Any new year will bring with it changes in legislation and prices, and 2025 is no exception. As ever, these can have a large impact on the lives of everyone living in Belgium, including expats. Here is our round up of the news items relevant to expats which have arrived with the New Year.
'Hospitals are now required to electronically verify the identity of people attending both hospitalised and outpatient clinics. This means that anyone attending hospitals will need to have a suitable and current ID. '
Expat voting rights for CPAS
The Public Social Welfare Centre (CPAS) is a public institution which handles much of the social welfare services in Belgium. Financial aid, legal assistance and house, CPAS is involved in it all and present in all Belgian municipalities.
However, at present voting for the members of CPAS is done directly in a specific vote only open to Belgian nationals. Flemish Minister of the Interior Hilde Crevits believes this should change and has requested that voting for this important organisation be open and extended to non-Belgian EU citizens. We await the results of this move.
Lease Registration Changes in Brussels
From the first week of January 2025, it became law that landlords will need to register new leases at both regional and federal registers. Though free of charge, it is important that landlords are both aware and compliant of this change in the law.
Energy on the rise
From the 1st of January the social tariffs for both electricity and natural gas have increased.
Electricity has increased by 10%, pushing it over €20 per kilowatt hour. Natural gas and heat jumped by 15%, to €5.894 per kilowatt hour. Transportation rates have also risen, with the average Brussels customer seeing an increase of €17.70.
When considered as a whole, that average Brussels household consuming 2104 kWh per year will see their total bill increase by €26.58 or 11% this year. This will then be followed by increase of 5.1% next year and 4.3% in 2026.
For gas, a household consuming 12,000 kWh per year will see an increase of €23 in distribution costs in 2025. That’s nearly a 13% rise from 2024. These increases are then capped at 1.8% for the next few years.
Public transport prices increase
Rail operator SNCB and bus operator TEC have announced that their fares will be indexed from the 1st of February 2025. This will see a standard, second-class train ticket cost almost 3% more, whilst all ticket and season ticket prices on buses will also increase by 3%.
ID checks at hospitals
It will now be necessary for hospitals to electronically verify the identity of people attending both hospitalised and outpatient clinics. This will mean that anyone attending hospitals will need to have a suitable and current ID to ensure that these new checks can be completed quickly and easily.
Vehicle inspections reduced
From the 1st of January, qualifying vehicles will only need to complete a technical inspection every two years in Wallonia. This will apply to well-maintained vehicles with less than 110,000kms on the clock, that are less than 8 years old, and that have obtained a green certificate without a validated limit or only minor administrative breaches. This is also not available to vehicles which tow a trailer over 750kg.
Tobacco products changes
There are a lot of changes ahead for tobacco products in Belgium. The most relevant one to expats will be the increase in excise duties which will see an average packet increase in cost by about €2. Electronic cigarettes will now also be subject to excise duty of €0.15/ml.
Organic waste collection doubles in Brussels
With the arrival of mandatory sorting of food waste arriving in May 2023, it was expected that organic waste collection would grow in the city. Even so, the total of 25,000 tonnes of organic waste collected in 2024 is impressive, and a massive jump from the 11,000 tonnes collected in 2022.
Whilst this is great news for the initiative, there is still room for improvement with some households struggling to store organic waste and some municipalities only completing one collection per week. There are also some residents who are still uncertain as to what they need to do. The Brussels Environment team continues to work to address by raising awareness and by distributing free orange sorting bins. So far over 330,000 of these bins have been given away.
Not so dry January
The Royal Meteorological Institute (RMI) has confirmed that January 2025 was both the darkest and wettest since January 2004. With over 153mm of rain falling in the month, well above the expected average of 75.5mm.
Interestingly, the number of rainy days was about average at 18. But that impressive total means that the days it did rain, where much heavier than usual.
This spate of heavy rain kept the sun away, with only 36 hours and 28 minutes of total sun in a month, when compared to the average of 59 hours and 4 minutes, January was gloomy indeed.
If you have a story which we should bring to our members, please drop it through to the team on admin@abra-relocation.com and we’ll add it to our next update!
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