Paying for an iPhone in instalments in Belgium means signing one of three contracts: a joint offer at Proximus, a 0% instalment loan at Orange Belgium and Telenet, or a retailer credit that charges interest. All three spread the same sum. They are not left in the same way, and that is where the money is.
Three contracts behind the same "in instalments"
The advertising says the same thing everywhere: a deposit, then twenty-four monthly payments. The contract changes nature from one counter to the next.
At Proximus, the device is part of a joint offer over 24 months. There is no lender. You receive an advantage on the price of the phone, paid for by a monthly option tied to the subscription, and the value of that advantage not yet amortised remains due if you leave before the term. At Orange Belgium and Telenet, it is an instalment loan, a real consumer credit, granted by a credit company and not by the operator. At a retailer such as MediaMarkt, it is a standard credit, with a rate.
I had customers sign all three for seven years at the counter, in Namur. They remembered the deposit and the monthly payment. The name of the lender, almost never.
Who is lending you the money?
Nobody at Proximus, Alpha Credit at Orange and Telenet, Buy Way at MediaMarkt.
Orange Belgium writes it plainly on its instalment loan page: the lender is Alpha Credit, which trades as Cetelem, and Orange acts as an ancillary credit intermediary. The APR is 0%, the term runs from 6 to 24 months, the request is made in a shop, subject to acceptance of the file. Its help page adds a sentence I never saw printed back when I was selling: once the credit is accepted, Orange has "plus aucun contrôle", no control at all, over it. The device instalment arrives as a payment request from Cetelem, alongside the Orange bill.
Telenet uses the same lender. Its instalment payment page refers to an instalment loan from Alpha Credit, at 0%, refused below €200, and offers 3xCofidisPay, a payment in three instalments with Cofidis, when the loan is refused.
MediaMarkt sends you to Buy Way, as a reusable credit card or as an in-store instalment sale. The published representative example covers an open-ended credit line of €1,500, at an APR of 14.50%.
Apple does not appear in this record: I found no financing formula published on its Belgian store on 26 October 2026.
How much does spreading the cost of the same €838.92 smartphone come to?
Zero euros of interest at Orange, €124.14 at a retailer charging 14.50%. And an unknown at Proximus, which does not finance the price but an advantage.
So that the columns talk about the same thing, I start from Orange Belgium's representative example, recorded on 26 October 2026: a €838.92 smartphone, a €9 deposit, €829.92 repaid in 24 monthly payments of €34.58. I then apply the same sum to the other two contracts.
| On a €838.92 device | Joint offer (Proximus model) | Instalment loan (Orange, Telenet) | Retailer credit (Buy Way) |
|---|---|---|---|
| Nature of the contract | advantage amortised over 24 months, tied to the subscription | consumer credit, separate contract | consumer credit, no link with the operator |
| Lender | none | Alpha Credit (Cetelem) | Buy Way |
| Rate | not applicable | APR 0% | APR 14.50% (representative example) |
| Paid over 24 months | depends on the monthly option chosen | €838.92 | €963.06 (24 × €40.13, simulation) |
| Link with the subscription | inseparable | possible discount tied to the subscription | none |
| Leaving the operator at month 12 | €414.96 payable at once (linear assumption) | €414.96 remaining, in principle at the original monthly payments | €447.82 of capital remaining, at the original monthly payments |
Orange Belgium example recorded on 26 October 2026. Buy Way simulation calculated by the site with a constant monthly payment over 24 months at the APR of the representative example, which covers an open-ended card: it is an order of magnitude, not an offer. Proximus row calculated on linear amortisation of €829.92, for want of a published schedule.
The Proximus column needs a word of explanation. The device is not paid for there by a credit instalment, but by a DataPhone option billed every month. On the page for a refurbished iPhone 15 recorded on 10 October 2026, the option ran from €5 to €35 a month for 24 months, for a 24-month joint offer whose post-promotion subscription price was not published. On the highest option, the device came to €849, while Proximus sold it at €649.99 without a subscription. The detail is in the cash versus financed calculation.
The 0% at Orange and Telenet is therefore genuinely 0%. The cost, when there is one, hides in the subscription that unlocks the discount, not in the credit.
What happens if you leave the operator at month 12?
With the joint offer, you pay the balance in one go. With an instalment loan, in principle, you keep repaying at the same pace.
That is the difference that matters, and no advertisement shows it.
Proximus writes, on its device pages, that if you cancel within the first 24 months, "la valeur résiduelle de l'appareil est due conformément au tableau d'amortissement du contrat", the residual value of the device is due under the contract's amortisation schedule. The six-month rule spares you the penalty on the service. It does not touch this balance, which lands on the closing bill. On €829.92 amortised linearly, €414.96 remains at month twelve, to be settled at once. The mechanism is set out in the article on the €1 phone.
The instalment loan does not follow the subscription, since it is not signed with the operator. Telenet says it in one sentence: you can cancel at any time at no cost, but you keep repaying the device. The same page adds that if the subscription earned you a discount on the device, Telenet will ask you to repay the remaining value of that discount. Leaving therefore costs you the unamortised discount, not the capital. Orange Belgium does not publish the exit rule. Its help page only states that the instalment plan ties you for 24 months, like a Smart Data subscription, and refers you to Cetelem for any question about the credit.
