Dwellings without adequate heating (i37)
- 31/10/2025
- objective
- assessment assessment
In 2024, 4.8% of the population in Belgium declare that they could not heat their dwellings adequately. To achieve the sustainable development goal by 2030, this figure must be reduced to zero percent. This objective will not be reached by continuing the trend between 2008 and 2024 (assessment of November 2025; break in series: BE 2019 - data up to 2018 not comparable with data from 2019 onwards. This may have an impact on the evaluation result, which should therefore be treated with caution). The proportion of the population that cannot heat their dwelling adequately is therefore developing unfavourably.
Dwellings without adequate heating - Belgium - trend assessment
percentage of population
| 2000 | 2008 | 2010 | 2015 | 2019 | 2020 | 2023 | 2025 | 2030 | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| observations | -- | 6.4 | 5.6 | 5.2 | 3.9 | -- | 6.0 | -- | -- |
| trend and extrapolation (November 2025) | -- | 6.2 | 6.0 | 5.2 | 4.7 | 4.6 | 4.6 | 4.6 | 4.7 |
| objective 2030 | 0.0 | 0.0 | 0.0 | 0.0 | 0.0 | 0.0 | 0.0 | 0.0 | 0.0 |
Note: break in series: 2019; 2020 data collection impacted by Covid-19 pandemic
Source: Statbel; Eurostat (2025), Inability to keep home adequately warm, ilc_mdes01, https://ec.europa.eu/eurostat, last update of data 10/10/2025 11:00 (consulted on 10/10/2025)
Dwellings without adequate heating - Belgium and international comparison
percentage of population
| 2008 | 2010 | 2015 | 2018 | 2019 | 2020 | 2024 | 2018//2008 | 2024//2019 | 2024//2010 | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Belgium | 6.4 | 5.6 | 5.2 | 5.2 | 3.9 | 4.2 | 4.8 | -2.1 | 4.2 | -1.1 |
| EU27 | -- | 9.9 | 9.6 | 7.6 | 6.9 | 7.5 | 9.2 | -- | 5.9 | -0.5 |
| //: Average Growth Rates | ||||||||||
Note: break in series: BE 2019; BE 2020 data collection impacted by Covid-19 pandemic; EU27 2010-2019 estimation. The 95% confidence interval for the share of people that declare to live in a dwelling without adequate heating in 2024 is 4.0% to 5.7% for Belgium.
Source: Statbel (2025), SILC-SDG-indicators 2004-2024, https://statbel.fgov.be/en/themes/households/poverty-and-living-conditions/risk-poverty-or-social-exclusion (consulted on 06/10/2025); Statbel (2025), direct communication 18/11/2025; Statbel; Eurostat (2025), Inability to keep home adequately warm, ilc_mdes01, https://ec.europa.eu/eurostat, last update of data 10/10/2025 11:00 (consulted on 10/10/2025)
Dwellings without adequate heating by region - Belgium
percentage of population
| 2019 | 2020 | 2021 | 2022 | 2023 | 2024 | 2024//2019 | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Brussels-Capital Region | 7.1 | 7.2 | 5.5 | 7.6 | 10.4 | 8.8 | 4.4 |
| Flemish Region | 1.6 | 1.7 | 1.8 | 2.2 | 2.3 | 2.2 | 6.6 |
| Walloon Region | 7.1 | 7.5 | 6.0 | 9.3 | 11.3 | 8.3 | 3.2 |
| //: Average Growth Rates | |||||||
Note: Break in series: 2019; data collection 2020 impacted by the Covid-19 pandemic. The 95% confidence interval for the share of people that declare to live in a dwelling without adequate heating in 2024 is 6.7% to 10.8% for Brussels, 1.4% to 3.0% for Flanders and 6.2% to 10.4% for Wallonia.
