Building a rock-solid tenant file in Belgium

In a tight market like Brussels, Ghent or Leuven, a decent flat attracts dozens of applications within forty-eight hours. The landlord does not read forty files: they discard thirty-five on a mechanical criterion — incomplete, unreadable, income not evidenced — and read the five that remain. So your goal is not to be the perfect candidate. It is to be the candidate who can be assessed in three minutes.

What a complete file contains

A Belgian tenant file rests on three blocks: who you are, what you earn, how you behaved as a tenant.

Your identity. A valid identity document (Belgian ID card, residence permit, passport). You are not obliged to let a full photocopy circulate: showing the document, or providing a copy with the national register number masked, is defensible. The national register number is regulated data; a landlord does not need it to pick a candidate.

Your income. This is the heart of the file.

• Employee: your last three payslips and your employment contract (or an employer's certificate stating the type of contract — permanent, fixed-term, probation — and the monthly net pay).
• Self-employed: your most recent tax assessment notice (avertissement-extrait de rôle / aanslagbiljet), optionally backed by an accountant's statement or your last two tax returns.
• Pensioner, benefit recipient, grant-holding student: a certificate from the paying body is enough to establish an amount.

Your rental history. Receipts for your last three rent payments (or bank statements showing the transfers, the rest redacted) and, if you can get one, a reference from your previous landlord confirming that you paid and returned the property in order. It is the most under-used document, and often the decisive one: it turns a promise into a track record.

Add, where relevant: the real number of occupants, and a guarantor's commitment with their own documents if your income is tight.

What a landlord may not demand

This is where many applicants — and many landlords — get it wrong. Belgian housing law and anti-discrimination legislation frame the selection. The dividing line: the landlord may check your solvency; they may not profile you.

The following cannot be required of you:

• a criminal record extract or certificate of good conduct;
• health data: state of health, disability, pregnancy, ongoing treatment;
• the origin of your income, once the amount is established. Rejecting a candidate because their means come from a benefit, maintenance payments or the public welfare centre rather than a salary is discrimination on the ground of wealth;
• information about your origin, religion, sexual orientation, family situation (marriage, plans for children, divorce) or union membership;
• full, unredacted bank statements exposing your entire spending pattern.

The landlord may, on the other hand, ask how many people will live in the property: occupancy drives housing-quality standards and consumption. They may not use it as a pretext to exclude families with children.

Finally, the GDPR applies. The files of unsuccessful candidates must be destroyed, not archived "just in case". You are entitled to ask for their deletion.

The income-to-rent ratio: a custom, not a law

The one-third rule — rent should not exceed a third of the household's net income — is a banking and professional custom, not a legal norm. No Belgian text forbids letting to someone whose rent represents 40 % of their income. But it is the mental filter of nearly every landlord, and you are better off addressing it head-on than ignoring it.

Concretely: for a rent of €900 all-in, a landlord will instinctively look for a household around €2,700 net. If you are at €2,300, you are not out — you simply need to close the gap explicitly:

• add up the income of every occupant (a couple's two salaries, a grant plus a student job);
• mention stable, recurring income that a payslip does not show (maintenance received, rental income, child benefit);
• offer a solvent guarantor, with their documents ready;
• show that you have already been paying a comparable rent for two years, with receipts. A payment history beats a projection.

What sinks a file is almost never an average ratio: it is a vague one.

Form matters as much as substance

A winning file fits in a single send. Clearly named PDFs, in order, with a half-page cover note: who you are, how many of you, what you earn in total, from when you can move in, and why this particular property. Two paragraphs, not a cover letter.

Three recurring mistakes:

Domilinko's reusable tenant file

On Domilinko you do not rebuild your file for every listing. You assemble it once in your tenant profile — income, employment situation, household composition, guarantor if any, supporting documents — and then attach it to as many applications as you like.

Two points deserve to be understood:

Your documents are not public files. They are stored privately and served through an authenticated proxy: only the owner of a listing you actually applied to can open them, never through a public URL that could be passed around.

An application freezes a dated snapshot of your file. On the day you apply, Domilinko keeps a snapshot of your file as it then stands. If you later edit your profile — new salary, new guarantor — the application already sent is not rewritten. That is not a limitation: it is what makes the file credible. The landlord decides on dated documents that they know have not shifted between reading and deciding. If your situation improves, submit a fresh application or say so through the messaging thread; do not count on a silent update.

Finally, Domilinko shows the landlord the income-to-rent ratio computed from your file. Make sure it reads correctly: enter all your income, not just the main source.

In short

Gather ID, three payslips or your tax assessment notice, employment contract, recent rent receipts and, if possible, a reference from your previous landlord. Politely refuse the criminal record, medical data and questions about where your money comes from: the law is on your side. Treat the one-third ratio as an obstacle to document, not a verdict. And build your file properly once — you will reuse it twenty times.