Living in Brussels

Brussels, Belgium, about 1,019,022 people. What you would earn and keep, the climate month by month, and every open figure we hold, each with its source, period and licence.

Weigh Brussels against other cities, with your own numbers

Key facts

• Brussels has about 1,019,022 residents (GeoNames).
• On a gross salary of €60,000 a year, an employee in Brussels takes home about €37,134 a year (€3,095 a month) after income tax and employee contributions, an effective rate of 38.1% (Belgium 2026 rules).
• In Brussels the average daily high (air temperature in the shade) peaks at 23.3 °C in August and the average daily low falls to 1.2 °C in January (Historical weather (ERA5 reanalysis), Open-Meteo, 2021-2025).
• Brussels has about 28 nice days a year, days that are dry, mostly clear and feel 18 to 30 °C on average from 8 am to 8 pm, most of them in June (8) (Historical weather (ERA5 reanalysis), Open-Meteo, 2021-2025).
• Between 2021 and 2025 the air in Brussels reached 36.8 °C at its hottest and −8.5 °C at its coldest (Historical weather (ERA5 reanalysis), Open-Meteo).
• It rains or snows (at least 1 mm) on about 145 days a year in Brussels (Historical weather (ERA5 reanalysis), Open-Meteo, 2021-2025).
• The shortest day in Brussels lasts 7 h 56 min and the longest 16 h 31 min (computed from latitude).
• Fine dust (PM2.5) in Brussels averages 7.6 µg/m³ a year, 1.5 times the WHO guideline of 5 µg/m³ (WHO Ambient Air Quality Database v8.0 (2026), World Health Organization, 2024).
• Everyday prices in Belgium sit at 87.2 on an index where the United States is 100 (World Development Indicators, World Bank, 2025).
• Life expectancy at birth in Belgium is 82.3 years (World Development Indicators, World Bank, 2024).
• Belgium records 1.08 intentional homicides per 100,000 people a year (World Development Indicators, World Bank, 2021).
• Besides citizens of Belgium, citizens of 29 other countries under EU and EEA free movement and of Switzerland (Swiss-EU free movement) can live and work in Brussels without a visa.

What you would take home

Single resident employee in Belgium (income 2026): social security with the work bonus, federal income tax with the tax-free sum and lump-sum expenses, Brussels regional and municipal surcharges, fiscal work bonus, special social security contribution. Rules for 2026. Sources: SPF Finances: tax rates and the tax-free sum, income 2025 and 2026 (worked example), SPF Finances: lump-sum work expenses, 30% up to €6,070 (income 2026), Moniteur belge, 29 July 2026: law of 15 July 2026 reforming personal income tax (tax-free sum, fiscal work bonus), Moniteur belge, 12 August 2026: automatic indexation, tax year 2027 (tables I and VII), ONSS administrative instructions 2026/3: employee contributions 13.07%, ONSS administrative instructions 2026/1-2026/3: the work bonus, Justel: law of 30 March 1994, art. 108 (special social security contribution), Moniteur belge: royal decree of 19 December 2017, autonomy factor 24.957%, Justel: Brussels ordinance of 15 December 2014 on the regional surcharge, art. 2, City of Brussels: municipal surcharge 4.9% (council decision of 15 December 2025), SPF Finances: Tax-Calc, the official simulator (tax year 2026).

• Income tax and the special contribution are the final annual amounts, not the monthly withholding.
• The gross is read as twelve equal monthly salaries. Belgian packages usually add a 13th month and double holiday pay, which are taxed and contributed on slightly differently.
• Brussels figures are exact; elsewhere the regional surcharge is assumed to restore exactly the federal-equivalent tax (Flanders and Wallonia not read) and the municipal rate is assumed to be Brussels' 4.9% (municipalities set their own).
• The municipal rate is the City of Brussels' rate for tax year 2026; its rate for income 2026 is voted in December 2026.
• SPF Finances' rates page still shows a tax-free sum of €11,180 for income 2026; the law of 15 July 2026 raised it to €11,550, which is used here.
• No dependants, no tax reductions (pension savings, gifts, home), no meal vouchers, company car or other benefits.
• Newcomers: the impatriate regime makes up to 35% on top of salary tax-free; switch it on in Money or set a taxable share.

