Neutron diffraction measurements have been performed to study the nature of magnetic ordering in the compounds HoNiBC and ErNiBC. HoNiBC exhibits antiferromagnetic ordering of the Ho moments with a simple commensurate magnetic structure below K. The magnetic unit cell, doubled along the c-direction with respect to the chemical unit cell, consists of ferromagnetic planes antiferromagnetically coupled along the c-axis. On the other hand, the Er moments in ErNiBC show ferromagnetic ordering with a Curie temperature of 4.5 K. In contrast to the case for the structurally related superconducting counterparts ( and ) no modulated magnetic structures were observed for any temperatures above 1.4 K.