The wealthiest 10% of Belgian households own 55% of the country’s net wealth, according to the latest statistics from the National Bank of Belgium (BNB).
This is a decline from 2011, when the top 10% owned 59% of national wealth, according to the BNB's Distributional Wealth Accounts. It is also below the average for the Eurozone, according to European Central Bank statistics.
Between 2011 and 2023, the bottom half of Belgian households saw an increase in their share of the country's wealth, from 7% to 8.4%. The Eurozone average is now 5%.
The Gini coefficient, a measure of the distribution of wealth within a population, has also improved in Belgium. It decreased from 0.7 in 2018 to 0.68 in the second quarter of 2023, while remaining at 0.72 in the Eurozone.
According to the BNB, the improvement can be partially attributed to property prices. Residential property accounts for over half of the total net wealth of Belgian households (€1,596 billion).
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Moreover, prices in Belgium have increased more modestly than in many other Eurozone countries, and the country also boasts a large number of homeowners.
The aim of the Distributional Wealth Accounts, published quarterly, is to merge data from sectorial national accounts with those from the triennial Household Finance and Consumption Survey (HFCS).
This allows a more comprehensive understanding of wealth distribution among households.