Source: Statbel (2025), SILC-SDG-indicators 2004-2024, https://statbel.fgov.be/en/themes/households/poverty-and-living-conditions/risk-poverty-or-social-exclusion (consulted on 06/10/2025); Statbel (2025), direct communication 18/11/2025
Dwellings without adequate heating by sex - Belgium
percentage of population
| 2008 | 2010 | 2015 | 2018 | 2019 | 2020 | 2024 | 2018//2008 | 2024//2019 | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| females | 6.8 | 5.9 | 5.5 | 5.6 | 4.2 | 4.0 | 5.0 | -1.9 | 3.5 |
| males | 6.0 | 5.2 | 4.9 | 4.8 | 3.6 | 4.3 | 4.7 | -2.2 | 5.5 |
| //: Average Growth Rates | |||||||||
Note: break in series: 2019; 2020 data collection impacted by Covid-19 pandemic
Source: Statbel (2025), SILC-SDG-indicators 2004-2024, https://statbel.fgov.be/en/themes/households/poverty-and-living-conditions/risk-poverty-or-social-exclusion (consulted on 06/10/2025)
Dwellings without adequate heating by age - Belgium
percentage of population
| 2008 | 2010 | 2015 | 2018 | 2019 | 2020 | 2024 | 2018//2008 | 2024//2019 | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| <18 | 7.2 | 6.5 | 6.6 | 6.5 | 4.4 | 5.2 | 6.0 | -1.0 | 6.4 |
| 18-24 | 9.2 | 6.2 | 5.9 | 6.0 | 5.6 | 5.8 | 5.1 | -4.2 | -1.9 |
| 25-49 | 5.9 | 5.5 | 5.3 | 5.7 | 4.3 | 4.2 | 4.8 | -0.3 | 2.2 |
| 50-64 | 5.4 | 5.5 | 5.4 | 5.0 | 4.0 | 4.1 | 4.7 | -0.8 | 3.3 |
| >64 | 6.1 | 4.2 | 2.7 | 2.9 | 2.1 | 2.2 | 3.6 | -7.2 | 11.4 |
| //: Average Growth Rates | |||||||||
Note: break in series: 2019; 2020 data collection impacted by Covid-19 pandemic
Source: Statbel (2025), SILC-SDG-indicators 2004-2024, https://statbel.fgov.be/en/themes/households/poverty-and-living-conditions/risk-poverty-or-social-exclusion (consulted on 06/10/2025)
Dwellings without adequate heating by education - Belgium
percentage of population
| 2008 | 2010 | 2015 | 2018 | 2019 | 2020 | 2024 | 2018//2008 | 2024//2019 | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| at most lower secondary | 8.4 | 7.6 | 8.0 | 7.6 | 5.9 | 6.7 | 7.6 | -1.0 | 5.2 |
| upper secondary | 5.9 | 5.1 | 4.7 | 5.2 | 4.4 | 4.2 | 4.9 | -1.3 | 2.2 |
| tertiary | 3.2 | 2.6 | 2.4 | 2.3 | 1.8 | 1.9 | 2.7 | -3.2 | 8.4 |
| //: Average Growth Rates | |||||||||
Note: break in series: 2019; 2020 data collection impacted by Covid-19 pandemic
Source: Statbel (2025), SILC-SDG-indicators 2004-2024, https://statbel.fgov.be/en/themes/households/poverty-and-living-conditions/risk-poverty-or-social-exclusion (consulted on 06/10/2025)
Dwellings without adequate heating by household type - Belgium
percentage of population
| 2008 | 2010 | 2015 | 2018 | 2019 | 2020 | 2024 | 2018//2008 | 2024//2019 | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| single person | 10.4 | 9.8 | 7.3 | 7.5 | 5.7 | 6.0 | 7.3 | -3.2 | 5.1 |
| single person with dependent children | 16.5 | 13.3 | 12.3 | 12.8 | 8.0 | 7.7 | 7.8 | -2.5 | -0.5 |
| 2 adults <65 | 3.6 | 4.6 | 2.9 | 4.1 | 3.6 | 2.7 | 2.3 | 1.3 | -8.6 |
| 2 adults, at least 1 >64 | 3.7 | 2.6 | 2.0 | 1.8 | 1.5 | 1.1 | 2.1 | -7.0 | 7.0 |
| 2 adults + child(ren) | 4.8 | 3.4 | 4.4 | 4.3 | 3.2 | 4.2 | 5.2 | -1.1 | 10.2 |
| //: Average Growth Rates | |||||||||
Note: break in series: 2019; 2020 data collection impacted by Covid-19 pandemic
Source: Statbel (2025), SILC-SDG-indicators 2004-2024, https://statbel.fgov.be/en/themes/households/poverty-and-living-conditions/risk-poverty-or-social-exclusion (consulted on 06/10/2025)
Dwellings without adequate heating by activity status - Belgium
percentage of population
| 2008 | 2010 | 2015 | 2018 | 2019 | 2020 | 2024 | 2018//2008 | 2024//2019 | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| employed | 4.0 | 3.3 | 3.0 | 2.6 | 2.2 | 2.2 | 3.0 | -4.2 | 6.4 |
| unemployed | 10.6 | 13.0 | 13.8 | 13.9 | 14.4 | 13.1 | 10.7 | 2.7 | -5.8 |
| retired | 6.1 | 4.2 | 2.8 | 2.8 | 2.4 | 2.3 | 3.5 | -7.5 | 7.8 |
| other inactive | 9.4 | 8.0 | 9.0 | 10.9 | 7.3 | 8.7 | 8.3 | 1.5 | 2.6 |
| //: Average Growth Rates | |||||||||
Note: break in series: 2019; because of the widespread use of temporary unemployment during the COVID-19 pandemic, the ?unemployed? category in SILC 2021 includes not only the long-term unemployed, but also people who have been temporarily unemployed for more than 6 months and who generally live in less precarious conditions.
