Arlon is one of the few Belgian municipalities where burglary figures have not dropped. 127 residential burglaries in 2025, compared with 129 in 2019: six years for a 1.6% fall. And in between, 2024 saw 152 incidents, the highest figure of the period. The capital of the province of Luxembourg is bucking the trend seen in most Walloon towns.
Six years for almost nothing: the Arlon curve
The federal police publish recorded incidents municipality by municipality. Read from start to finish, the Arlon series does not show a decline but a bumpy plateau.
Starting point: 129 residential burglaries in 2019. Then 71 in 2020, a fall that owes nothing to successful prevention — it was the year of lockdowns, when homes remained occupied. The rise has since been continuous: 86 in 2021, 98 in 2022. The plateau of 94 in 2023 raised hopes of stabilisation. 2024 proved otherwise: 152 incidents, the peak of the period. 2025 falls back to 127, 16.4% fewer year on year, but remains the second-highest year since 2019.
Two older benchmarks complete the picture of the current level: 88 residential burglaries in 2000, 94 in 2015. Arlon now records significantly more incidents than at the turn of the century and in the mid-2010s. Presenting the 2025 decline as a turnaround would be premature; it simply brings the municipality back to its 2021–2023 plateau.
In calendar terms, this represents an average of 2.4 residential burglaries per week in 2025. Of the 158 burglaries in buildings recorded in the municipality, homes account for 80%: burglary in Arlon is first and foremost a matter of housing, with the remaining fifth spread across non-residential buildings.
Arlon lives on border time, and it shows in daily habits
This is where geography explains more than statistics. Arlon is the Belgian town closest to the Grand Duchy, and a large share of its working population crosses the border every morning to work in Luxembourg. The commute, office hours and traffic jams on the N4 have a mechanical effect: entire residential neighbourhoods empty early and only fill up again late.
Residential burglary is a crime of opportunity, and the primary opportunity is absence. A house in Arlon’s residential belt may be empty for eleven or twelve hours at a stretch, five days a week, with nothing outside to signal it — except a car missing from the driveway, shutters left closed and a letterbox filling up. On top of this daily absence come the longer periods: school holidays, long weekends, weeks away. Arlon’s risk profile is therefore not that of a night-time attack but that of a daytime visit, in a deserted street.
This reading changes the priorities. A system designed for the night — indoor detectors, a siren, someone to wake up — is a poor answer to a daytime risk. What Arlon needs is a system that works when no one is there to hear it, and that produces information usable remotely.
A provincial capital with two built forms, two different points of entry
Arlon combines two urban forms that do not call for the same responses.
The centre, around the Grand-Place and the shopping streets, consists of narrow buildings, often with a shop on the ground floor and flats above. The weak point there is the flat door on the landing and the shared entrance: a building entrance that is not properly closed puts several homes within reach without any break-in visible from the street.
The residential belt — Sesselich, Waltzing, Stockem, the housing estates that ring the town — shows the opposite pattern: detached or semi-detached houses, a back garden, a garage or annexe, and often few overlooking neighbours. The real point of entry is no longer the front door but the living-room French window, the patio door or the back door on the garden side. These entrances are glazed, invisible from the street, and reached via a fenced garden that hides the intruder from view once the gate has been passed.
Monitoring an empty house without drowning in notifications
The trap of a system sized for absence is noise: too many alerts end up no longer being read. The approach that holds up in Arlon rests on three levels.
- Detect before entry. On a house with a garden, useful detection happens at the perimeter, near the rear access points, not in the middle of the living room. Outdoor detectors trigger before the glass is broken rather than after.
- Verify without travelling. When you are a forty-minute drive away, a notification without an image is worthless. Photo-verification detectors turn an alert into an established fact, while meeting the legal requirement to verify an alarm before police intervention.
- See the surroundings. A Wi-Fi camera pointed at the terrace or driveway complements detection, provided the legal framing rules described below are respected.
The rest follows: a control panel able to manage the whole system, an outdoor siren whose deterrent effect remains the main reason a break-in in progress is abandoned, and operation without a compulsory subscription if you do not want remote monitoring. For a first installation, alarm kits cover the essentials of a home with one or two sensitive access points.
What Belgian law requires once the system is installed
Two distinct federal regimes, identical in all three regions — nothing specific to Arlon here.
For an alarm: declaration within ten days via police-on-web, annual confirmation, outdoor siren limited to three minutes, annual maintenance and mandatory verification before any police intervention. The legal basis is the Royal Decree of 25 April 2007; full details can be found in our guide on the declaration of an alarm system in Belgium.
For a camera: declaration on declarationcamera.be, a visible regulatory pictogram, a record of processing activities, and a ban on filming the public highway or a neighbour’s property. On an Arlon housing estate where plots adjoin one another, this constraint in practice determines the mounting height and angle — see our article on the camera law in Belgium.
The burglary prevention adviser of zone 5297
Arlon falls under the Arlon / Attert / Habay / Martelange police zone (5297), which provides residents with a burglary prevention adviser. The visit is free, the adviser has nothing to sell, and the assessment covers what equipment cannot replace: the quality of the lock cylinders, the strength of the window frames, the visibility of the rear access points, the lighting. It is the rational starting point for any project, and it remains massively underused. Requests are made to the police zone.
Financially, no specific municipal grant is documented here. Some Belgian municipalities offer home security support, but it funds mechanical protection — locks, cylinders, burglar-resistant glazing, frames — and not alarms or cameras. Check with the municipal administration before incurring any costs, as the rules change from one year to the next.
Frequently asked questions
How many burglaries were there in Arlon in 2025?
127 residential burglaries were recorded in Arlon in 2025, according to the federal police crime statistics. This is 16.4% fewer than in 2024, when the municipality reached 152 incidents, its highest figure since 2019. Over six years, the fall is only 1.6% compared with the 129 incidents of 2019.
Is the situation improving in Arlon?
Not clearly. The 2025 fall follows the 2024 peak of 152 incidents and brings the municipality back to its 2021–2023 plateau. With 88 residential burglaries in 2000 and 94 in 2015, Arlon remains above its historical benchmarks.
Is there a municipal grant for an alarm in Arlon?
No specific municipal grant is documented for Arlon. In general, Belgian home security grants fund mechanical protection — locks, cylinders, burglar-resistant glazing, frames — and exclude alarm systems and cameras. Check with the municipal administration before making any commitment.
Do you need to declare your alarm system in Arlon?
Yes, as everywhere in Belgium. The declaration must be made within ten days of installation via police-on-web and must be confirmed every year. This obligation stems from the Royal Decree of 25 April 2007 and does not depend on the municipality.
Where can I get free burglary prevention advice in Arlon?
From the burglary prevention adviser of the Arlon / Attert / Habay / Martelange police zone (5297). The visit is free of charge, has no commercial interest, and focuses on the home’s actual points of entry.
Sources: Police crime statistics, Federal Police DGR/DRI/BIPOL, publication 2025_T04 (closing date 24/04/2026) — Arlon municipal factsheet. Municipal home security support schemes change from one year to the next: check with the municipality before incurring any costs.