Cost of Living in Brussels for Expats: The Line-by-Line Budget (2026)

The short answer: a single professional lives comfortably in Brussels on about €2,600 per month, a couple on about €3,600, and a stagiaire on the traineeship grant manages on about €1,440 with shared housing. Rent is 40 percent of every one of those budgets, and it is the only line that really moves the total.

Below is where each euro actually goes, line by line, with 2026 prices, followed by the three complete budgets in full. If you are still at the earlier question of what income you need, our pillar guide covers how much money you need to live in Brussels.

The numbers come from daily reality: we have housed expats and EU staff in Brussels for over 20 years at Globexs, and tenants tell us what things cost with the special honesty of people mid-adjustment.

Housing, the 40 percent line

Covered in depth in our rent-by-neighbourhood guide, so just the anchors here. Unfurnished long-term: one-bedroom €900 to €1,250, two-bedroom €1,200 to €1,700, plus €150 to €250 utilities, plus furniture from zero. Furnished mid-term (1 to 11 months, bills largely handled): from €1,300 to €1,700 for a one-bedroom depending on the commune. Flatshare room: €550 to €750. Deposits on long-term leases: two months in a blocked account, sometimes three requested.

The utilities note that surprises southerners and Americans alike: Belgian heating season runs November to March and gas bills in a badly insulated older building can double between summer and winter months. Ask about the EPC energy score before signing; it is on every listing by law and it is not decoration.

Food

Groceries, one person cooking most meals: €280 to €350. A couple: €450 to €550. The chain hierarchy every local knows: Colruyt cheapest, Lidl and Aldi for basics, Delhaize and Carrefour standard, Bio-Planet and the organic shops premium. Sunday's Marché du Midi is the produce equaliser, half supermarket prices for fruit and vegetables if you go with a trolley like everyone else.

Eating out: weekday lunch formules €15 to €20 almost everywhere office workers gather; dinner mains €18 to €28 in normal restaurants, €40+ per person in the good ones with wine; friture €8 to €12 for the full national experience; kebab or banh mi €7 to €10. Beer €4 to €5 in a café, €1.50 in the supermarket, and this gap explains a lot of Belgian social life happening at home. Coffee €3 to €3.50.

Getting around

STIB monthly pass: about €49, covering metro, tram and bus across the region, and it is genuinely all most people need. Villo bike share exists but Brussels hills and cobbles make it a niche taste; many expats buy a secondhand bike (€150 to €300) instead. Trains to the rest of Belgium are cheap and constant: Antwerp in 40 minutes, Ghent in 35, the coast in 90, weekend tickets discounted.

The car line, if you insist: insurance €600 to €1,200 a year, resident parking permit cheap (from around €25 a year in many communes, deliberately so), actual parking spaces €100 to €200 a month rented, fuel around €1.70 to €1.85 per litre, and traffic that Belgians themselves apologise for. Most central expats sell the car within a year and do not miss it.

Healthcare

The Belgian system costs little and confuses everyone at first. Mutualité membership from about €10 per month, hospitalisation insurance €10 to €30 on top, GP visit around €30 with roughly €20 to €24 reimbursed, prescriptions heavily subsidised. Total realistic health line for a healthy adult, insurance included: €30 to €60 a month, which reads like a typo to Americans. The catch is administrative, not financial; our expat guide to Belgian healthcare walks through the mutualité choice and the reimbursement dance.

Communications and home

Internet: €40 to €60. Mobile: €15 to €30 (the Belgian telecom market is pricier than its neighbours; Mobile Vikings and the budget brands undercut the big three). Streaming, the usual €10 to €15 each. Home insurance, required by most leases: €100 to €200 a year.

Life itself

Gym €25 to €50, the communal pools €3 to €5 a swim. Cinema €12 to €14. Museums €10 to €15 with the first Sunday of the month free in many. A night out with dinner, drinks and a taxi home: €60 to €100 per person. A cleaning service via the titres-services system: about €10 to €11 per hour after the tax setup, one of Belgium's stranger bargains.

Travel deserves its own line in every Brussels budget because everyone here travels: Charleroi and Zaventem throw €30 to €80 flights across Europe, the Eurostar reaches Paris in 82 minutes and London in two hours, and a realistic expat travel line is €150 to €300 a month, self-inflicted.

Three complete budgets

Single professional, one-bedroom in Saint-Gilles, no car. Rent+utilities €1,350, groceries €320, eating out €250, STIB €49, health €45, phone+internet €70, gym €35, life and travel €400, misc €100. Total: about €2,620.

Couple, two-bedroom in Etterbeek, no car. Rent+utilities €1,650, groceries €500, eating out €400, transport €98, health €90, comms €90, life and travel €600, misc €150. Total: about €3,580.

Stagiaire, flatshare room near Flagey. Room €650 bills included, groceries €280, the stagiaire social calendar €250 (this line is non-negotiable, ask any alumnus), STIB €49, health €35, phone €20, travel €100, misc €60. Total: about €1,440, which is precisely the grant, which is precisely the point everyone makes about the grant.

Quick answers

Is Brussels expensive to live in? Less than Paris, London or Amsterdam by a clear margin, more than Lisbon or Valencia. A comfortable single life costs about €2,600 a month, and housing decides most of that.

How much rent should I budget in Brussels? €900 to €1,250 for an unfurnished one-bedroom on a long lease, or from €1,300 to €1,700 for a furnished mid-term apartment with bills handled. Belgian landlords apply a rule of thumb that rent should not exceed one third of your net income.

Do I need a car in Brussels? No. The STIB monthly pass costs about €49 and covers metro, tram and bus across the region. Most central expats who arrive with a car sell it within a year.

What does healthcare cost in Belgium? Around €30 to €60 a month for a healthy adult: mutualité membership from about €10, hospitalisation insurance €10 to €30, and a GP visit around €30 of which most is reimbursed.

Can you live in Brussels on €1,500 a month? Yes, but only with shared housing. That is the stagiaire budget above, and it works because the room costs €650 instead of €1,350.

The first-month asterisk

Setup is a one-off tax the monthly budgets hide: deposits, the first grocery haul of a bare kitchen, transport cards, SIM, insurance policies, and the general cost of not yet knowing where anything is cheap. Budget €1,500 to €3,000 of one-off money on a long-term unfurnished start, or skip most of it by landing furnished. That arithmetic, honestly done, is why so many of our tenants at Globexs start with a furnished 1-to-11-month apartment from €1,300 while they learn the city, then sign the long lease knowing exactly which commune, which street and which budget is theirs. The spreadsheet you build after two real months beats any article, including this one.