Schaerbeek recorded 371 residential burglaries in 2025, compared with 428 the previous year and 575 in 2023. The decline is clear: -13.3 % in one year, -27.3 % since 2019. Yet it still leaves 7.1 incidents per week in a municipality where almost nobody is at home between 8 am and 6 pm — and it is precisely this window that we need to talk about.
A real decline, but pressure remains high
The offences recorded by the federal police in Schaerbeek show a plateau, then a break. From 2019 to 2023, the municipality fluctuated between 472 and 575 incidents a year, peaking in 2023. The last two years broke this plateau: 428 in 2024, then 371 in 2025. The current level is the lowest in the series, and a long way from the all-time high of 795 incidents reached in 2017, as well as the 708 incidents of 2015 and the 647 of 2000.
One figure qualifies this picture. Of the 513 burglaries in buildings recorded in Schaerbeek in 2025, homes account for 72 % — a lower proportion than in purely residential municipalities, because Schaerbeek is also a municipality of shops, workshops and offices. In other words: housing remains the main target, but not the only one, and a mixed-use building concentrates both risks in the same stairwell.
The risk is not constant: it follows your absences
Residential burglary is a crime of opportunity, and its precondition is almost always the same: an empty home whose vacancy is visible from outside. It is this visibility that can be worked on, far more than the theoretical resistance of a door.
In Schaerbeek, four types of absence stand out clearly, and they call for different responses. The daily absence of the working day, short but perfectly predictable for anyone watching a building. The two-day weekend, when post piles up in a communal letterbox visible from the hall. Long holidays, particularly marked in a municipality where some residents spend several weeks abroad in summer. And evening absence, the most underestimated: in winter, a dark flat at 7 pm in a façade where all the other floors are lit gives itself away.
The classic countermeasures — shutters closed permanently, lights on day and night — have the opposite effect to the one intended: they create a regularity that nothing disturbs. What protects an empty home is irregularity, and above all the ability to know immediately what is happening, rather than discovering it on your return.
What Schaerbeek's density changes for the set-up
Schaerbeek is a dense urban fabric: apartment buildings, Brussels town houses divided into flats, façades aligned along the street, shared entrances, intercoms shared by six or eight households. The real entry points are therefore not those of a villa with a garden.
The first is the flat's front door. Once the intruder is in the hall — main door held open out of politeness, intercom code known, a parcel as a pretext —, they work out of sight of the street, which is exactly the opposite of a break-in through the façade. The second is the set of secondary access points of the building: cellar, bike storage, inner courtyard, rear building. The third, in undivided houses, remains the ground-floor window overlooking an alley or a courtyard.
The practical consequence is simple: in Schaerbeek, protection starts at the door of the flat, not at the building's entrance, over which you have no control. A magnetic contact on the flat's front door, a detector in the inner hallway and a siren that can be heard throughout the stairwell are worth more than a sophisticated system installed on a façade you share with seven neighbours. The alarm kits cover this compact configuration well; our guide which Ajax alarm to choose in Belgium explains the sizing.
Monitoring an absence without making needless trips
When you are away, a notification is only valuable if it can be interpreted. 'Motion detected in the living room' at 2 pm, seen from an office on the other side of Brussels, does not tell you whether it is a burglary, a cat or a curtain in front of a ventilation grille.
That is the purpose of photo-verification detectors: they turn an alert into information, and at the same time meet the legal requirement for alarm verification before any police intervention. For a long absence, an indoor Wi-Fi camera pointed at the entrance usefully complements the system, provided the legal framing rules are respected. If you are hesitating between the two approaches, our comparison alarm or camera, which to choose sets out the criteria. Finally, a control panel with dual communication — see the Ajax control panels — prevents an internet outage in the building from silencing the system during three weeks of holiday.
The Schaerbeek municipal grant: what it funds, and what it does not fund
This is the point on which accuracy matters, because many commercial websites keep the confusion going.
Schaerbeek does indeed offer a burglary prevention grant: 50 % of the cost of the works, capped at €500, open to both owners and tenants. Two reservations, both important. First, it is not granted automatically: it depends on the number of applications submitted, so a compliant application does not on its own guarantee payment. Do not build your budget on the assumption that you will receive the grant.
Next, and above all: this grant funds mechanical protection — reinforced locks and cylinders, burglar-resistant glazing, sturdy doors and frames. Alarm systems and surveillance cameras fall outside its scope: it does not cover them. This is not peculiar to Schaerbeek; it is the general logic of Belgian municipal grants, which subsidise what delays the intrusion, whereas the alarm signals. The two complement each other, and the order of implementation suggested by the grant is the right one: reinforce the access points first, then detect. Both grant applications and requests for advice go through the burglary prevention page of the Municipality of Schaerbeek.
The free part, on the other hand, is not subject to any quota: the burglary prevention adviser of the Brussels North police zone (5344 — Schaerbeek, Evere, Saint-Josse-ten-Noode) visits free of charge and sells nothing.
Legal obligations, the same everywhere in Belgium
Alarm: declaration within ten days via police-on-web, annual confirmation, outdoor siren limited to three minutes, annual maintenance, mandatory alarm verification before police intervention — Royal Decree of 25 April 2007. The procedure is explained in our guide on the declaration of an alarm system. The three-minute limit deserves particular attention in a shared building: a siren that wails for longer is an offence, not extra protection.
Camera: declaration on declarationcamera.be, visible pictogram, register of processing activities, and an absolute ban on filming the public road or the shared landing, which does not belong to you. In a narrow Schaerbeek street, this rule severely restricts the possible angles — see our article on the camera law in Belgium.
Frequently asked questions
How many burglaries were committed in Schaerbeek in 2025?
371 residential burglaries were recorded in Schaerbeek in 2025, or 7.1 per week. This is a fall of 13.3 % compared with 2024 (428 incidents) and of 27.3 % compared with 2019 (510 incidents), and the lowest level in the recent series.
Does the Schaerbeek burglary prevention grant cover an alarm?
No. The Schaerbeek grant, covering 50 % of the cost of the works up to a maximum of €500, funds mechanical protection measures: locks, cylinders, burglar-resistant glazing, doors and frames. Alarm systems and cameras are not covered by this grant.
Is the Schaerbeek grant awarded automatically?
No. It is open to both owners and tenants, but whether it is awarded depends on the number of applications submitted. A complete and compliant application is therefore not enough to guarantee payment: check with the municipal department before starting any works.
How can you protect a flat in Schaerbeek during the holidays?
The priority is the flat's front door, not the building's façade, over which you have no control. An opening contact on that door, a photo-verification detector in the hallway and a control panel able to switch to the mobile network in the event of an internet outage let you know what is happening instead of finding out when you get back.
Where can you get free burglary prevention advice in Schaerbeek?
From the burglary prevention adviser of the Brussels North police zone (5344), which covers Schaerbeek, Evere and Saint-Josse-ten-Noode. The visit is free and has no commercial interest; the request can also be made through the municipality's prevention department.
Sources: Police crime statistics, Federal Police DGR/DRI/BIPOL, publication 2025_T04 (cut-off date 24/04/2026) — Schaerbeek municipal fact sheet. Grant conditions: Municipality of Schaerbeek. Amounts and conditions change from one year to the next: check with the municipality before incurring any costs.