Why are Belgian banks closing their safe deposit boxes?

The withdrawal has no single cause: three long-term mechanics have added up, documented by RTBF, L'Avenir and the sector federation.

For decades, the bank safe deposit box was used mainly to keep bearer shares, bonds and savings certificates. The 2005 law abolishing bearer securities dematerialised those documents, and since 2008 banks have no longer been allowed to issue securities in paper form (L'Avenir, 04/06/2025).

The tipping point is dated: a conversion tax on bearer securities took effect on 1 January 2012. In December 2011 alone, the four major banks of the time (Dexia, KBC, ING, Fortis) recorded 30,379 terminated safe deposit box contracts, as customers opened securities accounts and ended their rental in the same move (RTBF).

The digitisation of administrative life added to this. "Safe deposit box rental is declining, partly because of increasing digitisation," notes Isabelle Marchand, spokesperson for the Belgian financial sector federation (Febelfin), who also cites the rising cost of renting (L'Avenir). RTBF describes the same mechanics on the customer side: increasingly digitised official documents, fewer valuables and less cash to keep safe (RTBF, 31/03/2023).

Belfius cut the stock allocated to its customers by "around 60,000 boxes" over five years, its network support officer Christian Decaux told RTBF in 2014 (31/12/2014), while keeping the service for official documents, works of art and jewellery. At BNP Paribas Fortis, rentals fall by 10 to 15% a year, according to its spokesperson (RTBF, 31/03/2023).

When a new branch is built, "it is not rare" for it to open without any boxes at all, precisely because of lower customer interest, Febelfin confirms (L'Avenir).

ING summed up the equation with one word, "simplicity": simplify the range and free up branch time for advice.

ING has stopped the service; KBC and Belfius maintain it with a shrinking stock. The bank-by-bank detail is in our dedicated barometer.

No consistent and recent national total is established by the cited sources: the figures are therefore presented bank by bank, with their date and scope. Figures disclosed by the banks and reported by Le Soir (03/01/2025), L'Avenir (04/06/2025), RTBF and L'Écho.

The business press even speaks of a "comeback" of the safe deposit box, but outside the banks: the Dutch private rental company that took over ING's customers reports 33% growth in Belgium in 2024 and targets 15% expansion in 2025, with a customer base 40% drawn from banks (La Libre, 05/04/2025).

Alongside those networks, an older model exists in Belgium: the private non-bank vault room, open without a bank account. In 2012, Gold & Silver Company opened the first private safe deposit box rooms outside the banking system in Belgium, in Dottignies (Mouscron).