Average price of a mobile plan in Belgium

Excluding promotions, a 20 GB Belgian mobile plan costs €17.44 a month on average. That is the BIPT's figure, published on 30 June 2026. It is accurate, and it almost never matches what you pay: the advertised price is lower, the month-thirteen price higher, and the regulator's average mixes offers that few people have actually signed up for.

Three average prices, and none of them says the same thing

When people asked me at the counter in Namur, "how much is a normal plan?", I had no honest one-figure answer. I still have three.

The first is the market average excluding promotions. That is the one the BIPT, the Belgian telecoms regulator, calculates: it takes every offer available for a given usage profile, sets aside promotions and one-off fees, and averages them. That figure describes the rate card. It does not describe subscribers.

The second is the introductory price. It is the one you read on the poster, on the operator's website, in comparison sites: €15.99, €18.99, €21. In most cases at the big brands, it lasts twelve months. Sometimes six. Rarely longer.

The third is the one that counts, and nobody prints it: the average price actually paid over the term of the contract. Twelve months at the introductory price, twelve months at the normal price, divided by twenty-four. It is the only one that lets you compare an offer on promotion with an offer that never had one.

None of the three is wrong. But when someone quotes you one, you need to know which.

How much does a mobile plan cost on average, according to the BIPT?

Between €11.95 and €36.52 a month, depending on the data volume. Excluding promotions.

Every quarter the BIPT publishes a comparison of Belgian mobile tariffs. The latest one I was able to read covers prices applied in the second quarter of 2026, recorded on 4 May and published on 30 June 2026. Five profiles, from the light user at 5 GB to the heavy user at 100 GB, with enough calls and texts. Promotions are deliberately left out, so that the results stay valid for several months.

Monthly tariffs excluding promotions and one-off fees, recorded by the BIPT on 4 May 2026, published on 30 June 2026.

Two things stand out.

The first is how wide the range is. For 20 GB, the most expensive offer costs eight times the cheapest, and the gap over a year reaches €432. An average price calculated in the middle of such a spread represents nobody: neither the DIGI subscriber at €5 nor the long-standing customer at €41.

The second is less obvious. For 100 GB, the median (€39) rises above the average (€36.52). In other words, most high-volume offers are expensive, and a few aggressive ones drag the average down. The average figure makes you more optimistic than the market.

And there is what the table does not show. The BIPT also breaks its averages down by type of brand. For the 20 GB profile, the main brands of the big operators average €22.83, secondary brands €15.50, alternative brands €14.97. Yet in the fourth quarter of 2025, the main brands carried about 79% of subscribers according to the same document. The market's average price is therefore noticeably lower than the average price Belgians pay, even though nobody publishes that second figure. I do not estimate it here.

The 21 October 2026 rate cards, month 1 and month 13

I recorded the rate cards published by the operators between 19 and 21 October 2026, and checked them again on 25 October. For each plan: the introductory price, how long it lasts, the normal price that follows, the commitment shown, and the 24-month cost that nobody calculates for you.

Rate cards recorded on 21 October 2026, checked again on 25 October 2026, plan only, no handset or internet bundle. "Not published": the commitment does not appear on the rate card recorded, and I do not estimate it. Scarlet and Mobile Vikings are not included: their prices could not be rechecked on that date.

The last column is the only one that lets you compare the rows with each other. Proximus's Mobile Easy does not cost €15.99 a month. It costs €17.99 a month on average over two years, barely more than the BIPT average for the 20 GB profile, for 5 GB less.

A word on the BASE row, because it is unusual. The 30% discount is announced for the whole term of the contract, not for twelve months. The introductory price is therefore also the month-thirteen price, provided you signed up before 16 November 2026. It is the only plan in this survey where the promotion does not create a step.

And another on Proximus, the other way round. Its rate card now shows the normal price next to the promotional one, which was not the case on the cards I recorded in September. That is real progress. But the promotion's terms also state that if the base price rises during the twelve months, the promotional price rises by the same amount: the discount is guaranteed in euros, not the price.

What do you pay extra in the second year?

Between €0 and €180, on this survey alone. Everything depends on the step between month 12 and month 13.

At Proximus, the step grows with the volume: €4 a month on the Mobile Easy, €6 on the Mobile Smart, €15 on the Mobile Unlimited. Over the second year, that is €48, €72 and €180 more than the poster suggested. At Orange Belgium, the Mobile Large goes from €21 to €29, so €8 a month and €96 in the second year. At yoin, €3 a month, €36 over the year.

In percentage terms, the Mobile Unlimited goes up by almost 43% at month thirteen. The Mobile Easy, by 25%.

I spent three years in the cancellations department of a Belgian virtual operator. A good half of the calls I took began with "my bill went up without warning". It had been announced: the date and the new amount had been in the particular terms since signature. So it is not a tariff increase in the legal sense, and it does not open the three-month termination window that comes with a genuine change to the contract. The difference between the two is set out in the article on mobile plan price increases.

