The latest unemployment figures for the Brussels-Capital Region show little change in the unemployment rate in February 2026 compared with the previous month. The figures released by the Brussels regional employment service Actris on Thursday show that in February 15.3% of working population was unemployed. This is 0.1 percentage point lower than the figures for January 2026. The 15.4% unemployment rate in January 2026 was the highest level of unemployment recorded in Brussels since August 2021.
The unemployment rate is the percentage of the working age population under the age of 65 that is registered as looking for work. The figures do not include people that are economically inactive such as students and pensioners.
At the end of last month Actiris had 97,859 people registered as looking for work on its books. This is a 6.5% increase on February 2025, but a modest 0.6% fall on the 98,458 people that were registered as looking for work at the end of January 2026.
Of the 97,859 jobseekers, 20,792 are registered with social service departments (OCMW) in the capital’s 19 municipalities. This is a rise of 17.5% on the number that were registered with OCMWs at the end of February 2025 but is around the same as the number registered at the end of January this year.
Impact of unemployment benefit reforms
Actiris notes that new measures that limit the amount of time that jobseekers can claim unemployment benefit has caused a statistical break. The figures from the National Employment Service (RVA) that show the number of people that are unemployed and claiming unemployment benefit will fall for purely administrative reasons and without any direct link to the actual evolution of the labour market. A large number of in Brussels jobseekers are losing their unemployment benefit as a result of the Federal Government's reforms and as such they will soon no longer be included in the RVA’s figures that only included people that are unemployed and claiming unemployment benefit.
Actris’ spokeswoman Nora Ed-Daoui told the Brussels regional news site Bruzz that “Job seekers that lose their benefits remain registered with us for at least three months. However, they are reclassified from “benefit recipient” to “other”. Actiris does this to ensure that they continue to receive support in finding work”.
However, in the medium term, some will not re-register and this will cause a structural fall in the number of unemployed jobseekers, without there being any significant fall in the number of people that are out of work.
Due to the increase in the retirement age, unemployed job seekers aged between 65 and 70 have been included in the statistics from January 2026 onwards. Actris says that this will increase the total number of people registered.