What you really pay on top of the price in Belgium

Three different things in one word

The single expression frais de notaire covers three things with nothing in common except that the notary collects them all on completion day:

• Tax — the registration duty, paid to the Region, or VAT on a new build. This is the overwhelming majority of the bill.
• The notary's fee — their actual remuneration, on a statutory sliding scale, plus 21 % VAT.
• Disbursements — sums the notary advances on your behalf for searches, certificates and registration.

Confusing them leads to the classic newcomer error: assuming a fee can be negotiated. The tax cannot, and the fee is not the notary's to discount.

Registration duties, region by region

The duty is a regional tax, so the rate depends on where the property is, not on where you live. The three Regions have diverged sharply, and each rewards buying the home you will actually live in.

The gap is enormous. On a €300,000 purchase, the duty is €6,000 in Flanders and €37,500 in Wallonia if the reduced rate does not apply. Three points a newcomer should hold on to:

• "Sole" means sole. If you already own property — including abroad, in some configurations — the favourable regime may be closed to you. Declare it; the administration cross-checks.
• You must actually live there, and register your domicile at that address within the period set by the Region. Buying to rent out never qualifies.
• The Brussels abatement is conditional and requires you to keep the property as your main residence for a number of years. Selling early can mean paying the tax back.

The exact conditions change regularly and are decided by each Region. Our guide to registration duties goes through each regime in detail — including the Flemish flat reduction and the Brussels abatement on building land — and our purchase costs calculator applies the scales in force and states its sources; treat any figure you read elsewhere, including this page, as an order of magnitude to be checked.

New builds: VAT instead of duties

A property sold new by a developer falls under VAT at 21 % instead of the registration duty. On paper 21 % looks worse than 12.5 %; in practice the comparison is not that simple, because the land share may still be taxed under the duty regime, and because a new build carries no immediate renovation cost and a ten-year structural guarantee.

Two Belgian specifics worth knowing: a reduced VAT rate applies to certain renovation and demolition-and-rebuild operations, with conditions that have changed several times in recent years; and buying off-plan is governed by the Breyne Act, which imposes staged payments tied to progress and a completion guarantee. That law protects you, and a developer cannot contract out of it.

The notary's fee: fixed by law

The notary's remuneration follows a degressive scale set by Royal Decree: the percentage falls as the price rises. Two consequences that surprise people used to solicitors' quotes:

• It is identical at every notary in Belgium. Comparing quotes is pointless.
• Appointing your own notary costs nothing extra. When each party has one, they split the same fee. Given that, there is no reason to rely solely on the seller's notary.

The fee carries 21 % VAT, and Wallonia grants a reduction on it for a sole, owner-occupied home.

Disbursements and administrative costs

These are the amounts the notary pays out on your behalf: mortgage searches, cadastral extracts, town-planning information, the soil certificate, land-registry transcription, the writing duty. They are neither profit nor tax, they are flat amounts, and they typically come to a few hundred to around a thousand euros. They appear separately on the statement — a good statement itemises them rather than lumping them into a round "fees" line.

The second deed: your mortgage

If you borrow, there is not one deed but two, and the second has its own costs: a registration duty of 1 % on the secured amount, a mortgage duty of 0.30 %, a registry fee, and a further notary's fee on its own scale.

This is why a mortgage of €250,000 costs materially more in deed costs than one of €200,000, and why the so-called "105 % loan" — where you borrow the purchase costs too — is slightly circular: borrowing more increases the mortgage deed costs, which increases what you need to borrow. Our calculator resolves that loop by iteration rather than approximating it.

What you must pay from your own pocket

This is the practical heart of the matter for anyone arriving in Belgium. Banks lend against the value of the property, not against the transaction. Duties and fees are not part of the value, so they are rarely financed. Loan-to-value above 90 % has become the exception.

Concretely, on a €300,000 house in Wallonia at the reduced rate, you should expect to need roughly €30,000 of equity for the 10 % deposit plus something in the order of €15,000 to €18,000 for duties and fees — before any furniture, works or moving costs. In Brussels without the abatement, the second figure roughly doubles.

A worked example

Take an existing house at €300,000, bought as a sole, owner-occupied home, financed with a €270,000 mortgage. The shape of the bill differs enormously by Region:

• Flanders, at 2 %: the duty is €6,000. Fees and disbursements add a few thousand. The transaction stays close to the price.
• Wallonia, at 3 %: the duty is €9,000, with a reduction on the notary's fee for this type of purchase.
• Brussels, at 12.5 % with the abatement applied to the first €200,000: the duty is calculated on €100,000, so €12,500 rather than €37,500 — the abatement is worth €25,000 and is the single most valuable thing to check your eligibility for.

Add to all three the mortgage deed on €270,000. These are orders of magnitude, not quotes: the only figures that count are those your notary produces for your file.

One last piece of advice for a newcomer: ask for the detailed statement before completion day, not on it. A Belgian notary will provide it without difficulty, and it is your chance to see, line by line, what is tax, what is fee, and what is advanced on your behalf.