A month in Brussels

Assumed: one person, €60,000 gross a year, renting a one-bedroom home, and everyday spending of €1,200 a month in Lisbon scaled by each country's price level. These are the app's defaults; change any of them there.

Who can live and work here freely

• Citizens of Belgium.
• Citizens of Austria, Bulgaria, Croatia, Cyprus, Czechia, Denmark, Estonia, Finland, France, Germany, Greece, Hungary, Ireland, Italy, Latvia, Lithuania, Luxembourg, Malta, Netherlands, Poland, Portugal, Romania, Slovakia, Slovenia, Spain, Sweden, Iceland, Liechtenstein, Norway, under EU and EEA free movement (Directive 2004/38/EC and the EEA Agreement). Directive 2004/38/EC, extended to Iceland, Liechtenstein and Norway by the EEA Agreement. Beyond three months a registration is usually required, but no visa or permit to work.
• Citizens of Switzerland, under Swiss-EU free movement (Agreement on the Free Movement of Persons (EU-Switzerland)).

Climate

Daylight is computed from latitude: the shortest day lasts 7 h 56 min, the longest 16 h 31 min.

Every figure

No open figure yet for: rent, one bedroom, rent, three bedrooms, your childcare cost, health insurance premium, commute time. A country-wide figure is marked as such where it stands in for the city.

Compare Brussels with

• Brussels vs Amsterdam
• Brussels vs Berlin
• Brussels vs Cambridge
• Brussels vs Dublin
• Brussels vs Hamburg
• Brussels vs London
• Brussels vs Madrid
• Brussels vs Naples
• Brussels vs Oslo
• Brussels vs Paris
• Brussels vs Rome
• Brussels vs Rotterdam

Elsewhere

Sources we link to but do not copy, because their licences forbid it.

• Numbeo: cost of living in Brussels
• WeatherSpark: year-round weather in Brussels
• Wikipedia: Brussels

