What is the Belgian health index? (and why your rent rises with it)
Last reviewed on 2026-06-10 · reading time ± 3 min
The health index is a Belgian price index that Statbel calculates and publishes every month. It is the consumer price index (CPI) without a number of products: tobacco, alcoholic beverages and motor fuels (petrol and diesel; LPG does count). It was introduced in 1994 to prevent excise duty increases on those products from automatically feeding through into wages and rents.
What is it used for?
- Rent indexation: the legal formula for residential leases must use the health index — not the ordinary CPI.
- Wages and benefits: via the four-month moving average (the "smoothed health index") and the pivot index.
- Other contracts: many commercial contracts refer to it voluntarily.
Base years: 2013=100, 2025=100…
Index figures are expressed against a base year. Statbel switched to base 2025=100 at the start of 2026, but keeps publishing the series in older bases (such as 2013=100) via conversion coefficients. For rent indexation the base year doesn't matter, as long as numerator and denominator use the same base. Our tool consistently calculates in base 2013=100 with the official Statbel series going back to 1994.
When does the figure appear?
Statbel publishes a month's index figure at the end of that same month (usually around the second-to-last working day). If you want to index on your contract's anniversary, the required "month before the anniversary" is therefore available just in time.
Current figures
On our index page you'll find the most recent figure and the full monthly table, each time with the month-on-month and year-on-year change. Want to know what the figure means for your rent? Then use the indexation calculator: it automatically picks the right months for your contract and region.