Here is the first thing to understand about housing people who work at the Port of Antwerp: nobody lives at the port. The port area covers more than 120 square kilometres of terminals, chemical plants and locks. There are no apartments in it, no supermarkets, and after the evening shift change, almost no people. Every housing decision is really a commute decision.
We have placed engineers, turnaround crews and project managers around the port for two decades at Globexs, and this article covers what actually works: which districts to choose for which site, what it costs, the car question, and the timing traps around big maintenance shutdowns.
The Port of Antwerp-Bruges is the second largest port in Europe and directly and indirectly supports around 160,000 jobs. Wrapped around the docks is the largest integrated petrochemical cluster in Europe. BASF's Antwerp site alone is its biggest production site after Ludwigshafen.
For housing purposes, what matters is the rhythm of the work. Chemical plants run planned maintenance shutdowns (turnarounds) that bring in hundreds of external specialists for 2 to 6 months. Construction and expansion projects bring teams for a year or more. Shipping and logistics companies rotate international staff through for 3 to 11 month assignments. Almost none of these people want an unfurnished flat with a 3-year Belgian lease. All of them want to be reasonably close to a gate, and each gate has a different answer.
The port stretches north from the city along both banks of the Scheldt.
Right bank (east side): most of the container terminals, many chemical plants, and the older dock areas closest to the city. If the site is on the right bank, house people in the north of Antwerp: Eilandje at the expensive end, Merksem and Ekeren in the middle, or the villages just north (Kapellen, Stabroek) for people who prefer quiet and have a car.
Left bank (west side): the Waaslandhaven, with major chemical sites and the newer container capacity. For left bank sites, Linkeroever and Zwijndrecht are the practical choices, and some crews prefer Sint-Niklaas, 15 minutes away by car with cheaper housing.
The two banks connect through tunnels, and this is where relocations go wrong. The Kennedy tunnel is jammed at every rush hour. The Liefkenshoek tunnel to the north is faster but tolled (plants often reimburse it, worth asking). Housing someone in the pleasant south of the city for a job at a left bank plant means fighting tunnel traffic twice a day. They will hate it by week three.
From our tenants' actual experience, door to gate by car:
Eilandje to the older right bank docks: 10 to 20 minutes
Merksem or Ekeren to right bank terminals: 15 to 30 minutes
Linkeroever or Zwijndrecht to Waaslandhaven sites: 10 to 20 minutes
City centre to the far northern terminals: 30 to 45 minutes, more during turnaround season when thousands of extra contractors are on the roads
Public transport is the honest weak point. De Lijn runs buses into the port, but frequencies do not match 6 am shift starts well, and evening options thin out fast. Several large employers run their own shuttles from park-and-ride points, and there is a shared water shuttle on some routes. The practical rule: if the employee has no car and the employer has no shuttle, tell your housing partner before choosing a location, not after.
Furnished mid-term apartments, monthly, in the districts that make sense for port work:
Merksem, Ekeren, Deurne-Noord: from €1,100 for a 1-bedroom
Linkeroever and Zwijndrecht: from €1,100 to €1,300
Eilandje (walkable to the city, views over the old docks): from €1,600
Houses for crews sharing, northern districts: from €2,000 for 3 bedrooms
Utilities run €150 to €250 per month on top when not included. Parking is the hidden cost people forget: free and easy in Ekeren or Zwijndrecht, a paid permit hunt in Eilandje. If the whole team drives, that alone can decide the district.
One honest note: Merksem and Ekeren are not postcard Flanders. They are ordinary working districts with supermarkets, gyms and fast roads to the port. People who want café terraces and museums should look at Eilandje or accept a longer commute from the centre. We tell tenants this upfront because a mismatch of expectations causes more early departures than any defect in an apartment.
Rent out your apartment with Globexs
Large plant shutdowns concentrate demand brutally. When two or three sites schedule turnarounds in the same window, usually spring and early autumn, hundreds of contractors hit the housing market in the same month. Prices firm up and the good furnished stock near the port disappears weeks in advance.
If your company knows a turnaround date, and it always does, start booking housing 2 to 3 months out. We have had project managers call us 10 days before mobilisation asking for 15 apartments in Ekeren. It gets solved, but not at the price or quality that 8 weeks of lead time buys.
For blue-collar turnaround crews, shared houses (3 to 5 bedrooms, one invoice) usually beat individual studios on both cost and morale. For engineers and management staying 6 months or longer, individual apartments keep peace within the team. Mixing the two models on one project is normal, and your finance team still deals with one provider and one all-in invoicing cycle.
At Globexs we handle both, with contracts from 1 to 11 months, extension by one email and team members replaced within the same contract, because mobilisation never happens in one day.
portofantwerpbruges.com, the port authority, including maps of terminals and gates
delijn.be, bus routes and the port shuttle information
antwerpen.be, the city's page for international newcomers and parking permits
House right bank workers in the north of the city, left bank workers on the left bank, and never make anyone cross the Scheldt at rush hour. Confirm the car and parking situation before choosing a district. Book 2 to 3 months before a turnaround. And do not put a shutdown crew in a hotel for four months; the budget will not survive it.
If you have a team heading to a port or chemical site and need furnished apartments or crew houses with one all-in monthly invoice, with flexible dates that follow the project, this is daily work for us at Globexs. Send the site name and headcount, and we will tell you honestly which districts fit.
