Early childhood in Brussels: nurseries, waiting lists and triple institutional authority

Why this dossier directly concerns Brussels residents

Finding a nursery place in Brussels is, for most families, an obstacle course. According to the Ligue des Familles, two parents in three describe the search as "difficult or very difficult". And depending on the commune where you live, your chances are vertiginously different: a family in Etterbeek benefits from a coverage rate of 67%, while a family in Anderlecht tops out at 16%. The postcode lottery determines — for many — whether you will be able to return to work after maternity leave.

This inequality is not strictly a "Brussels regional" problem: the Region does not directly organise nurseries. Three different authorities decide, each according to its own budgetary logic, for the same Brussels child.

The three authorities deciding for your child's nursery

Added to this are the municipalities (municipal nurseries, out-of-school care), the VGC (support to Dutch-language childcare facilities) and COCOF (via certain peripheral francophone arrangements).

Concretely: to enrol your child, you must either go through the Antenne de la petite enfance (francophone) in your commune, the lokaal loket kinderopvang (Dutch-language), or contact a bicommunal structure. Waiting lists are separate — you can wait months in a francophone queue while a place opens up in a Dutch-language queue you are not registered on.

Source: Iriscare — Childcare approvals; ONE; Opgroeien; Brussels Family — Nursery guide.

Inequality by commune: a fairness indicator

The perspective.brussels study published in October 2024 documents coverage rates by commune. The gaps are significant:

• Etterbeek: ~67% (best-served)
• Auderghem (NL): ~80 places / 100 children (Opgroeien data 2025)
• Anderlecht: ~16% (least-served)
• Koekelberg (NL): ~26 places / 100 children

These figures combine ONE, Opgroeien and bicommunal places — but the gap remains striking. Anderlecht and Molenbeek, which concentrate the highest Brussels birth rates and the most vulnerable families, have the smallest supply. The families who most need a nursery have the most difficulty finding one.

Source: perspective.brussels — Accessibility study (Oct. 2024).

The FWB programme-decree: cuts and emergency fund (adopted on 5 June 2026)

The programme-decree of the Wallonia-Brussels Federation (MR–Les Engagés majority), announced in October 2025, was definitively adopted on 5 June 2026 after a plenary session of about fourteen hours (see the Education dossier). It enacts both cuts and an emergency fund for early childhood:

What is being cut

• −€74 million in the early childhood sector for 2026 (ONE, nurseries, care facilities), an effort of about 10% on an annual budget of €719 million.
• Non-indexation of subsidies to approved operators in 2026 (≈ €7.8 million in savings) — in practice, a real erosion of resources.
• Scrapping of the MILAC system: this mechanism was meant to fund the shift from 1 to 1.5 childcare workers per 7 children from 2026; it will not be implemented, the 1.5/7 ratio remaining a mere "guiding standard" with no funding. In practice, the supervision of infants will not improve.
• IT savings at ONE: −€3 million in 2026 and −€9 million in 2027 (on an IT budget of €37 million).

What is protected / strengthened

• €43 million in an emergency fund in 2026 and €57 million in 2027, intended to clear an accumulated debt of €75 million at ONE and to refocus the office on its core missions (childcare facilities + preventive health).
• This fund aims to partially offset the impact of cuts on existing places, but does not allow the structural deficit (11,200 missing places in FWB per ONE) to be caught up.

Cumulative effect

Total FWB savings reach €500 million over 4 years (2026-2029), leaving no margin for Plan Cigogne (1,700 new places planned in Brussels). And for the record: opening a single nursery place requires 7 to 9 years of procedures — the current deficit will not be closed in this term, nor in the next.

Sources: La DH (Oct. 2025); RTBF — early childhood savings (2026); L'Avenir — programme-decree adopted on 5 June 2026; Moustique (Jan. 2026). Confidence: official (decree adopted, parliamentary and press sources).

Dutch-language side: Masterplan Kinderopvang and staffing constraints

On the Opgroeien side, the Masterplan Kinderopvang (2025) provides for about 850 new places for Dutch-language nurseries in Brussels. According to BRUZZ (June 2025), the network reaches 51 places per 100 children aged 0 to 3 — an overall rate on the rise, but marked by strong communal inequalities.

A structural brake: the staffing shortage. About 350 children have no place in Brussels despite theoretically available capacity, simply because nurseries cannot recruit enough qualified childcare workers. Training, salary conditions and the status of the profession partly explain this shortage.

A coming change: from 1 September 2026, the GO! network (Flemish public education) no longer funds staff for before- and after-school care, as part of Flemish budget cuts. This decision will mechanically increase pressure on municipalities and Dutch-language Brussels families who rely on this out-of-school care to combine work and childcare.

The Flemish Masterplan Kinderopvang, presented in April 2025, provides for an additional envelope of about €200 million by 2029 across three pillars (places, price, staff) and targets 10,000 additional childcare places in Flanders and Brussels. First concrete application: since 1 March 2026, new home-based childminders (gezinsopvang) can no longer start under the sui generis status — only employee or self-employed status remains possible, a measure meant to professionalise and secure the occupation.

Sources: Opgroeien — Masterplan Kinderopvang; BRUZZ (June 2025).

Impact on Brussels female employment: the documented link

The lack of nursery places is not only a family problem: it is a mechanical brake on female employment. The Itinera Institute study on the Belgian labour market (administrative data 2006-2022) establishes that Brussels has only 18 nursery places per 100 children on average (all networks combined, an administrative indicator different from the Opgroeien coverage rate which reaches 51/100 on the Dutch-language side), a ratio that coexists with the stagnation of women's employment in Brussels (+0% between 2006 and 2022, versus +20.6% in Flanders and +11.9% in Wallonia).

In other words: a nursery place in Molenbeek or Anderlecht is not just a convenience for parents — it is a structural condition for reaching the 70% employment target set out in the Brussels government's 2026 RPD. Without nursery places, Brussels mothers (particularly in working-class neighbourhoods) cannot enter or remain in the labour market.

See also: Employment domain card.

What to monitor

1. September 2026 school year: with the programme-decree now adopted (5 June 2026), concrete application of FWB cuts — closures or capacity reductions in Brussels nurseries, effects of the scrapped MILAC system on supervision?
2. Implementation of the ONE emergency fund (€43M 2026): which Brussels nurseries benefit from it?
3. GO! staff: how do Dutch-language Brussels schools handle the end of out-of-school care funding?
4. Plan Cigogne: effective number of new places opened in Brussels in 2026-2027 vs the 1,700 announced.
5. Recruitment of childcare workers: evolution of labour market tension in the sector.
6. Iriscare's role: new bicommunal approvals?

Sources and methodology

The figures presented in this dossier come from institutional sources (ONE, Opgroeien, Iriscare, perspective.brussels, VGC) and verified press sources (RTBF, La DH, Moustique, Ligue des Familles, BRUZZ). The coverage gaps by commune come from the perspective.brussels study of October 2024, the current reference on the subject.

BGM recalls that early childhood in Brussels is an exclusively community and bicommunal competence: the Brussels Region has no direct authority, but bears the political responsibility to flag the consequences for Brussels residents. This dossier aims to provide parents, sector workers and policymakers with a clear framework to understand who decides what.