Certified cash register for your chip shop: mandatory or not?

The short answer

Your chip shop must use a certified cash register if you earn more than €25,000 a year from food eaten on the premises, excluding VAT and drinks. Takeaway does not count, and the threshold applies per location.

Below it, you don't need a certified cash register. You must still give every customer a bill or receipt: the old exemption for chip shops no longer exists.

Check it in one minute

When is a certified cash register mandatory?

The threshold: €25,000 a year, per location

The FPS Finance looks at your turnover from restaurant and catering services, excluding VAT. Drinks do not count, not even when served with a meal. If you have two chip shops, each location gets its own calculation. They only count together if customers can walk from one to the other without leaving the building.

What counts: food eaten on the premises

A sale is a restaurant service as soon as your customer uses a space you provide to eat on the premises. Indoors, tables, standing tables or an eating bar are enough.

On a terrace, a table alone is not enough. There must be at least one more element that makes eating on the spot more comfortable: seating, tableware or a tray, table service, or shelter from sun or rain.

What does not count

• Takeaway: food the customer takes away without using your seating. Packaging is a clue: according to the FPS, food served on a tray is eaten on the premises.
• Drinks, with or without a meal.
• Sales of food products, such as a jar of sauce or frozen snacks.
• Public benches that anyone may use, even without buying anything.

Worked example

Say 50 customers a week eat their chips at your tables, spending €9 on food on average excluding VAT. That is 50 × 9 × 52 = €23,400 a year, just under the threshold. If twenty more customers a week sit on your terrace during 13 summer weeks, it becomes €25,740 and you are over it.

These are example figures. Use your own figures in the checker above.

Under the threshold? You still need a receipt

Chip shops used to be exempt from issuing a control document. That tolerance has been abolished. Below €25,000, you issue a bill or receipt, as article 22 of Royal Decree no. 1 requires. A register that prints those receipts for you saves manual work there too.

Food truck, stall and second location

• A stall or cart that only sells takeaway supplies goods and does not need a certified cash register.
• If someone hires your food truck for a party at another location, that is a catering service and the turnover does count.
• Each location is assessed separately, unless customers can move freely between them indoors.

GKS 2.0: what changed on 1 July 2026?

The royal decree that makes GKS 2.0 final was published on 3 June 2026. Since 1 July 2026, a new hospitality business must use GKS 2.0 from the start. Both the register and the fiscal data module (FDM, the 'black box') must be certified for GKS 2.0.

Existing businesses: your deadline

If you already have a registered cash register, your deadline depends on the purchase date of your most recent register. The FDM date does not count.

• Register bought before 1 January 2018: switch by 1 July 2027 at the latest.
• Register bought from 2018 to 2021: by 1 July 2028 at the latest.
• Register bought from 1 January 2022: by 1 January 2029 at the latest.

Check your own deadline

In the FPS Finance's GKS e-service you will find your deadline under My profile > Known establishment units. You have access as the legal representative, or with the role 'FODFin Restaurantuitbaters (GKS)'.

What does switching cost?

That depends on what you need: one register, or also an ordering kiosk, online ordering or a kitchen screen. In our price simulator you build your system and see your price estimate straight away, including the GKS deadline for your register.

Checklist for your business

• Do your customers have tables, standing tables or an eating bar indoors?
• Does your terrace have seating, shelter or table service?
• How much food do you sell per year to customers eating on the premises, excluding VAT and drinks?
• When did you buy your most recent register?
• Are both your register and your FDM certified for GKS 2.0?

Frequently asked questions

Does my terrace count?

Only if, besides a table, something makes eating there more comfortable: seating, tableware or a tray, service, or shelter from sun or rain.

Do drinks count towards the threshold?

No. Drinks never count towards the €25,000, not even with a meal. On the premises, VAT is 21% on drinks and 12% on food.

I'm taking over a chip shop. Which figures apply?

If you take over the business as a transfer within the meaning of article 11 of the VAT Code, you continue the seller's business. The seller's figures then apply for the threshold.

I'm opening a new chip shop. What do I need to do?

You make your own realistic estimate of your eat-in food turnover, for example in your business plan. If it exceeds €25,000, you register by the end of the second month after you start. From the end of the third month, you work with a GKS 2.0 register.

This explanation follows the FPS Finance guidelines on geregistreerdkassasysteem.be (in Dutch), checked on 30 October 2026. It is not tax advice: if in doubt, ask your accountant. Read more about the deadlines in GKS 2.0 is mandatory: which deadline applies to your business?