According to data from Febiac and the Federal Public Service Mobility, registrations of new cars in Belgium and Luxembourg decreased by 18.7% to 32,997, compared with last year. Febiac states that the new Euronorm installed on the 1st of January plays a role here: registrations were partly moved forward to December 2025.

Febiac hopes that the success of the Brussels Motor Show will also have the commercial impact it has always had, and that the coming months will show this. With 42.7% of all registrations, petrol cars remain first, but in a market that fell by almost 20%, battery electric cars (BEVs) still grew by 2%. With a market share of 36.7% BEVS are closing in on these petrol ICE cars.

Light Commercial Vehicles also saw a decline in January, by 11.7%. In this category, the diesel engine remains king, with a 86.1% market share.

Heavier trucks saw a severe blow in sales. Trucks under 16 tons sold less than half as much as in 2025 in January (-50.9%), while the trucks over 16 tons sold 19.3% less.

The only positive growth numbers are for two-wheelers, at +38.4% compared with January last year. But one has to take into account that January 2025 was an extremely weak month due to the installation of the new Euro 5+ standard for new motorbikes.

Top ten by make

As a result of a 47.8% regress in sales in January, BMW  has lost its first place to Volkswagen, which only lost 12.7% in sales. Mercedes-Benz, which also lost fewer sales than the market average (-16.5%), is competing closely with BMW, with the sales difference last month being 56 cars (3,133 vs. 3,079).

Peugeot ranks fourth, thanks to a 27.5% increase in sales, and has surpassed Audi, whose registration volume fell by 9.2%. Renault is sixth, registering a sales loss of 14.2%, with Skoda on its heels at seventh place, registering a whopping sales boost of 46.9%.

Eighth place is occupied by Toyota, despite a 28.1% sales decrease, and Kia is number nine, also losing 20.6% in sales. Finally, Volvo ranks tenth, limiting sales losses to 6.7% this time.

Other winners and losers

Looking at the winners, we’ll start with BYD (18th place), which increased its sales by 92.7% and even surpassed its Chinese compatriot MG for the first time (23rd, +11.2% in sales).

Also, other Chinese brands are seeing significant sales growth, but they started from very small numbers: XPeng (29th, +57%), Leapmotor (30th) sold 127 cars in January, which is 144.2% more than last year, and Omoda (37th) sold 82 cars, 1,950% more than last year in January, when they sold only 4 cars. A European intruder in this category is Alpine (39th): where it sold 18 cars in January last year, it sold 47 now (+161.1%).

Other winners were Opel (13th, +38.9%), Mini (17th, +15.6%), Fiat (20th, +68.3%), Mazda (22nd, +23.6%), Jeep (28th, +16.7%), and KG Mobility (35th, +15.4%).

Looking at the losers, for once, Dacia (11th) is standing out at the wrong side, with a 47.8% sales loss compared to last year. Tesla (16th) is tumbling further, with a 31.3% sales loss, while Ford (14th, -32.6%) and Hyundai (15th, -47.8%) aren’t doing much better.

Nissan (19th, -53.2%) and Suzuki (21st, -25.4%) also have the same problem, just like the two Spanish sisters: Cupra (24th, -29.9%) and Seat (25th, -23.9%). Porsche (26th, -33.7%) seems to be sliding further, while Polestar (27th, -29.3%) is alternating between good and weaker performances.

And then there’s Land Rover (Jaguar isn’t playing anymore at the moment), which slid to 32nd position with a -71.3% sales decrease, Alfa Romeo (33rd, -38.5%), and Lexus (34th, -29.3%).

Wait and see

It’s very difficult to draw conclusions after such a weird month, but some tendencies are already pronouncing themselves. BMW, for example, will have a very strong contender this time in Volkswagen for first place. Secondly, the Chinese are here to stay, with more and more makes appearing in the top 40.

Looking at BMW’s results, it’s clear that the professional market wasn’t very active in January, but we didn’t receive the split between company cars/individual buyers from Febiac. With the commercial results of the Brussels Motor Show (clearly aimed at individual buyers), there should be an increase in this category compared to the professional buyers in the months to come. Wait and see.

Also, in neighboring countries, the car market wasn’t in very good shape. In January 2026, 28,347 cars were registered in the Netherlands, which is 13.1% less than the year before. More importantly, the sales of electric cars went down with 35.4%, representing 25.3% of the total market, while this was 34% last year. Hybrids, by contrast, remain very popular, with a market share climbing to 62%. Volkswagen leads the dance here, followed by Kia, Hyundai, BMW, and Skoda.

In France, the car market regressed by 6.6% in January (YOY), the lowest sales score in 15 years, except for 2022 (pandemic). In contrast with the Netherlands, the market share of fully electric cars in France has increased to 28%, a level never reached in recent years. Of course, incentives such as social leasing and other measures to support EVs have played a significant role here.