Selling your property as a life annuity in Belgium

A life annuity sale (viager in French, lijfrente in Dutch) means selling your property and receiving part of the price at signing, the lump sum, and the rest as an annuity, paid every month for the rest of your life. This guide explains the calculation, the buyer's costs, tax and the role of the notary in Belgium, with the official 2026 figures.

Occupied or vacant

In an occupied life annuity sale, you keep living in your home for the rest of your life. You keep what is called the usufruct. The buyer can neither live there nor rent it out while you live there, so they pay a lower price. According to notaire.be, this is the most common formula.

In a vacant life annuity sale, you leave the property. The buyer can live there or rent it out, and pays its vacant value.

How the lump sum and annuity are calculated

There is no legal life annuity scale in Belgium. Notaries and agencies start from three public figures.

1. The vacant value of the property, the price it would sell for empty. You can find it with a free estimate.
2. The value of your right to live there, in an occupied sale. It comes from the official usufruct conversion table, set every year by ministerial decree. The 2026 table, published in the Belgian Official Gazette of 3 July 2026, gives for example 29.20% for a woman aged 75 and 25.13% for a man of the same age.
3. Life expectancy, from the Statbel mortality tables.

The value of your right to live there is taken away from the vacant value: this gives the occupied value. The lump sum is then taken away. The rest becomes a monthly annuity, paid for as long as you live.

An example. A woman aged 75 sells a house worth €300,000 vacant, as an occupied life annuity sale. Her right to live there is worth 29.20% of the price, or €87,600. The occupied value is therefore €212,400. With a 30% lump sum, she receives €63,720 at signing, then an annuity of about €1,080 per month, without indexation. Run the calculation for your property with our calculator.

What lump sum to ask for

The lump sum is negotiated with the buyer. There are no official statistics on life annuity sales, but specialist agencies usually quote 10 to 30% of the occupied value (Viagerbel). The higher the lump sum, the lower the annuity.

Is the annuity indexed?

Only if the deed says so. Without an indexation clause, the annuity stays the same for life. In practice, annuities are often indexed to the health index (TREVI). An indexed annuity starts lower, then rises every year.

The buyer's registration duties

The buyer pays the registration duties. They are based on the price, the lump sum plus the capital of the annuity, and never on less than the value of the property.

• In Wallonia, the rate is 12.5%. In an occupied sale, the base is at least the value in full ownership, according to the answer of the Walloon Finance Minister of 5 October 2018. The former 6% rate for life annuity sales no longer exists: it was removed in 2020 and formally repealed on 1 January 2026.
• In Flanders, the rate is 12%. In an occupied sale, the base is also at least the value in full ownership (Flemish Tax Code, article 2.9.3.0.5).
• In Brussels, the rate is 12.5%. Your notary confirms the exact base for your sale.

In an occupied sale, the reduced rates for your own home do not apply, because the buyer does not buy full ownership: not the 3% in Wallonia, the 2% in Flanders or the Brussels allowance. For a first idea of purchase costs, use our notary fee calculator.

Is the annuity taxable for the seller?

No, when the buyer is a private person who is not acting professionally. The annuity is then a way of paying the sale price (notaris.be).

If the buyer is a company, the annuity becomes taxable. The taxed amount is limited to 3% of the capital of the annuity, and the tax is 30% (articles 17, 20 and 171 of the 1992 Income Tax Code).

The role of the notary

A life annuity sale is signed before a notary, in an authentic deed. The notary checks that the price is genuine: an annuity that is too low can be treated as a gift. The notary also sets up the seller's protections:

• a termination clause: without it, the seller cannot have the sale cancelled if the buyer stops paying, only have assets seized;
• the seller's lien, kept by registering the deed;
• the indexation clause of the annuity.

The notary's fees follow the official scale for sales and are calculated on the total price. Before selling, also gather the documents required to sell.

Getting help

An agency that specialises in life annuity sales finds the buyer, checks the calculation and prepares the file for the notary. From our life annuity sale calculator, you can ask for such an agency to call you. It is free and you do not sign anything.

Sources

• Statbel, 2025 mortality tables, CC BY 4.0 licence.
• Ministerial decree of 1 July 2026 setting the usufruct conversion tables, Belgian Official Gazette of 3 July 2026.
• Walloon Parliament, written question of 14 September 2018 and answer of 5 October 2018.
• Walloon decree of 19 December 2025 on the 2026 revenue budget, articles 11 to 13.
• Flemish Tax Code, articles 2.9.3.0.4 and 2.9.3.0.5.
• 1992 Income Tax Code, articles 17, 20 and 171.
• notaire.be and notaris.be, pages on life annuity sales.