Not from your ordinary income tax when you sell your own home. But agency commission is deductible as a selling cost when calculating a taxable capital gain, reducing the taxable amount. For a landlord, agency and management fees can be deducted against rental income under the actual-cost regime (Mamertin, 2026).
The honest answer depends on which tax you mean and who you are. For a private individual selling their main residence, the agency commission is not something you subtract from your general income tax, because the sale of your own home is not a taxable event in the first place, there is no gain to tax and therefore nothing to deduct against (Notaire.be, 2026). So the common hope of writing off the commission on a normal home sale does not apply.
Where the deduction genuinely bites is in the capital-gains calculation. If your sale is taxable, a built property resold within five years, for example, the agency commission counts as a selling cost that reduces the taxable gain, alongside advertising and the mandatory certificates (Mamertin, 2026). In that setting the commission directly lowers the 16.5% base, so it is fully relevant. The mechanism is subtraction from the sale price, not a credit on your income tax.
For a landlord, the picture is different again. Belgian residential rental income from a private individual is generally taxed on the indexed cadastral income rather than on the actual rent, and in that default regime you cannot separately deduct expenses. However, where property income is taxed on real costs, for instance certain professional or non-standard lettings, agency and management fees can be deductible against the rental income. The right treatment depends on how the property income is taxed, which is worth confirming with an accountant.
The counter-intuitive takeaway: the same agency commission can be non-deductible on a normal home sale, decisive in a taxable capital-gain computation, and deductible against rental income in a real-cost regime, all depending on context. Keep the invoice in every case, because if a deduction is available you will need it to justify the figure to the tax administration.
At a glance
- Selling your own home: commission not deductible from income tax, since the sale is not taxed (Notaire.be, 2026).
- Taxable capital gain: commission deductible as a selling cost, lowering the gain (Mamertin, 2026).
- It reduces the 16.5% base by subtraction from the sale price.
- Rental income, default regime: taxed on cadastral income, no separate expense deduction.
- Rental income, real-cost regime: agency and management fees can be deductible.
- The correct treatment depends on how your property income is taxed.
- Always keep the agency invoice to justify any deduction.