Credits

• Borgo contributors, from the statutes cited in each figure's note (CC BY 4.0)
• Borgo's summary of the EU-Swiss Agreement on the Free Movement of Persons (State Secretariat for Migration) (Borgo's own summary of the law cited (CC BY 4.0); the official text is cited, not copied)
• Unicode CLDR territory information. Copyright © 1991-2026 Unicode, Inc. Used under the Unicode License v3 (https://www.unicode.org/license.txt) (Unicode License v3)
• Borgo contributors, from the statutes cited in each figure's note (CC BY 4.0)
• Borgo's summary of Directive 2004/38/EC (© European Union, EUR-Lex) (Borgo's own summary of the law cited (CC BY 4.0); the official text is cited, not copied)
• Source: Eurostat, EU Labour Force Survey (edat_lfse_04, © European Union). Borgo keeps each region's latest value Eurostat is not responsible for Borgo's use of its data. (European Commission reuse policy (Decision 2011/833/EU): reuse with the source acknowledged and changes stated)
• Source: Eurostat, Urban Audit (© European Union). Borgo keeps each city's latest value and converts units where its note says so Eurostat is not responsible for Borgo's use of its data. (European Commission reuse policy (Decision 2011/833/EU): reuse with the source acknowledged and changes stated)
• Founders Running Club communities list (facts of presence and links only) (No licence from the publisher: only facts of presence are stored)
• Places, coordinates, populations and time zones from GeoNames (geonames.org), CC BY 4.0 (CC BY 4.0)
• GHS-UCDB R2024A, European Commission, Joint Research Centre, CC BY 4.0, doi:10.2905/1a338be6-7eaf-480c-9664-3a8ade88cbcd; Borgo derives the distance from the centre to the urban centre's edge Shores and lakes from Natural Earth (public domain) decide which directions lead on to land. (CC BY 4.0)
• Counts of GitHub profiles by stated location, from GitHub's public user search (counts only, no profile data) (No data licence from the publisher: only total counts are stored, no record about anyone, as its terms allow public, non-personal information in openly published research)
• Borgo contributors, from the labour codes cited in each figure's note (CC BY 4.0)
• The M-Lab NDT Data Set, 2023-01-01–2023-12-31. https://measurementlab.net/tests/ndt (CC0 1.0 (public domain dedication))
• Public holidays from Nager.Date (date.nager.at), MIT License, Copyright (c) Nager (MIT License)
• Made with Natural Earth (public domain) (Public domain (dedicated by the publisher))
• OECD (2026), Net childcare costs, OECD Tax-Benefit Models, https://www.oecd.org/en/data/indicators/net-childcare-costs.html Reusers must cite the OECD as above and pass this acknowledgement requirement on to anyone they share the data with. (OECD terms for data: any use, with the OECD citation passed on)
• OECD (2026), OECD Family Database, PF2.1 Parental leave systems, https://www.oecd.org/en/data/datasets/oecd-family-database.html Reusers must cite the OECD as above and pass this acknowledgement requirement on to anyone they share the data with. (OECD terms for data: any use, with the OECD citation passed on)
• OECD (2026), OECD Well-being Database (How's Life?), https://www.oecd.org/en/data/datasets/well-being-database.html Reusers must cite the OECD as above and pass this acknowledgement requirement on to anyone they share the data with. (OECD terms for data: any use, with the OECD citation passed on)
• Weather data by Open-Meteo.com (https://open-meteo.com/), CC BY 4.0 Contains modified Copernicus Climate Change Service information 2021-2025. Neither the European Commission nor ECMWF is responsible for any use that may be made of the Copernicus information or data it contains. (CC BY 4.0)
• OpenAlex (openalex.org), CC0 (CC0 1.0 (public domain dedication))
• © OpenStreetMap contributors, ODbL 1.0 (https://www.openstreetmap.org/copyright) (Open Database License 1.0)
• © OpenStreetMap contributors, ODbL 1.0 (https://www.openstreetmap.org/copyright) (Open Database License 1.0)
• Airports from OurAirports (ourairports.com), public domain (Public domain (dedicated by the publisher))
• Borgo contributors, from official election results and ParlGov party positions (Döring, Huber and Manow, ParlGov 2024 release, CC0) (CC BY 4.0)
• Research Organization Registry (ror.org), CC0 (CC0 1.0 (public domain dedication))
• Terrain Tiles on AWS Open Data (Mapzen, a Linux Foundation project): SRTM and GMTED2010 terrain data courtesy of the U.S. Geological Survey; ETOPO1, U.S. National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration; Canada terrain data contains information licensed under the Open Government Licence – Canada (Terrain Tiles source terms: public domain (USGS, NOAA) and Open Government Licence – Canada, with attribution)
• World Health Organization, WHO Ambient Air Quality Database (Version 8.0), 2026, accessed 2026-10-27; data provided by the national and regional agencies named in each value's note WHO does not endorse Borgo, its use of these data, or any city ranking built from them. Values are as published by WHO; WHO advises against using the database to rank cities or compare countries directly, because monitoring differs between places. (WHO terms and conditions for data compilations)
• WMO Member Nations (2023). WMO Climatological Standard Normals for 1991-2020 (NCEI Accession 0253808), sunshine duration. NOAA National Centers for Environmental Information. https://doi.org/10.25921/800j-vn07 (No licence attached: NCEI public access with a requested citation, under the WMO Unified Data Policy)
• World Bank, World Development Indicators, CC BY 4.0 (underlying sources named in each figure's note: ICP, IMF, UNODC, UN Population Division, WHO, ILO, UNESCO Institute for Statistics) (CC BY 4.0)
• World Bank, Worldwide Governance Indicators, Control of Corruption estimate, CC BY 4.0 (CC BY 4.0)

Cite this page

Borgo, “Living in Brussels”, https://borgo.abcastor.com/city/brussels-be/, figures as of 2026-11-05. Please also name the original source of any figure you use; each is listed above with its licence. Data: brussels-be.json.