Registration duties: what do Belgium's political parties propose?

What do Belgium's parties propose on registration duties in 2026?

On registration duties, Belgium's ten major parties share the same stated goal — making a first purchase more affordable — but disagree on the shape of the reduction. The N-VA, MR, Open VLD, Les Engagés, CD&V and Vooruit back a low flat rate for the sole owner-occupied home. The PS, Ecolo, Groen and the PTB·PVDA prefer a progressive scale that concentrates the benefit on smaller budgets. The Vlaams Belang supports the low Flemish rate without putting forward a progressivity plan.

This is not an abstract debate. Registration duties are the one cost of a property purchase that banks generally do not lend: they must be paid from your own funds, at the notary's office, on the day of the deed. On a €250,000 property, moving from 12.5% to 3% changes the required down payment by more than €23,000. It is that amount, rather than the rate itself, that often decides whether a household can buy at all.

On the numbers, the Belgian map has become distinctly lopsided in two years. Since 1 January 2025, buying a sole owner-occupied home is taxed at 2% in Flanders and 3% in Wallonia. In Brussels the rate stays at 12.5%, softened by a €200,000 allowance on the taxable base. Three Regions, three regimes, and a political debate now fought mainly over how to distribute the reduction rather than over its principle.

How to read these positions without taking sides?

Each party gets one sign per lever: a green + when it clearly backs that approach, an amber ~ for an intermediate or conditional position, a red − when it opposes it. This system replaces stars or scores out of 5, which would suggest a moral ranking.

No column names a "good" party. A party marked with a + on the low flat rate will often be marked with a − or a ~ on progressivity, and vice versa: the two levers answer different priorities — readability and an incentive to buy for one, social targeting for the other. Reading the table means spotting the lever each party favours.

The MR is a good illustration. It gets a + on the low rate, since it drove the move to 3% in Wallonia, and a − on progressivity, which it rejects in the name of simplicity. The PS has the mirror profile: ~ on the low rate — it is not asking for a return to 12.5% — and + on progressivity, of which it has tabled a costed version. They do not disagree on the goal, but on who should get how much.

Why do registration duties vary so much between Regions?

Because the matter is regionalised: each Region sets its rate, its conditions and its reductions, with no coordination with the other two. A single party can therefore run a policy in Flanders and have no grip at all in Brussels, simply because it does not govern there. That is the first thing to check before blaming a party for inaction on this file.

In practice, the three Regions diverged fast. Flanders cut the rate from 3% to 2% on 1 January 2025, implementing the coalition agreement concluded on 18 September 2024 between the N-VA, Vooruit and the CD&V; the benefit requires you to live in the property and register your residence there within three years, and the same agreement raised the rate applying to professional sellers from 4% to 6%. Wallonia moved from 12.5% to 3% on the same date, under the MR – Les Engagés agreement, with a clear trade-off: the abolition of the chèque-habitat and of the first-time buyer allowance. Brussels did not follow.

This divergence has a direct effect at regional borders. On the same €300,000 property, the buyer pays €6,000 in duties in Flanders, €9,000 in Wallonia, and in Brussels 12.5% on €100,000 after the allowance, or €12,500. The difference comes neither from the market nor from the notary, but from the Region the front door happens to be in.

What do the parties backing a low flat rate argue?

They argue for readability and for unlocking the down payment. The N-VA, MR, Open VLD, Les Engagés, CD&V and Vooruit start from the same observation: a young household fails less often on the monthly repayment than on the own funds required up front. What their manifestos say: a single low rate, with no income test, acts immediately on that barrier and can be understood without a calculator.

The reasoning also rests on a deliberate trade-off between tax instruments. In Wallonia, the MR – Les Engagés government preferred a general low rate to a stack of mechanisms — chèque-habitat, first-time buyer allowance — judged complex and poorly targeted. Les Engagés go further on paper and say they are ready to reduce, or even scrap, registration duties on a first property. In Flanders, the same logic produced the 2% rate, presented by the majority as the lowest in the country.

The underlying argument is access: less tax at the deed means a lighter down payment and more solvent households. The criticism is twofold. First, the benefit grows with the price: in euros, it is higher for whoever buys expensively. Second, a general cut can be partly recovered by the market in the form of higher prices, an effect that is documented but whose scale remains disputed. La Libre noted on 13 February 2026 that the Brussels measure "will not benefit many people" — the same doubt, applied to an allowance.

What do the parties backing a progressive scale propose?

They want to concentrate the reduction on modest purchases rather than spread it as a percentage. The PS has set out this approach most precisely. On 14 November 2024, its group in the Walloon Parliament voted against the MR – Les Engagés reform, calling it "a gift to the richest", and on 21 November tabled an alternative based on progressive rates by price bracket. Christie Morreale presented it as "fairer, more effective and more advantageous for 97% of Walloon home purchases", at equivalent budget cost.

The figures used to back it are the most concrete in the debate. According to the PS, the Walloon reform returns €2,100 to a single buyer purchasing at €150,000, and €49,000 to a couple buying at €550,000, while the average price of a Walloon home is around €243,000. Ecolo, Groen and the PTB·PVDA share this criticism of the distribution, with different emphases: the PTB stresses housing as a right and public supply, Ecolo and Groen add modulation according to the property's energy performance.

The underlying argument is targeting: at constant public cost, a progressive scale gives more back to those who buy small. The criticism, made by supporters of the flat rate, is that a bracketed scale recreates complexity, produces threshold effects just above each step, and can hold back mid-range purchases in cities where prices are structurally higher. Unlike the rent debate, this one pits two ways of drawing the same curve against each other rather than two ideological camps.

Brussels: why does the gap with the other two Regions remain?

Because the Brussels government formed on 12 February 2026 chose to widen the allowance rather than cut the rate. After 613 days without an executive, the coalition bringing together the MR, PS, Les Engagés, Groen, Vooruit, CD&V and Anders settled on a targeted measure: the property-value ceiling giving access to the allowance rises from €600,000 to €800,000. The rate itself stays at 12.5%.

The Brussels allowance takes €200,000 off the taxable base, on condition that you are not already full owner of another home, that you register your residence there within three years and stay for five. The maximum saving is around €25,000, which remains below the automatic advantage of a 2% or 3% rate on a comparable property. Raising the ceiling by construction affects the top of the market: buyers between €600,000 and €800,000, a small share of Brussels transactions.

The agreement was criticised as soon as it was presented by the left-wing opposition — the PTB, Ecolo and the Team Fouad Ahidar seeing in it an austerity text with no timetable, PTB group leader Françoise De Smedt calling it a policy "never asked for" by Brussels voters. To dig deeper, the comparator places two parties side by side on housing, the ranking sums up positions theme by theme, the quiz starts from your priorities, and the housing hub gathers the other comparisons, including the one on rent control. The methodology explains how these positions are collected and remains open to challenge.

What this comparison does not settle

This table does not say which formula "works" best. The real effect of a cut in registration duties on access to home ownership depends on local price levels, seller behaviour, interest rates and household saving capacity — variables no Region controls on its own. Two years of application in Flanders and Wallonia are not enough to separate the effect of the rate from the effect of the market.

Nor does it factor in your situation: the Region, the price of the property you are after, whether you are buying alone or as a couple, and above all how much you can put down in own funds on the day of the deed. On this file more than others, the gap between two manifestos is measured in euros at a given price. The right reflex is therefore to simulate your own case before judging a camp, rather than picking a winner from the table.