Tax in Belgium
See what Belgium's tax rules do to your property portfolio.
What Freeholt models for property, income and retirement in Belgium, and what it does not.
Free to start. No card. Rules reviewed 12 July 2026.
Modelled here
- Tax on rental income
- Capital gains on a sale
- Duty on purchase (approximate)
- Annual property or land tax
- Income tax beyond the rent
- Dividends, interest and share sales
EUR · Rates as at 12 July 2026 · Estimates, not advice
Belgium does NOT tax the actual rent on a residential let to a private tenant. It taxes the indexed cadastral income (revenu cadastral × 1.4) at progressive rates, so applying that scale to real net rent OVERSTATES the bill, and the projection flags it. There is no general CGT on private real estate: 16.5% applies ONLY to a sale within five years of acquisition and nothing after that; the primary residence exemption and the communal surcharge are not modelled. The new 10% solidarity contribution from 1 Jan 2026 is on FINANCIAL assets and does not touch real estate.
How rental income is taxed in Belgium
For a resident owner: Progressive rates from 25% to 50%, stacked on other income in this country. The top rate of 50% applies above €48,320. For an owner living abroad and renting this out: Progressive rates from 25% to 50%, stacked on other income in this country. The top rate of 50% applies above €48,320.
Interest and losses
Mortgage interest is deductible against the rent. A rental loss brings no relief: it cannot reduce other income, and it does not carry forward.
Capital gains on a sale
Gains are taxed at a flat 16.5%. The gain is fully exempt once the property has been held 5 years.
Annual property tax while holding
About 1.3% a year on the property value.
What it costs to buy
Purchase duty here is more than a single rate, and Freeholt prices the published rules rather than an average. Registration duty is REGIONAL, AND THE REDUCED OWN HOME RATES ARE PRICED ONCE A REGION IS PICKED: Flanders 12% (2% on a sole own home), Wallonia 12.5% (3% on an own and sole home for deeds from 1 Jan 2025), Brussels 12.5% with the first €200,000 exempt if the price does not exceed €600,000, a cliff rather than a taper. On a €400,000 Flemish purchase that is €8,000 as a sole own home against €48,000 as an investment, and the projection charges whichever of the two it has been told about. WITHOUT A REGION THERE IS NOTHING TO PRICE FROM, because the published rates run from 2% to 12.5%, so the projection falls back to a flat 12% national proxy and says so; an own home purchase stays overstated until the region is set. Every reduced rate needs a natural person who actually takes up residence, and the difference is clawed back if they do not. A new build from a developer carries 21% VAT on the building instead. The annual précompte immobilier IS modelled, at an indicative 1.3% effective of market value a year; the real charge is assessed on the indexed cadastral income and set regionally, so the actual bill will differ.
Income tax in Belgium, beyond the rent
Progressive, up to 50%, or 53.75% once the surcharge on the tax is added. The bands run Up to 10,570 at 0%; 10,570 to 15,820 at 25%; 15,820 to 27,920 at 40%; 27,920 to 48,320 at 45%; Above 48,320 at 50%. A further 7.5% is charged on the tax itself, not on the income, so every rate above is that much light. Rental profit joins this ladder. Figures in EUR, as verified 29 August 2026.
Dividends, interest and share sales
How Belgium taxes investment income. For dividends: Flat 30%. For interest: Flat 30%. For share sale gains: Flat 10%. First 10,000 tax free each year.
How Freeholt models Belgium
Every rate above is priced from Freeholt's own table for Belgium and runs through the whole projection: rental income, a modelled sale and the annual holding costs all use the same figures. They cannot be edited yet, so a position that differs from the defaults has to be read with that in mind. The estimate assumes an individual owner rather than a company or trust, and where a rule is not modelled it is listed below rather than quietly priced at zero.