Source: Statbel (2025), SILC-SDG-indicators 2004-2024, https://statbel.fgov.be/en/themes/households/poverty-and-living-conditions/risk-poverty-or-social-exclusion (consulted on 06/10/2025)
Dwellings without adequate heating by income - Belgium
percentage of population
| 2008 | 2010 | 2015 | 2018 | 2019 | 2020 | 2024 | 2018//2008 | 2024//2019 | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| quintile 1 | 15.6 | 14.5 | 13.8 | 16.4 | 11.5 | 12.6 | 10.8 | 0.5 | -1.2 |
| quintile 2 | 7.6 | 7.8 | 7.5 | 5.9 | 4.5 | 5.2 | 6.4 | -2.5 | 7.3 |
| quintile 3 | 5.8 | 3.5 | 2.9 | 2.3 | 2.1 | 1.3 | 4.1 | -8.8 | 14.3 |
| quintile 4 | 1.6 | 1.0 | 0.9 | 1.4 | 1.2 | 1.0 | 1.4 | -1.3 | 3.1 |
| quintile 5 | 1.4 | 1.0 | 0.8 | 0.2 | 0.4 | 0.7 | 1.6 | -17.7 | 32.0 |
| //: Average Growth Rates | |||||||||
Note: break in series: 2019; 2020 data collection impacted by Covid-19 pandemic
Source: Statbel (2025), SILC-SDG-indicators 2004-2024, https://statbel.fgov.be/en/themes/households/poverty-and-living-conditions/risk-poverty-or-social-exclusion (consulted on 06/10/2025)
Definition: this indicator measures the share of the population that reports being unable to heat their dwellings adequately. The data on this indicator are based on the Statistics on Income and Living Conditions (EU-SILC) survey of the European Union. Statistics Belgium organises this EU-harmonised survey in Belgium and makes the results available, in particular to Eurostat. The data used here come from Eurostat, which publishes detailed and comparable results between EU Member States. Since these data are based on a survey, a margin of uncertainty should be taken into account. The confidence intervals for these data are available on request from Statistics Belgium.
Due to changes in the SILC survey in 2005 and 2008, the data are presented here only from 2008 onwards.
From 2019 onwards, the survey methodology has been thoroughly reviewed for better accuracy. In 2020, the Covid-19 pandemic impacted data collection. This makes it difficult to compare the results of SILC 2020 with those of previous years. (Statbel, 2021). Therefore, they are not used to calculate and evaluate the long-term trend.
The following breakdowns are available for this indicator: region, sex, income, age, education, household type and activity status.
Goal: the share of the population that reports being unable to heat their homes adequately must be reduced to zero per cent by 2030.
The Sustainable Development Goals or SDGs adopted by the UN in 2015 include target 7.1: “By 2030, ensure universal access to affordable, reliable and modern energy services”. Being able to heat one's home is part of the access to affordable energy. The share of the population that reports being unable to heat their homes adequately should tend towards zero.
The Federal Long-Term Strategic Vision for Sustainable Development contains objective 21: “Energy services will be affordable for everyone", which is consistent with the SDG (Belgian Official Gazette, 08/10/2013).
UN indicator: the selected indicator does not correspond to any SDG indicator, but is related to target 7.1 since heating a dwelling is part of modern energy services to which the population must have access.
Sources
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Belgian Official Gazette: http://www.ejustice.just.fgov.be/cgi/welcome.pl; research on http://www.ejustice.just.fgov.be/doc/rech_f.htm.
- Statbel (2021), SILC FAQ, https://statbel.fgov.be/fr/themes/menages/pauvrete-et-conditions-de-vie/faq, see in particular "Y a-t-il des ruptures de séries dans la chronologie de l'enquête SILC ?" (consulted on 19/12/2025)
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