Statistics

Households
In 2014, 350.635 people or 3,7% of people over the age 18 were registered with an over-indebtedness in Belgium. This means that those 3,7% had a delay on paying consumers credit or mortgage loans. This is a slight increase in comparison with 2013, where 341.416 people with over-indebtedness were registered.

When we look at the numbers of the regions we can see a great difference between Flanders on one side and Brussels and the Wallonia on the other side. In Flanders 2,6% of inhabitants struggle with over-indebtedness, where the percentage in Brussels and the Wallonia mounts to almost double with respectively 5,2% and 5,3% of inhabitants. In 2014, 97.065 people in Belgium were in a procedure of collective debt settlement of which 17.552 new that year.

In 2014, 9% of all contracts were overdue or not paid in time. This is an increase in comparison with previous years. This number has been increasing since 2007 were we see 6% of contracts being overdue. Of this 9% overdue contract, 8,3% are consumers credit and 1,7% are mortgage loans.

In mortgage loans the overdue amount is on average 75% of the total contract. This is significantly lower in consumer’s credit were the overdue amount is on average 10% of the total contract.

5% of the population lives in a household with at least 2 or more late payments for basic needs such as water, heating, rent and so on.

This year is the first year that the debt of Belgian household is higher than their income. The debt rate of Belgian companies was in September 2015, 100,6%. 80% of these debts derive from mortgage loans. The taking on of these mortgage loans is become very popular because of the low interest rates but this is deceiving because those low interest rates also mean higher real estate prices. Another debt problem in Belgian households lays in the growing number of late payments on credit facilities. These loans through credit cards brings more and more people in financial problems. These loans mostly have to be repaid on a relatively short time which is difficult for some households. Last year, more than 360.000 people couldn’t repay their debts in time, this is 6% of all credit facilities.

Companies
The indebtedness of companies has raised in 2013 with 15 percent. In 2012, the indebtedness was estimated at 63,3 percent, now it has mounted to 66,5 percent. This means that an average, for every 100 euro in a company, 66,5 euro comes from outside capital.

This increase is the first since 2009 and has 2 main reasons. Firstly, it became very cheap for big companies to take on a loan and secondly, companies attainted their limit of cost savings and weren’t able to grow anymore without the help of outside capital .

Over-indebtedness in companies mostly ends in a bankruptcy. In 2015, 9.762 Belgian companies suffered a bankruptcy. 48,9% of those companies were Flemish and respectively 21,9% and 29,2% came out of the Wallonia and Brussels. This a decrease in comparison with the 10.736 bankruptcies in 2014.