There are fewer Belgians than Dutch, but they buy more cars

The Dutch bought almost 20 percent more new cars in 2023, around 370,000, but that is completely insignificant compared to what they bought in Belgium last year.

Around 11.5 million people live in Belgium, which is around 6 million fewer than in the Netherlands. However, you won’t see this significant difference in new car sales.

Belgians are buying more cars

Exactly 476,675 cars were registered with our southern neighbors last year. And that’s more than 100,000 more than in the Netherlands! The usual difference is even higher.

Because 2023 was an excellent car year for us and not in Belgium. Before the global corona pandemic, the total annual circulation was a whopping 550,000 copies. Good God!

In addition, the Belgian car market is recovering. Compared to 2022, the number of registrations last year was 30 percent higher. But things have to get better, say the importers there.

Brand summit in Belgium

The fact that new cars are generally significantly cheaper in Belgium is also reflected in the best-selling brands there. At the top is BMW (50,579 cars), followed by VW (45,272), Audi (35,396), Mercedes (35,263) and Peugeot (29,348).

In the Netherlands the top 5 are different: VW (34,958), Kia (33,504), Toyota (25,576), BMW (20,529) and Skoda (20,498).

Model Top Belgium

The top model, where we find the BMW X1 at the top in Belgium (11,531 registrations), closely followed by the Tesla Model Y (11,489). In third to fifth place are Dacia Sandero (10,456), Volvo XC40 (10,221) and Toyota Yaris (8,962).

In the Netherlands, the Tesla Model Y was the most popular with 13,758 registrations. The rest of the top five couldn’t keep up with the American EV: Kia Picanto (10,530), Peugeot 208 (9007), Volvo XC40 (8323) and Kia Niro (7412).