Conditions for access: who can buy housing?

Occupant buyers

This means (a) natural person(s) who buy(s) the property to occupy it in its entirety as their main residence. Occupant buyers must meet the following conditions:
- Be at least 18 years of age;
- Not be owners or enjoy usufruct in Belgium on the date of the purchase, individually or jointly with their spouse or the person with whom they cohabit, of a real estate property assigned to housing whose non-indexed cadastral income does not exceed 745 EUR;
- Be subject to the tax on natural persons in Belgium;
- Undertake to reside in the housing unit purchased within six months of the handing over of the keys and to reside there for a period of ten years;
- Not have benefited, individually or jointly with their spouse or person with whom they cohabit, for the base year, from overall taxable income in excess of:
Maximum income of the household (amounts in effect as at 01/01/2008):

Number of dependents	Maximum income
0	€ 52.358,75
1	€ 57.441,86
2	€ 59.893,97
per additional person	+ € 2.452,11

To determine the income of a couple, half the income of the spouse that has less income and the whole of the income of the other spouse are taken into consideration.

Investor buyers

This means the legal entities or natural persons who purchase a housing unit in order to offer it for rent. Investor buyers may only buy the property at the end of a six‑month period starting from the beginning of the sales process and may not occupy it personally.
During the first 10 years starting from the handing over of the keys, the monthly rent has a ceiling of 1/12th of an annual rental value corresponding to 6.5% of the subsidised sales price (legal fees, cost of registration and VAT included) indexed starting from the date of the first official deed of sale.
The tenants must meet the same conditions of access as the occupant buyers (except that they can be the owner of a property for which the cadastral income is higher than 745 € provided it is located outside of the Brussels-Capital Region).

The information summarized above has no legal value. Only relevant legal provision (decree of the Government of the Brussels-Capital Region [French]) is valid and applicable at this time.