In 2015, Charleroi recorded 3,073 residential burglaries. In 2025, it recorded 1,073. Two thousand fewer incidents in ten years: this is one of the most profound changes ever seen in residential security in a major Belgian city — and yet, in absolute terms, it still amounts to 20.6 residential burglaries per week. This twofold finding drives everything else, including how to install and legally declare an alarm or a camera.
Two thousand fewer burglaries in ten years
The Charleroi series deserves more than a passing mention. The highest recorded figure dates back to 2000, with 3,742 residential burglaries. Fifteen years later, in 2015, the municipality still recorded 3,073. By 2019, it had fallen to 2,226. The decline then continued without any real interruption: 1,741 in 2020, 1,677 in 2021, 1,374 in 2022, 1,424 in 2023, 1,238 in 2024 and 1,073 in 2025.
Three things are worth noting about this trajectory. First, it does not rest on a single spectacular year: of the last six years, only one — 2023 — went up, and by fifty incidents. A 51.8% fall between 2019 and 2025, including 13.3% in the last year alone, built year after year, cannot be explained by a counting artefact.
Second, the decline predates the lockdown. Between 2015 and 2019, Charleroi had already lost nearly eight hundred incidents a year, before any health crisis. The 2020 dip, seen everywhere and due to homes being permanently occupied, fits here into a movement already under way — which also explains why the municipality did not experience the sharp rebound seen elsewhere after restrictions were lifted.
Finally, and this is the point triumphant commentaries forget: 1,073 incidents a year still means 20.6 a week. The structure of the risk has not changed either. Of the 1,346 burglaries in buildings recorded in 2025, 80% targeted a home. In other words, the fall is real and massive, but it reduces a volume; it does not remove an individual risk.
Housing in Charleroi: the landing door above all
Charleroi is a dense city of tenement buildings, terraced houses converted into several flats and buildings with multiple entrances. This urban form shifts the point of attack compared with a suburban municipality.
In a block of flats, the intruder almost never forces the street door: they simply walk through it. An intercom answered without checking, a carriage door that does not close fully, a delivery, a resident holding the door out of politeness — and there they are in a stairwell where they can work out of sight, with no time limit and no witnesses. The real obstacle then becomes the landing door of each flat, often the home’s only security element, frequently fitted with the original cylinder and a single-point lock.
For a home in Charleroi, the consequence is simple. The priority is not to cover a garden that does not exist, but to protect the landing door and the windows accessible from a walkway, a flat roof or a drainpipe. A magnetic contact on the landing door and exposed opening windows, complemented by an indoor detector in the room people pass through, covers most of the real scenario — this is the logic of alarm kits for flats, to which you should resist adding equipment that serves no purpose.
What Belgian law requires of an alarm, and the costly mistakes
These obligations are federal: they apply in Charleroi as everywhere in Belgium, and stem from the Royal Decree of 25 April 2007. Four points are systematically overlooked.
Declaration within ten days. Any alarm system installed in a home must be declared via police-on-web within ten days, then confirmed every year. It is this annual confirmation that is most often forgotten: the initial declaration is made, then nothing more, and the system becomes administratively invisible.
The outdoor siren may not sound for more than three minutes. In a dense building, a siren wailing for twenty minutes protects nobody: it produces a neighbour complaint, then a reflex of indifference across the whole neighbourhood.
Maintenance is annual, and it determines the system’s reliability as much as its compliance.
Verification is mandatory before any police intervention. This is the most misunderstood point: an alarm going off does not, on its own, trigger the dispatch of a patrol. Confirmation that something is really happening is needed. That is what makes photo-verification detection decisive: it turns a notification into usable evidence, immediately. Details of the procedure can be found in our guide on the declaration of an alarm system in Belgium.
The camera: framing is the first constraint, not resolution
For a camera, four obligations: declaration on declarationcamera.be, a regulatory pictogram visible at the entrance to the filmed area, a record of processing activities, and a ban on filming the public highway or other people’s property.
It is this last rule that puts most installations in breach, and in Charleroi more than elsewhere. In a dense street, a camera mounted on the façade to watch a front door almost inevitably frames the pavement, the road and the entrance opposite. The solution is not to buy a finer sensor, but to lower the camera, move it closer to the door and tilt it downwards, even at the cost of field of view. Digital masking of prohibited zones, where the device allows it, completes the set-up. Our dome cameras and our entire video surveillance range are designed with this in mind; the full legal framework is detailed in our article on the camera law in Belgium. If you have not yet decided between the two systems, our comparison alarm or camera sets out the criteria.
Grants and free advice: who to contact in Charleroi
We do not publish any municipal grant amount for Charleroi. Support rules change from one year to the next, and announcing a figure that is no longer in force amounts to making people incur costs on the strength of a promise. The right contact is the technoprevention service of the Charleroi local police (5330), which knows the schemes that actually apply and, above all, offers a free home visit: an adviser examines your access points, with nothing to sell. The procedure is described on the zone’s technoprevention page, and the general contact details are on the Charleroi police zone website.
A point of method, valid throughout Belgium: where a municipal home security grant exists, it funds mechanical protection — reinforced cylinders and locks, burglar-resistant glazing, sturdy doors and frames — and almost always excludes alarms and cameras. Never build a budget on the assumption that a grant will reimburse your detection system.
Frequently asked questions
How many burglaries were there in Charleroi in 2025?
1,073 residential burglaries were recorded in Charleroi in 2025, or 20.6 per week. This is 13.3% fewer than in 2024 (1,238 incidents) and 51.8% fewer than in 2019 (2,226 incidents), according to the federal police crime statistics.
Have burglaries really fallen in Charleroi?
Yes, and over a long period. The municipality went from 3,073 residential burglaries in 2015 to 1,073 in 2025, with an almost continuous decline since 2019 — only one year, 2023, saw an increase. The volume nevertheless remains 20.6 incidents per week, and 80% of the 1,346 burglaries in buildings in 2025 targeted a home.
Do you need to declare an alarm in Charleroi, and how often?
The declaration is made via police-on-web within ten days of installation and must be confirmed every year. This obligation stems from the Royal Decree of 25 April 2007: it is federal and identical throughout the country. In addition, the outdoor siren may not sound for more than three minutes.
Can my camera film the street in front of my building?
No. A private surveillance camera may film neither the public highway nor a neighbour’s property. In a dense street, this means placing it low, near the door, and tilting it downwards rather than seeking a wide field of view. It must also be declared on declarationcamera.be and indicated by the regulatory pictogram.
Is there municipal support for securing your home in Charleroi?
Support schemes change from one year to the next and should be checked with the technoprevention service of the Charleroi local police (5330), which also offers a free advisory visit. In general, Belgian municipal home security grants fund mechanical protection — locks, cylinders, glazing, frames — and almost always exclude alarms and cameras.
Sources: Police crime statistics, Federal Police DGR/DRI/BIPOL, publication 2025_T04 (closing date 24/04/2026) — Charleroi municipal factsheet. Prevention and technoprevention: Charleroi local police (5330). Municipal support schemes change from one year to the next: check with your local administration or police zone before incurring any costs.