More than half of all electric cars on Belgian roads are leased or rented. According to new figures from the vehicle rental federation Renta, its members alone operate 195,990 fully electric cars, representing 51% of Belgium’s total EV fleet.
The data highlight the crucial role of corporate leasing in driving the country’s vehicle electrification. Renta emphasised this during its annual flagship event for the sector in Londerzeel. Pointing also at the continued struggle to convince private motorists to make the switch.
On June 30, Renta members managed 636,461 vehicles, covering nearly 90% of all rental cars, vans, and trucks in Belgium. Of these, 30.8% were already fully electric, a sharp rise from previous years.
73% zero-emission in long-term leasing
Long-term leasing companies, which account for most of the fleet, report that 73% of new-car orders are now for zero-emission models. Diesel’s share has collapsed to just 15% of long-term passenger cars, while plug-in hybrids and petrol-hybrids remain transitional favorites.
Across the entire Renta fleet, electric vehicles (BEVs) make up 30.8% of all cars and vans, plug-in hybrids (PHEVs) 20.1%, and petrol or hybrid vehicles (HEVs) 27.2%. Diesel still accounts for 21.5%, with marginal shares for alternative fuels (0.4%).
In total numbers, this translates to roughly 195,990 fully electric, 127,700 plug-in hybrids, 173,200 petrol/hybrids, and 136,800 diesel vehicles.
What about EREVs?
Renta doesn’t give an exact breakdown of the different hybrid categories available today. EREVs, or Extended Range EVs, though technically distinct — since they drive electrically but use a fossil-fuel generator to power the motors — are statistically included in the PHEV category and currently represent a negligible fraction of the Belgian leasing market.
In tax and policy treatment, they are not zero-emission. From an accounting and regulatory standpoint, fleet managers treat them the same as PHEVs.
New registration data for 2025 show that the balance between hybrid technologies in Belgium’s total new car market is shifting rapidly. According to FEBIAC, the so-called ‘self-charging hybrids’ (HEVs) are gaining modest ground, while plug-in hybrids (PHEVs) are starting to decline as companies and private buyers move more decisively toward fully electric vehicles.
In the first half of 2025, HEVs increased their market share by roughly 2.5 percentage points, while PHEVs dropped by about 6 points.
By the third quarter, battery-electric cars accounted for one-third of all new registrations, with HEVs around 11–12% and PHEVs slipping to 9–13% depending on the segment. The trend suggests that PHEVs are losing their transitional appeal, squeezed between tax-favoured BEVs and simpler, cheaper hybrids.
Regional divide
Electrification in Belgium remains uneven. Flanders leads, hosting roughly 70% of the country’s EVs and most of the corporate fleets. Brussels is catching up, driven by its planned 2030 ban on internal combustion engines, while Wallonia lags due to weaker infrastructure and fewer incentives.
Renta criticized Flanders’ recent decision to reintroduce road and registration taxes (BIV) for electric vehicles, calling it “a step backwards” and urging for a stable, predictable framework to encourage private buyers.
Private lease still a niche
While private leasing is booming in the Netherlands, where nearly a quarter of all leased cars are privately contracted and one in five is electric, Belgium remains far behind.
As of early 2025, only about 13,000 private-lease vehicles are on Belgian roads—barely 3 percent of the long-term lease market—and more than 90 percent still run on petrol or hybrid power.
Without tax advantages or scale economies, Belgian private-lease prices are higher, and the market remains small. For most Belgians, leasing privately is mainly about convenience and cost predictability, not savings—unlike in the Netherlands, where it has become a cost-effective alternative to ownership.
For the Dutch, private leasing has become a mainstream phenomenon, with more than 247,000 active contracts —about 20 times the Belgian total.
58,800 commercial vehicles
According to the Renta figures, by market segment, 541,000 are passenger cars, 58,000 light commercial vans, and just under 800 heavy trucks. Most vans (over 84%) remain diesel-powered, whereas the car segment is rapidly electrifying — more than a third of long-term lease cars are now battery-electric.
The short-term rental sector tells a more fragile story. Its fleet fell by almost 20% in a year, with just 4% of vehicles fully electric. Profitability is under strain from uncertain resale values, complex European regulations, and wavering demand.
Average leasing contracts now run for 51 months, up from 42 five years ago — a sign that companies are keeping cars longer to spread the higher depreciation of EVs. The average investment per leased car exceeds €35,000 (excl. VAT).
Weaker consumer confidence
Residual values of electric vehicles remain under pressure in Belgium, more so than in neighbouring markets like the Netherlands. According to Autovista Group, the average year-on-year decline in resale value of three-year-old cars is expected to drop by around 4% in Belgium in 2025, compared with just 0.7% in the Netherlands.
Over a four- to five-year lease term, EVs in Belgium typically lose 60–70% of their value, still about 5 points more than comparable petrol or diesel cars, though this gap is smaller in the Netherlands, where the used-EV market is more mature.
The difference reflects Belgium’s slower development of a used-EV market and weaker consumer confidence in second-hand battery cars — a concern also raised by Renta.
Dutch fleets benefit from a more mature resale ecosystem and consistent incentives, helping electric models retain value better. Analysts expect depreciation parity between EVs and internal-combustion cars to emerge around 2026–2027 in the Netherlands, but later in Belgium, unless second-hand demand and policy stability improve.
