no longer fits your life.

Why you probably never received it

The BIPT, Belgium's telecom regulator, measured how well that obligation works. The result is sobering: more than half of the people surveyed say they have never received such a notification. And among those who did, only a minority acted on it.

The regulator does not blame customer indifference but the form of the message: information buried in a bill, wording that breeds suspicion, comparisons too vague to be useful. Its conclusion: without an additional framework, the measure misses its target.

What changes in 2026

On 28 January 2026 the BIPT adopted a decision setting out precisely how that obligation must be met. From now on, an operator must:

• include all of its brands when looking for your best plan, not only the brand you subscribe to;
• explain why it is sending you the message;
• put your current plan and the recommended plan side by side, with the monthly price and any additional costs;
• use a more uniform format, so the message stops disappearing into the bill.

A QR code on the bill is added, linking directly to the regulator's official comparison tool. Operators were given nine months to adapt, which brings us to mid-November 2026.

The line the law will not cross

This is the point most often misunderstood, and it matters. The new rules require your operator to compare within its own group, including its sister brands. They do not require it to tell you that a competitor is cheaper.

In other words: even applied perfectly, that notification gives you the best plan from your operator, not the best plan on the market. The gap between those two is exactly where the money is.

What you can do today

There is no need to wait for November. Three habits are enough:

• Ask for your notification. You have been entitled to it since 2005. Ask your operator, in writing, which plan best matches your actual usage.
• Compare over twelve months, not on the first month's price: promotions end, the subscription remains.
• Look beyond your own operator. That is the one step nobody else will take for you.

Our comparison tool ranks offers by real twelve-month cost, across every operator available at your address. And if you would rather someone checked for you, we do it free of charge.