What They Can Ask You For Before You Get the Keys
Kot or flat: the deposit ceilings, the cancellation trap and the charges that are not allowed, in English, with the money worked out from your rent.
About one in five KU Leuven students comes from outside Belgium, and almost everything that governs a kot or a flat here is written only in Dutch. This page is the money part of it in English: what a landlord may lawfully ask you for before you get the keys, and what they may not.
Enter the monthly rent and switch on what applies. The rules underneath are Flemish law — the same in Leuven, Ghent and Antwerp — and each one is linked to the page it comes from. The numbers here are ceilings, not averages: what a landlord may ask, not what a kot costs.
The rent alone, without the advance for water, electricity or internet.
Enter your monthly rent to see the total.
An estimate of common charges, not advice
How this works
Registering the lease is free, and it is not your job
The landlord must register the lease with the tax office within two months of signing, and registration costs nothing. If it is late, the landlord pays the fine, not you. Ask for confirmation that it has been done: an unregistered lease is worse for you than for them, because a registered one binds a new owner if the building is sold.
Source: Vlaanderen.be — Studentenhuurovereenkomst, checked 7 August 2026 (today).
The plaatsbeschrijving is what gets your deposit back
A written, dated inventory of the state of the room, signed by both of you, before you move in or during the first month. It is free if you do it together — walk round with a phone and photograph everything, including the things that are already broken. Only if you both agree to bring in an expert is there a fee, and then you share it. Without a plaatsbeschrijving you are presumed to have received the place in the state you leave it in, which is an argument you do not want to be having in June.
Source: Vlaanderen.be — Studentenhuurovereenkomst, checked 7 August 2026 (today).
What can be charged on top of the rent — and what cannot
On a student lease the rent covers everything except water, energy, telecommunications, and the second-residence tax where the contract explicitly says so. A charge for anything else — cleaning of the common parts, an administration fee, a fee for the contract itself — is not something the law provides for. If you are renting through an agency, the agency's commission is the landlord's cost, not yours.
Source: Vlaanderen.be — Studentenhuurovereenkomst, checked 7 August 2026 (today).
The deposit may be asked for three months early, and no earlier
A landlord may not ask for the deposit more than three months before the lease starts. If someone wants money in February to hold a room for September, that is outside the rule.
Source: Vlaanderen.be — Studentenhuurovereenkomst, checked 7 August 2026 (today).
Check the kotlabel before you sign anything
Since 1 January 2025 there is one Flemish kotlabel, and Leuven's older green and blue labels no longer count. The label means the room has been inspected for fire safety, electrical and heating certificates, occupancy limits and building permission. Leuven's own version carries a QR code on the door you can scan; the Flemish register at kotlabel.vlaanderen.be lets you look an address up before you visit. A kot with no label is not a bargain — it is a room nobody has checked.
Source: Stad Leuven — Kotlabel, checked 7 August 2026 (today).
Rent can be indexed once a year, in writing
From each anniversary of the lease the landlord may raise the rent in line with the health index, and must tell you in writing. An increase can be applied up to three months back, but no further. An indexation is not a free hand to set a new price: it is a formula, and the federal government publishes the calculator.
Source: Vlaanderen.be — Studentenhuurovereenkomst, checked 7 August 2026 (today).
Check it against the official sources
- The authoritative text for everything on this page. Dutch only.
- Vlaanderen.be — the student lease, rule by rule (Dutch)
- The university's own housing service. They will read a contract with you before you sign it, whether or not you found the kot through them.
- KU Leuven Stuvo — housing law for students, with Leuven model contracts
- The Flemish register of labelled student rooms.
- Kotlabel Vlaanderen — look up an address
- What the city inspects, and the QR code on the door.
- Stad Leuven — the Leuven kotlabel
- Repaid over 36 months, no interest and no file costs, subject to income conditions.
- Vlaams Woningfonds — interest-free deposit loan
- Free. The landlord does it; this is where you check that they have.
- FOD Financiën — registering a lease
- The city's front door for people arriving from abroad — registration, and someone to ask in English.
- International House Leuven