📖 For residential leases, the regions hold the authority.
Main residence lease
Notice periods vary with the length of the lease:
Lease type | Landlord notice | Tenant notice |
Short term (≤ 3 years) | 3 months | 3 months |
Standard (9 years) | 6 months | 3 months |
Long term (> 9 years) | 6 months | 6 months |
Student housing lease
Periods differ by the region where the rented unit is located:
Region of the rented unit | Landlord notice | Tenant notice |
Wallonia | 1 month | 1 month |
Flanders | 0 months* | 0 months* |
Brussels | 3 months | 2–0 months** |
* The lease ends automatically on the scheduled expiry date. No termination task is generated, but the system offers to tacitly renew the lease 1 month before the end date.
** The student may end the lease at any time with two months' notice, at no cost. If the lease reaches its term and the student wishes to leave, no notice to the landlord is required.
Civil lease
End-of-contract rules are less regulated than for residential leases. The default notice period is 4 months, configurable when creating the contract in the Contractual terminations section.
When does the notice period start?
Notice, which can be sent at any time before the term, always starts on the 1st day of the month following it being sent. It ends after one calendar month (28–29 February, or 30–31 for other months).
Examples:
A 9-year main residence lease reaching its term on 01/04/2021: 6-month landlord notice → to send before 30/09/2020.
A 3-year main residence lease (04/06/2018 → 03/06/2021): 3-month landlord notice → to send before 28/02/2021.
💡 Smovin tracks these deadlines for you and generates automatic tasks on your dashboard. To understand how this works, see Terminations and tacit renewals.