How do you look up crime in a municipality?
Crime per municipality is the number of offences recorded by the federal police. For every Flemish municipality these figures are published by type of offence in the Gemeente-Stadsmonitor of the Flemish government, next to the figure for the Flemish Region; for the 19 Brussels municipalities the Brussels Institute for Statistics and Analysis (BISA) publishes them. A figure per 1,000 residents tells you how many offences were recorded, not how safe a street is.
What the figure measures
A recorded offence is one that reached the police: through a report or because the police found it themselves. The figure therefore also depends on how often people report and where the police carry out checks. It is counted where the offence happened, not where the offender or victim lives.
Divided by the number of residents, that gives a figure per 1,000 residents. A municipality with many visitors, such as a regional city, a coastal town or one with a large shopping centre or station, counts visitors’ offences too but divides by its own residents. So compare by type of offence rather than the total alone.
Other things often matter on the same plot too, such as the P-score and the G-score and heritage by municipality. You can see how a report brings them together in the sample report.
Flanders: the Gemeente-Stadsmonitor
The Gemeente-Stadsmonitor of the Agency for Domestic Governance gives, for every Flemish municipality, the offences recorded by the federal police by type, such as burglary, theft, violence, vandalism and traffic offences, each next to the Flemish Region.
It also has the 2023 resident survey: how many residents sometimes or often feel unsafe in their neighbourhood and municipality, how satisfied they are with their neighbourhood, whether they like living there and how much they trust the police. For the 13 municipalities that merged in 2025 there is no figure from that survey yet.
Brussels and Wallonia
For the 19 Brussels municipalities, BISA publishes recorded crime in five categories and a total, next to the region. For the Walloon municipalities we found no open file per municipality; the federal police publish their crime statistics on their own website. The report therefore shows no figure per municipality for a Walloon municipality.
How to read the colour in the report
In the report every figure sits next to the region’s, with a colour when the direction is clear: fewer recorded offences or fewer people feeling unsafe is more favourable.
- Green: at least 15% more favourable than the region.
- Orange: less than 15% away, so around the regional average.
- Red: at least 15% less favourable than the region.
Every colour comes with a word, on paper too. A figure based on very small numbers gets no colour, nor does a figure without a regional figure. The report never adds the colours up into a score or a verdict on the municipality: it only says how that one figure compares with the region.
What does this mean if you are buying a house?
A municipal figure says something about the municipality as a whole, not about your street. To find out what the neighbourhood is like, visit at different times, talk to the neighbours and ask the community police officer or local police what goes on.
What the Perceelscan shows
Section 15 of the report opens with Location in figures: the nearest station, the amenities within 500 m, recorded offences per 1,000 residents, the feeling of insecurity in the neighbourhood and the median price, each next to the region. Below that, the municipality in figures with a table of offences by type. See the sample report.
Is a municipality with a red figure unsafe?
The colour does not say that. Red only means that at least 15% more offences per 1,000 residents were recorded than in the region; a municipality with many visitors counts their offences too.
Is there a crime figure per street?
Not as open data. The figures we use are per municipality; in Flanders and Brussels, each next to the region.
Does the Perceelscan give a safety score?
No. Each figure stands on its own next to the region, and the report never adds them up into a score.
Sources
- Gemeente-Stadsmonitor (municipal monitor of the Agentschap Binnenlands Bestuur)
- Brussels Institute for Statistics and Analysis (BISA)
Updated on