Property Owners
Discover the Benefits of Expat Rentals
Rent out your apartment with Globexs
Rent out your apartment with Globexs
Brussels rent guides love averages, and averages lie here more than in most cities, because Brussels is 19 communes wearing one name, and the same money that gets a tired studio near the EU institutions gets a two-bedroom with a terrace twenty minutes west. This guide replaces the average with the map: real 2026 price bands, commune by commune, for both the long-term unfurnished market and the furnished mid-term market, with the honest character notes that decide whether a cheap rent is a bargain or just cheap.
Prices below are what we see placing tenants every week at Globexs after 20 years in Brussels, expressed as typical bands for decent-condition apartments; outliers exist in both directions.
Unfurnished long-term (the classic 3-6-9 Belgian lease): one-bedrooms roughly €900 to €1,250, two-bedrooms €1,200 to €1,700, empty means empty, two months' deposit blocked, and landlords check payslips against the one-third rule.
Furnished mid-term (1 to 11 months, bills largely handled, ready on arrival): from €1,300 to €1,700 for a one-bedroom in the expat-relevant communes. This market is where new arrivals, project staff and postings live, and it is our daily trade, so both price sets appear below as long-term / furnished.
Ixelles (Flagey, Châtelain). The international default: markets, ponds, restaurants of every EU nationality, bus or bike to the institutions. Priced accordingly and worth it for most. One-bedroom €1,050-1,300 / from €1,500. Honest note: Châtelain-side nightlife streets are loud on weekends; check your street on a Friday.
Etterbeek. The commuter's rational choice: walk to Schuman, Place Jourdan's friteries, honest mid prices. Less glamorous than Ixelles, more sleep. €950-1,200 / from €1,400.
Saint-Gilles (Parvis side). The most character per euro in Brussels: café life, art nouveau streets, strong local identity, 25-35 minutes to the EU quarter. Gentrified enough to be comfortable, not enough to be dull. €900-1,150 / from €1,300. Note: quality varies block by block, view apartments in person or through someone who has.
Uccle. Green, calm, embassy-adjacent, home of international schools and long dinners. Larger apartments and houses dominate. Two-bedroom €1,400-1,900 / furnished family units from €1,700. The trade: 30-45 minutes to the centre and a social life that requires intent.
Woluwe (Saint-Pierre and Saint-Lambert). Orderly, leafy, metro line 1 straight to Schuman, easy parking, the diplomat-and-family belt along Tervueren. €1,000-1,300 one-beds, family units €1,500-2,000 / furnished from €1,500. Character note: pleasant is the ceiling and the floor; excitement lives elsewhere.
Schaerbeek (the good parts: around Parc Josaphat, Diamant side). Huge art nouveau housing stock at prices Ixelles abandoned years ago, genuinely mixed and lively, uneven block to block. €800-1,050 / from €1,150. The best value-per-square-metre play in Brussels for those who choose streets carefully.
Jette and Koekelberg. Quiet, residential, ordinary in the good sense, metro-connected. €800-1,000 / furnished stock thinner, from €1,100. Where budgets breathe.
Anderlecht (Cureghem excepted). Cheapest metro-connected rents in the region, €750-950, and a commune whose reputation lags parts of its reality. For the brave-and-budgeted; visit before judging in either direction.
Molenbeek (canal side). The canal zone is Brussels' loft-and-studio frontier, artists and architects first as always. Cheap, interesting, not for everyone, changing fast. €750-1,000.
The Pentagon (Sainte-Catherine, Dansaert, Sablon). Living in the postcard is possible and priced in tiers: Dansaert/Sainte-Catherine hip and central (€1,000-1,300 / from €1,400), Sablon polished and premium (from €1,300 / from €1,700), the Grand-Place tourist core atmospheric and impractical (groceries, noise). Central note that applies everywhere inside the ring: older buildings, fewer elevators, scarcer parking, more life at your window at 2 am.
The EU quarter itself. You can rent here (€1,000-1,300 / from €1,400) and some do for the two-minute commute. Empty evenings, weekend silence, supermarket deserts. We advise the neighbouring communes instead in almost every case, and wrote the corporate version of that advice separately.
Every €100 of monthly budget moves you roughly one commune outward or one notch upward in quality; decide which direction matters to you. Winter viewing beats summer viewing (you meet the heating bill and the daylight honestly). The EPC energy label on every listing predicts your utility pain: F and G on a Brussels townhouse is a €250 winter gas month waiting to happen. And the one-third income rule is applied by landlords with payslips in hand, so aim your search accordingly rather than arguing with it.
The pattern that works, tenant after tenant: land in a furnished mid-term apartment in your best-guess commune, from €1,300 per month with bills handled, live it for a season, then sign the long unfurnished lease in the commune you now know instead of the one you guessed. At Globexs this is exactly what we set up, 1 to 11 months across the communes above, ready on day one, with honest advice about which street fits which life, because after two decades here we know where our own colleagues would and would not live. Tell us your budget and your office address and we will tell you where the map says you land.
