Study grant from academic year 2026–2027: 54 credits and age 30.

Why this matters for student entrepreneurs

Student entrepreneurs often reduce their course load to make time for their venture. Up to and including academic year 2025–2026, you could go down to 27 credits without losing your study grant. From 2026–2027 that threshold is 54 credits, and below it you need an exception.

Note: this is a Flemish change (study grant) and is completely separate from the federal relaxations to the social status of the student self-employed. The two even move in opposite directions.

1) Credits: 54 instead of 27

• You must be enrolled for at least 54 credits under a diploma contract.
• Previously: at least 27 credits.
• Starting a bachelor's programme? Then you must take all 60 credits of the 1st model trajectory year. Fewer is only possible with permission (UGent, Education and Examination Code 2026–2027, article 30 §4).

2) Age: under 30

• You must be under 30 on 31 December of the calendar year in which the academic year starts (for 2026–2027: on 31 December 2026).
• If exceptional circumstances or force majeure meant you could not start or complete higher education before turning 30, you can request an exception. You must then supply evidence for every year from age 18 to 30. UGent provides an application form for this.

3) How the exceptions are structured

This is the key to understanding the sources: the decree works with categories, and the institution fills them in.

• The decree lists five categories of recognised statuses: disability, elite sports, professional artistic practice, exceptional social or individual circumstances, working student.
• The explanatory memorandum leaves this explicitly to the institutions: "They are free to determine and grant the statuses concerned. They are free to give shape to the categories concerned."
• That is why vlaanderen.be shows a list at category level, while your institution's page lists the concrete statuses that exist there. The two lists are not identical, and that is not a contradiction.

4) The UGent list: student entrepreneurship is on it

UGent recognises these exceptions to the 54 credits (Education and Examination Code 2026–2027, article 21bis).

On the basis of a special status:

• Disability*
• Elite athlete status
• Professional artistic practice*
• Mandate
• Exceptional social and individual circumstances*
• Non-native language* (no Dutch-language secondary diploma and first enrolment in higher education in Flanders)
• Working-student status
• Working student* (on average 50 hours per month)
• Student entrepreneurship*

Because of curriculum structure:

• You cannot take 54 credits due to prerequisites, programme structure or the organisation of the academic year (contact your faculty student administration)
• You start in semester 2 and take at least 27 credits
• You follow a preparatory or bridging programme with a model trajectory of fewer than 54 credits
• You are in your graduation year

Other: medical reasons, caring for a minor child.

5) An exception does not give you the right to a smaller curriculum

UGent states this explicitly: "These exceptions do not give any automatic right to a smaller curriculum, an accommodation, or a deviation from the study progress measures."

In practice these are three separate tracks, each of which must be arranged individually:

1. The special status of student entrepreneur — via Oasis, deadline 5 November. Provides accommodations around attendance and assessment moments.
2. Permission to take a smaller curriculum — via study counselling / faculty student administration ("permission for a small curriculum").
3. The exception for your study grant — the status is the ground, but the exception still has to be approved and the certificate added to your file.

6) Applying: how it works in practice

• Apply for your study grant via the Digital Study Grants Portal and add the requested certificate.
• Exception via UGent? After approval you can download a certificate via Oasis (from the start of academic year 2026–2027).
• Graduation year? Automatically granted based on databases — do not add a certificate, it will slow your file down.
• Medical reasons? Have a doctor complete the medical reasons form.
• Caring for a minor child? No certificate needed; checked via the National Register.
• Already received a rejection because too few credits were taken? A review can be requested.
• No right to an exception but you do meet the financial conditions? Then you keep the right to reduced tuition (grant rate), provided you apply.

7) Don't mix up: three different thresholds

So the 27-credit rule for the social status of the student self-employed has not been lowered. See Wijzigingen statuut student-zelfstandige vanaf 1 oktober 2026 and Wijzigingen 2026 statuut student-zelfstandige.

8) What does this mean in practice?

• Dropping to e.g. 40 credits, with student-entrepreneur status and an approved exception: you keep your study grant, your student self-employed status and your Groeipakket.
• Dropping to e.g. 40 credits without an exception: you lose your study grant (but keep the right to reduced tuition if you meet the financial conditions).
• Dropping to e.g. 20 credits: you also lose your student self-employed status and your Groeipakket, unless it is your graduation year or the thesis/internship exception under the social status applies (maximum one academic year).
• First-year bachelor: in principle all 60 credits, unless permission for a small curriculum has been granted.

Sources

• Extra conditions for a study grant — UGent
• Exceptions to full-time study — Vlaanderen.be
• Draft decree and explanatory memorandum — Flemish Parliament, document 759 (2025–2026) no. 1
• New study grant conditions from 2026–2027 — KU Leuven Stuvo
• Groeipakket for higher-education students — MyFamily
• UGent Education and Examination Code 2026–2027, article 21bis (study grant exceptions) and article 30 §4 (60 credits in the first bachelor year)