At month thirteen, the ordinary exit stays open. Belgian law allows a telecommunications contract to be terminated with no early termination fee beyond six months of performance. You are therefore free on the service. Not on the handset: if a device is financed through the plan, its balance stays due according to the amortisation schedule.

Why do we pay more in Belgium than our neighbours?

The reputation is partly deserved, partly out of date.

Every year the BIPT compares Belgian prices with those of France, Germany, the Netherlands and Luxembourg. The latest study covers October 2025 tariffs, published on 15 December 2025, in purchasing power parities and again excluding promotions.

Comparative study of telecom service prices in Belgium and neighbouring countries, October 2025 tariffs, BIPT, 15 December 2025.

Belgium systematically loses to France, and almost nowhere else. The "most expensive country in Europe" cliché comes mainly from two things. First, history: for years the market ran on three networks, and comparisons from before 2024 were frankly bad. Second, the behaviour of subscribers themselves, who stay with the main brands.

Go back to the BIPT's breakdown by type of brand. A Proximus subscriber paying €24.99 for 70 GB is not paying the Belgian average price, he is paying a main-brand price. International studies measure each country's cheapest offer. Belgians' bills take shape elsewhere.

DIGI pulled down the bottom of the rate card, not the middle

DIGI Belgium launched its mobile offer on 11 December 2024. The BIPT explicitly credits it with the fall in minimum prices for small and medium volumes: €7 a month less between 2024 and 2025 for the 1 to 20 GB profiles, in purchasing power parities.

The same report notes that the main brands "largely maintained their prices", some even raising them slightly. The response came from secondary brands: hey! changed its offer, Mobile Vikings and BASE increased their volumes without touching the price.

The result shows on the 21 October rate cards. For about 15 GB, you find €5 at DIGI and at hey!, €15.99 then €19.99 at Proximus, €21 at Telenet without an internet bundle. Over twenty-four months, that is €120 on one side, €431.76 and €504 on the other. A gap of €384 for a comparable volume, on the same market, in the same week.

This is not a network gap. DIGI runs its own, hey! is Orange Belgium's low-cost brand. Coverage is checked address by address on the official maps, and it is not the subject here.

Six customers in ten changed nothing in a year

The BIPT surveyed 1,510 consumers in 2025. Sixty per cent said they had not adjusted their plan in the previous twelve months. Nineteen per cent had noticed a price increase, and of those, 71% had done nothing. One per cent had switched operator.

The same survey shows that 46% of respondents would not switch operator for any saving at all.

That, in my view, is where the real average price of a Belgian mobile plan takes shape: not on the rate card, but in the gap between the rate card and what people keep out of habit. In the shop I saw customers paying €35 a month for a volume they did not use, on a plan withdrawn from the catalogue three years earlier, simply because nobody had offered to change it. The operator has no reason to.

Before comparing anything, four lines to note from your own bill:

• the amount billed this month, excluding the handset and one-off options;
• the date on which your sign-up promotion ends, if it has not already;
• your data use in the busiest month of the last six, not the average;
• the balance still due on a financed handset, if the bill carries one.

With those four figures, the comparison takes ten minutes. For volume, the BIPT measures an average use of 11.9 GB per month per residential subscriber in 2025; the article on how many GB you need helps you place yours.

Does the average price change by region?

For the plan alone, no. For the plan in a bundle, yes, and that is a Belgian peculiarity.

Mobile rate cards are national: a Mobile Easy costs the same in Namur, Brussels and Ghent. But the discounts granted when you combine mobile with fixed internet depend on the cable operator serving your address. Telenet covers Flanders and part of Brussels, VOO Wallonia and another part of Brussels. The €5 off for six months on Telenet's Basic, or VOO's discounts on its mobile plan combined with its internet, are therefore only available where those fixed networks reach. Proximus, Orange Belgium and BASE sell their bundles in all three regions.

Someone in Wallonia and someone in Flanders who want the same bundle are not comparing the same offers. Someone who only takes mobile is.

The mobile plan ranking orders plans on that twenty-four-month cost, and the comparison tool puts them side by side.

Sources

• BIPT, results of the comparison of mobile service tariffs in Belgium, tariffs applied in Q2 2026, communication of 30 June 2026 (average and median prices by profile, breakdown by type of brand, 2025 survey), consulted on 25 October 2026.
• BIPT, comparative study of telecom service prices in Belgium and neighbouring countries, October 2025 tariffs, communication of 15 December 2025, consulted on 25 October 2026.
• BIPT, press release on mobile data use, 14 July 2026 (average use of 11.9 GB a month in 2025), consulted on 25 October 2026.
• Rate cards published by DIGI Belgium, hey!, yoin, BASE, Orange Belgium, Proximus and Telenet, recorded on 21 October 2026 and checked again on 25 October 2026, plan only, no handset.
• 24-month costs and real monthly averages calculated by the site from those rate cards: twelve months at the introductory price, twelve months at the normal price.