Building permits: August 2018

Housing
Building permits: residential and non-residential buildings

Statbel, the Belgian statistical office, publishes today the figures on building permits until August 2018. Due to the transition to a digital registration system in the Flemish authorities, the publication was suspended for a while. From today onwards, the results will again be published every month, down to the level of the municipalities for all regions. The missing figures from the Flemish Region from June 2017 onwards are also filled in in this publication.

2018 – August

Figures for the first 8 months of 2018 - number of building permits for new residential buildings + evolution compared to the previous period

year month Belgium Flemish Region Walloon Region Brussels-Capital Region
2018 1 2,383   1,713   653   17  
2018 2 2,481 4,1% 2,028 18,4% 433 -33,7% 20 17,6%
2018 3 3,211 29,4% 2,635 29,9% 560 29,3% 16 -20,0%
2018 4 3,177 -1,1% 2,632 -0,1% 532 -5,0% 13 -18,8%
2018 5 2.810 -11,6% 2.238 -15,0% 563 7,5% 9 -30,8%
2018 6 2,169 -23,1% 1,541 -31,1% 618 7,9% 10 11,1%
2018 7 1,913 -11,8% 1,424 -7,6% 473 -23,5% 15 50,0%
2018 8 1,926 0,7% 1,342 -5,8% 576 21,8% 8 -46,7%

For the most recent month available, August 2018, building permits were issued for 1,926 residential buildings. Compared to July 2018, this is an increase of 0.7 %.  The Flemish Region registered a decrease of 5.8 %.  The number of building permits issued for new buildings has increased in the Walloon Region by 21.8 % and decreased in the Brussels-Capital Region by 46.7 %.

The number of renovations of residential buildings was in August 6.4 % lower than in July. The Flemish Region registered an increase of 0.3 %.  We observed a decrease of 13.9 % in the Walloon Region and of 26.5 % in the Brussels-Capital Region.

Long term evolution:

New construction vs renovation                                     Single family dwellings vs apartments    

bouwvergunningen_en2018a.png bouwvergunningen_en2018b.png

 

Since 2007, the number of permits for the renovation of residential buildings was generally higher than the number of permits for the construction of new residential buildings.  This changes from the second quarter of 2018 onwards.

From 2003 onwards, more permits are issued for new apartments than for singe family dwellings.  During the years 2010-2011, both were at approximately the same level, but in recent years the difference has been increasing in favour of the apartments.