90% of couples with children have a car
In 2023, 72% of Belgian households have at least one car. While this percentage is nearly 90% for couples with children, it is only 69% for lone parents. Furthermore, one person living alone out of two does not have a car.
In 2023, Belgian households had on average 1.06 cars. This value has remained unchanged since 2021. At regional level, the Brussels-Capital Region has an average rate well below the national average with 0.55 cars per household. This value is down by 3.5% compared to 2022 and has been decreasing since 2021. This low value is related to the urban nature of the Brussels territory. Walloon households have on average 1.11 cars, a number unchanged since 2020, and Flemish households have on average 1.13 cars, also unchanged since 2022. At municipal level, Saint-Josse-ten-Noode remains the municipality with the lowest average number of cars per household with 0.32 cars per household, while Lasne remains the municipality with the highest figure: 1.68 cars per household. Both values have decreased by 3% and 0.6% respectively compared to 2022. So the number of cars per household continues to evolve very slowly from one year to the other.
Nearly half of single people do not have a car
In 2023, 49.3% of people living alone did not own a passenger car, and 47.3% had only one. Compared to 2022, the share of single people with only one car has fallen by 0.3 percentage points (pp) to its lowest value since 2020, to the benefit of the share of single people without a car (+0.2pp) and those with two cars (+0.1pp). For couples without children living in the same household, 12.8% do not have a car, which is a slight increase (+0.2pp) compared to the previous year. 56.3% have only one car (-0.4pp), 26.0% have two (+0pp) and 4.9% have at least three (+0.1pp).
Whether they are single people or couples without children under the same roof, the proportion of these households owning exactly one car is therefore falling slightly. On the other hand, more of these households own two or more cars, or none at all.
90% of couples with children have at least one car
Among couples living with at least one child, 10.1% do not have a car. This increase of 0.3 percentage points compared to 2022 is in line with the rise observed since 2021. 37.2% have only one car (+0.1pp), 38.8% have two (-0.4pp) and 14.0% have at least three (+0pp). The share of couples having three cars or more goes from 4.9% for couples without children living in the same household to 14.0% for couples with children in the same the household. This contrasts with the 3.7% of single-parent families who have three or more vehicles (+0pp). However, 30.5% of them do not have any vehicle at all (+0.8pp), and 50.2% have only one car (-0.6pp).