Wemmel’s municipal regulations cover 75% of purchase and installation costs, incl. VAT, up to €750 per dwelling unit. On an ordinary home security project, the municipality therefore pays three quarters of the bill. You still need to know what this amount really funds — and the answer cannot be guessed; it must be confirmed before you buy anything.
Two burglaries a week, and a year that did not move
In 2025, 105 residential burglaries were recorded in Wemmel, an average of 2.0 per week. The figure is exactly the same as in 2024: 105 as well, a change of 0.0%. This is rare enough to be worth noting, because a stable series is read differently from a moving one.
The context sheds light on it. Wemmel rose from 126 incidents in 2019 to 132 in 2020, then 163 in 2021 and 167 in 2022 — four years of continuous increase. The correction came next: 140 in 2023, then 105 in 2024. Over the whole period, the fall reaches 16.7%. The municipal peak dates back to 2015, with 188 incidents, and the 2000 level stood at 174.
Two lessons. First, the 2023–2024 decline has stopped: 2025 freezes it rather than extending it. Second, homes account for 83% of the 127 burglaries in buildings recorded in the municipality in 2025. What gets burgled in Wemmel is houses.
The Wemmel municipal grant: amount and conditions
The municipal regulations provide for a contribution of 75% of purchase and installation costs, incl. VAT, up to a maximum of €750 per dwelling unit. In practice, the cap is only reached from €1,000 of expenditure: below that, it is indeed the 75% rate that applies, not a flat amount.
The conditions shape the whole process. The grant is aimed at private homes. It requires a mandatory prior opinion from the burglary prevention adviser of the AMOW police zone. It is followed by a post-works inspection. And it requires a detailed invoice submitted within one year of the opinion. The regulations can be consulted on the Wemmel municipality page dedicated to home security advice — published in Dutch, like all the regulations of this Flemish Brabant municipality.
The order of steps is non-negotiable, and getting it wrong is the costliest mistake: the opinion comes before the works. A household that has its equipment installed and then submits an application is too late. The one-year period runs from the opinion, not from the invoice.
What the grant covers: the question to settle before buying
In Belgium, the general rule is that municipal home security grants fund mechanical protection: reinforced locks and cylinders, burglar-resistant glazing, sturdy doors and frames, additional locking. Alarm systems and cameras are very often excluded, sometimes explicitly. The logic is consistent: the municipality subsidises what delays an intrusion, because time is the variable that makes burglars give up.
For Wemmel, the information available to us does not specify whether electronics — alarm, detection, camera — fall within the scope of the grant. We will therefore not claim it either way. What the regulations do say clearly is that the grant is conditional on the prior opinion of the burglary prevention adviser of the AMOW police zone. It is therefore to the adviser, and the adviser alone, that the question must be put, by submitting the precise list of the equipment planned and asking for written confirmation of what is eligible and what is not. That confirmation is worth more than any statement from a seller — including ours.
A useful reflex, whatever the answer: the technical order does not change. Reinforce the access points first, then detect. An alarm fitted on frames that give way in a few seconds only reports an intrusion that has already succeeded.
The AMOW adviser’s opinion is not an administrative formality
Wemmel falls under the AMOW police zone (5408), which covers Asse, Merchtem, Opwijk and Wemmel. Its burglary prevention adviser — diefstalpreventieadviseur — visits free of charge, examines the home’s actual access points and has no commercial interest in what they recommend.
Here the visit serves two inseparable purposes: it is the condition for the grant and it produces the technical diagnosis on which to build the project. Allow for a waiting time depending on the season, and show the adviser the back of the house, not just the front door.
Housing in Wemmel: the risk is at the back, not the front
Wemmel is a residential municipality on the north-western fringe of the Brussels conurbation: single-family houses, plots with gardens, quiet streets, little traffic in the evening. This setting shifts the weak point in a very concrete way.
The front façade is exposed to view and therefore relatively protected. The rear is not: the living-room French window, patio door, veranda, kitchen or utility-room door opening onto the garden. These entrances are glazed, invisible from the street, and reached via an often enclosed garden — a fence that hides the intruder from view just as effectively as it protects the occupant. Add to this, in this type of housing, the garden shed and the garage, which supply the tools and serve as an airlock.
The consequence is direct: an alarm whose detectors are all indoors goes off once the glass has been breached. The appropriate approach is outdoor detection, facing the garden and the rear access points, complemented by photo-verification detectors in the rooms people pass through — which also meet the alarm verification requirement — and by an outdoor siren, whose effect remains the main reason a break-in in progress is abandoned. Alarm kits cover simple configurations; our guide which Ajax alarm to choose in Belgium helps size the whole system according to the number of rear access points.
Legal obligations, identical throughout Belgium
Alarm: declaration within ten days via police-on-web, annual confirmation, outdoor siren limited to three minutes, annual maintenance, mandatory verification before police intervention. Legal basis: Royal Decree of 25 April 2007. The procedure is detailed in our guide on the declaration of an alarm system in Belgium.
Camera: declaration on declarationcamera.be, regulatory pictogram, record of processing activities, ban on filming the public highway and the neighbour’s property. On a Wemmel housing estate where gardens adjoin, this last constraint determines the orientation of a camera far more than the sensor’s performance. See our article on the camera law in Belgium. These obligations are federal: they are the same in Flanders, Brussels and Wallonia, and do not depend on the municipal regulations.
Frequently asked questions
How much is the home security grant in Wemmel?
The municipal regulations provide for 75% of purchase and installation costs, incl. VAT, up to a maximum of €750 per dwelling unit. The grant is aimed at private homes and requires a prior opinion from the burglary prevention adviser of the AMOW police zone, a post-works inspection and a detailed invoice submitted within one year of the opinion.
Does the Wemmel grant cover an alarm or a camera?
The public information available to us does not specify this, and we will not claim it either way. The regulations make the grant conditional on the prior opinion of the burglary prevention adviser of the AMOW police zone: it is to this adviser that you must submit the list of planned equipment and obtain written confirmation of what is eligible, before any purchase. In general, Belgian municipal grants most often fund mechanical protection.
How many burglaries were there in Wemmel in 2025?
105 residential burglaries, exactly the same number as in 2024, a change of 0.0% year on year. That represents 2.0 incidents per week. Over six years, the fall reaches 16.7% compared with the 126 incidents of 2019.
In what order should you proceed to obtain the grant?
The opinion of the burglary prevention adviser of the AMOW police zone must be requested before the works. Then come the installation, the post-works inspection, and the submission of a detailed invoice within one year of the opinion. An application submitted after works already carried out without a prior opinion does not meet the basic condition.
Which police zone does Wemmel belong to?
The AMOW police zone (5408), which groups Asse, Merchtem, Opwijk and Wemmel. It provides the burglary prevention adviser whose opinion is required by the municipal regulations, and the visit is free of charge.
Sources: Police crime statistics, Federal Police DGR/DRI/BIPOL, publication 2025_T04 (closing date 24/04/2026) — Wemmel municipal factsheet. Grant regulations and home security advice: municipality of Wemmel. Police zone: AMOW (5408). Grant amounts and conditions change from one year to the next: have the eligibility of your equipment confirmed before incurring any costs.