What running this property costs
In Belgium this covers the précompte immobilier / onroerende voorheffing, syndic/co ownership charges for apartments, building insurance, maintenance, and management fees. THE PRÉCOMPTE IS CHARGED ON CADASTRAL INCOME AND NOT ON MARKET VALUE, and the two bases are about a hundred times apart because the cadastral base has not been generally revalued since 1975. The regional rate plus municipal and provincial opcentiemen comes to roughly 44% to 66% of INDEXED CADASTRAL INCOME, which on a EUR 300,000 home is around 0.3% of market value in Flanders and around 0.4% in Wallonia and Brussels. The 1.3% this page shows is roughly three times that, and it is the figure to correct when reconciling against a real assessment.
How borrowing works here
Belgian mortgages typically amortise over 10 to 25 years at a rate fixed for the full term; lenders generally want a larger deposit on a rental purchase than on an owner occupied home.
What actually happened here
This country's own record, one year at a time. Nothing on this page is borrowed from another country. Move across a chart to read a year.
Recent rule changes in Belgium
- 2026-01-01 A new 10% 'solidarity contribution' CGT on FINANCIAL assets (shares, crypto) applies from 1 Jan 2026. It does NOT apply to real estate, which keeps the 16.5% within 5 years / exempt after regime. Modelled real estate treatment unchanged; the financial asset CGT is out of scope.
What Freeholt models here
- ModelledTax on rental income
- Resident and non resident rates, with interest and losses treated under the local rule.
- ModelledCapital gains on a sale
- Priced in the year of the sale under the rules of that year.
- ApproximateDuty on purchase
- The published scale is priced from the rules in force, which differ by band and are summarised here.
- ModelledAnnual property or land tax
- Charged every year the property is held.
- ModelledIncome tax beyond the rent
- Salary and other income, stacked with the rent.
- ModelledDividends, interest and share sales
- Investment income and gains, with the local allowances.
- Not yetRetirement savings
- Not modelled for this country yet.
- Not yetInheritance and what happens on death
- Not modelled for this country yet.
What Freeholt does not model here
- Inheritance and estate tax
- Treaty relief between this country and the owner's country of residence
What the figures above leave out (7)
- Belgium's basic allowance is modelled as a 0% band rather than as the tax reduction it really is. The two agree once income clears the band and differ a little at the very bottom of the scale.
- Belgium's communal surcharge is charged at 7.5%, the midpoint of a 6 to 9% range, because the commune's own rate is not modelled. The real bill is within about 1.5% of the tax either way.
- A Belgian non resident pays a flat municipal supplement instead of the communal surcharge, and neither is applied to that branch here.
- Belgium taxes residential letting on an indexed cadastral value, not on the rent actually collected. Stacking real rent onto this ladder overstates a Belgian landlord, usually by a wide margin.
- Belgium's marital quotient for couples is not modelled, so a couple with uneven incomes is overstated.
- Belgium's reduced withholding rates and its partial exemption for ordinary savings interest are not modelled, so a holder of either is overstated by the whole difference.
- Belgium's €10,000 gains exemption carries unused headroom forward, growing by €1,000 a year, and that carry forward is not modelled. Where little is realised one year and a large gain the next, the tax is overstated.
Coverage deepens country by country. Every figure is an estimate, not advice.
Compare with another country
Each page is built from the same table the app runs on, so the figures line up side by side.
Compare Belgium with another country — rent, gains, annual tax and duty, side by side.
Questions people ask
- Does Freeholt model Belgium property tax?
- Yes. Rental income tax, capital gains on a sale, duty on purchase and annual property or land tax are priced from Freeholt's own rate table for Belgium. Duty on purchase carries a simplification that the page names beside the figure. The rates are not editable yet, so one that differs in a particular case cannot be overridden. Every figure is an estimate, not advice.
- How is rental income from Belgium taxed if I live somewhere else?
- Progressive rates from 25% to 50%, stacked on other income in this country. The top rate of 50% applies above €48,320. Tax may also be due in the country of residence, with credit for what was paid here. Estimates only, not advice.
- What are the Belgium figures as at?
- The rate table for Belgium was last reviewed on 12 July 2026. Freeholt date stamps every country rather than implying all of them were checked on the same day. Estimates only, not advice.
Model a property in Belgium alongside everything else you own: see the year your portfolio starts paying you back.