On the Orange example, leaving at month 12 leaves €414.96 of credit. The sum is the same as in the Proximus column. But in one case you pay it in twelve monthly payments of €34.58, in the other in a single transfer.
0% is still a credit
The rate is zero, the file is not.
An instalment loan involves an application, a creditworthiness check and acceptance by the lender, which may refuse. Once signed, it is registered like any consumer credit with the Central Individual Credit Register of the National Bank of Belgium. It will therefore weigh, on the day you apply for another credit, exactly like a car loan of the same amount. At the cancellations desk, I had customers surprised to learn it from their bank, when applying for a mortgage.
What changes on 20 November 2026?
Paying in three or four instalments largely stops escaping credit law.
The law of 20 July 2026, published in the Belgian Official Gazette on 4 August, transposes the new European directive on credit agreements for consumers. It applies to credits requested from 20 November 2026. Deferred payment formulas, the ones known as "buy now, pay later", stay excluded only under strict conditions: full repayment within a very short period, 14 days in some cases against 50 days previously for other operators, and no interest or fees beyond limited late-payment fees. Beyond that, they become credits, with pre-contractual information, a creditworthiness check and the warning "Attention, emprunter de l'argent coûte aussi de l'argent" (borrowing money also costs money) on advertising that mentions a rate or a cost. A lender will no longer be able to grant credit to a customer with more than €1,000 of unpaid debts.
For a smartphone, this covers the three-instalment payments offered at checkout, such as 3xCofidisPay at Telenet or Klarna's formulas, active in Belgium since June 2020. Test-Achats noted in December 2025 that at Klarna, above €150 of purchase, two reminders cost €25. Contracts signed before 20 November remain, for the most part, under the old regime.
Five questions to ask before signing
In writing, at the counter. A verbal answer binds nobody.
- Who is the lender, and is this document a credit agreement?
- What is the APR, and over how many months?
- If I cancel the subscription at month 12, does the device balance become payable at once?
- Is the discount on the device tied to the subscription, and how much of it remains to be repaid at each month of the contract?
- What is the subscription price in month thirteen, when the promotion ends?
The fourth question is the one I heard least. It is also the one that produced the most surprising exit statements.
These rules are federal: consumer credit law and the six-month rule apply the same way in Wallonia, Brussels and Flanders. The credit framework can be read at the FPS Economy, the framework for telecoms contracts at the BIPT, the Belgian telecoms regulator, and a disputed exit statement goes to the Telecommunications Ombudsman Service. To choose the subscription that goes with the device, the mobile plan ranking and the comparison tool rank plans on their 24-month cost.
Sources
- Orange Belgium, "Prêt à tempérament" page (representative example: €838.92, €9 deposit, 24 monthly payments of €34.58, APR 0%, lender Alpha Credit) and help page "Qu'est-ce que l'étalement de paiement pour l'achat de smartphone ?" (terms of 6 to 24 months, request in a shop, managed by Cetelem), consulted on 26 October 2026.
- Telenet, "Paiement échelonné" page (instalment loan from Alpha Credit at 0%, no credit below €200, 3xCofidisPay if refused, repayment continued after cancellation, discount to be repaid), consulted on 26 October 2026.
- MediaMarkt Belgium, "Vos possibilités de financement" page (Buy Way, credit card and instalment sale, representative example of €1,500 at an APR of 14.50%), consulted on 26 October 2026.
- Proximus, device pages in a joint offer (residual value due under the amortisation schedule, DataPhone options from €5 to €35), recorded on 10 October 2026.
- Law of 20 July 2026 transposing Directive (EU) 2023/2225, Belgian Official Gazette of 4 August 2026, in force for credits requested from 20 November 2026, according to the analyses by CMS Belgium (15 July 2026) and Bazacle & Solon (17 August 2026).
- Test-Achats, "Klarna : fonctionnement et risques", 6 December 2025.
- Site simulations: constant monthly payment over 24 months at an APR of 14.50%, linear amortisation of €829.92 over 24 months.
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Fabrice D. a vendu des abonnements GSM pendant sept ans derrière le comptoir d’une boutique télécom à Namur, entre 2013 et 2020, puis a passé trois ans au service résiliations d’un opérateur virtuel belge — c’est-à-dire du côté où l’on lit les contrats à voix haute à des clients qui ne les avaient pas lus. Il sait donc exactement comment se construit un « GSM à 1 € » : un crédit de 24 mois posé à côté du forfait, avec son propre solde et ses propres conditions de sortie. Chaque mois, il relève les grilles tarifaires publiées par les opérateurs belges, note la date du relevé, et recalcule ce que chaque formule coûte au bout de deux ans, appareil compris. Ce qui l’agace dans son secteur : les prix d’appel affichés en gros pour douze mois, et l’écart — jamais imprimé nulle part — avec ce qui est facturé le treizième.