63 residential burglaries in Koekelberg in 2025, compared with 94 in 2019: a third fewer in six years. But the most densely populated municipality in the Brussels Region also recorded 131 incidents in 2022. In an urban fabric where homes touch each other, what makes the difference is not only the equipment installed at home — it is what the neighbour sees, and what they do about it.
A sawtooth curve, not a steady slope
The incidents recorded by the federal police in Koekelberg trace an uneven path: 94 in 2019, 51 in 2020, 59 in 2021, 131 in 2022, 91 in 2023, 89 in 2024, 63 in 2025.
The 2020 low is explained by the lockdowns — homes that are permanently occupied do not get broken into. The 2022 peak is more revealing: as soon as normal life resumed, the municipality rose well above its 2019 level. It is a reminder that a burglary requires an absence, and that the statistics measure the occupants’ habits as much as criminal pressure.
The decline began afterwards. 91, then 89, then 63: the 2025 fall reached 29.2% in one year and 33% compared with 2019. However, it is worth bearing in mind the 2015 benchmark, when the municipality recorded 152 incidents — its peak — and the 2000 figure of 101. Koekelberg is now at a low level compared with its own past, which does not cancel out an average of 1.2 residential burglaries per week.
One figure completes the picture of the municipality: of the 73 burglaries in buildings recorded in 2025, homes accounted for 86%. That is a high proportion, and a logical one. Koekelberg is a tiny and almost entirely residential area: here, burglars target flats and terraced houses, not business parks.
Dense housing: the flat door before the window
In a municipality of terraced Brussels houses and apartment buildings, the points of entry have nothing in common with those of a suburban estate. The rear is often inaccessible — enclosed inner courtyards, party walls, no side passage. The risk is therefore concentrated in three places.
The flat door first. It is the number one weak point of the Brussels flat: once the intruder is in the stairwell, they work out of sight, without the time pressure imposed by a street façade. A quality cylinder and a reinforced strike plate are worth more there than any gadget.
The shared access next. A building door that does not close fully, an intercom whose code circulates, a service door on the courtyard side: each of these flaws puts several homes within reach of a single move. In a building with several entrances, individual security quickly reaches its limit if the co-ownership does not deal with the hallway.
The street façade last, for ground floors and mezzanines: windows accessible from the pavement, basement windows, old frames. A magnetic contact on these openings and on the flat door is the minimum foundation; an alarm kit covers the essentials of a standard flat without major building work.
Neighbours, Koekelberg’s first sensor
This is the decisive angle in a municipality with the highest population density in the country. Where an isolated residential area suffers from a lack of witnesses, Koekelberg has the opposite: many people, many windows, many comings and goings. The problem is not a lack of eyes, it is the lack of a channel for what is seen.
For this, Belgium has a formal framework: the neighbourhood information network (RIQ), the French-language equivalent of the buurtinformatienetwerk. It is not a vigilante group but a supervised scheme, set up with the agreement of the mayor and the public prosecutor and run by a police officer: residents report to the police, and it is the police who pass the information on to the network. The direction of the flow matters — a resident has neither the right nor the task to intervene. To find out whether a network covers your street or how to set one up, contact your police zone.
This human network has a direct technical counterpart: alarm verification. Belgian law makes it mandatory before any police intervention on an alarm, and a reachable neighbour is the simplest way to provide it. A coherent installation in Koekelberg therefore complements this human link rather than replacing it: photo verification detectors that turn a notification into evidence, an indoor Wi-Fi camera pointed at the entrance to the home, and an outdoor siren whose deterrent effect depends precisely on neighbours able to hear it and react. Our comparison alarm or camera sets out the division of roles between the two.
A practical detail in a shared flat: a keypad near the flat door avoids relying on a phone to arm and disarm, which matters when several people take turns in the home.
Filming in Koekelberg: the constraint of the narrow street
In such a tight urban fabric, the rule that causes problems is not the declaration but the framing. A private camera may film neither the public highway nor other people’s property. On a terraced house in Koekelberg, a camera placed above the front door almost inevitably covers a section of pavement: the angle must then be narrowed, the mounting height lowered, or the area concerned digitally masked.
The other obligations are federal: declaration on declarationcamera.be, regulatory pictogram, register of processing activities. In a co-owned building, a camera in the common areas requires a collective decision, not an individual initiative. The details are in our article on the camera law in Belgium.
For alarms, the same rules apply everywhere: declaration within ten days via police-on-web, annual confirmation, outdoor siren limited to three minutes, annual maintenance, alarm verification before intervention — Royal Decree of 25 April 2007. See our guide on the declaration of an alarm system in Belgium.
Free advice and support: who to contact
Koekelberg falls under the Brussels-West police zone (5340). This is where you can request a visit from the burglary prevention adviser and information on neighbourhood information networks. The visit is free, with no commercial interest, and the assessment covers what no sensor can correct: the quality of the cylinder, the strength of the flat door, the condition of the frames and whether the shared access actually closes.
No specific municipal grant is documented here. Bear in mind that Belgian home-security support schemes, where they exist, fund mechanical protection — locks, cylinders, burglar-resistant glazing, frames — and not alarm systems or cameras. Check with the municipal administration before incurring any expense.
Frequently asked questions
How many burglaries were there in Koekelberg in 2025?
63 residential burglaries were recorded in Koekelberg in 2025, according to police crime statistics. This is a fall of 29.2% in one year and of 33% compared with the 94 incidents of 2019. The municipality had recorded 131 incidents in 2022 and 152 in 2015, its peak.
What is a neighbourhood information network?
It is a scheme supervised by the police, set up with the agreement of the mayor and the public prosecutor, in which residents report suspicious incidents to the police, who then pass the information on to members. It is not an independent watch group: residents never intervene themselves. The Brussels-West police zone is the point of contact for Koekelberg.
Can a neighbour provide alarm verification for my alarm?
Yes, and it is often the simplest solution. Belgian law requires alarm verification before any police intervention on an alarm: a reachable neighbour, a photo verification detector or a camera can confirm the intrusion. Without this evidence, the police are not obliged to attend.
Can I install a camera above my door in Koekelberg?
Yes, provided it films neither the public highway nor a neighbour’s property. In a narrow street, this means narrowing the angle or masking the area concerned. The camera must also be declared on declarationcamera.be and indicated by the regulatory pictogram.
Is there a municipal grant in Koekelberg for an alarm?
No specific municipal grant is documented for Koekelberg. In Belgium, the home-security support schemes that exist fund mechanical protection — locks, cylinders, burglar-resistant glazing, frames — and exclude alarms and cameras. Check with the municipal administration before incurring any costs.
Sources: Police crime statistics, Federal Police DGR/DRI/BIPOL, publication 2025_T04 (cut-off date 24/04/2026) — Koekelberg municipal fact sheet. Municipal home-security support schemes change from one budget year to the next: check with the municipality before incurring any costs.