More than 1,000 Renolution grant applications on hold

Brussels residents waiting for promised subsidies for energy-efficient renovation works will have to wait longer, given dried up budgets and delayed payments.

The fate of premiums depends if applications were made to the capital’s urban redevelopment and heritage organisation urban.brussels or Brussels Environment.

Although all applications have been submitted on the same website since 2022, either Brussels Environment or urban.brussels will manage the subsidies, depending on the type of work.

Brussels Environment told BRUZZ that its Renolution premiums budget has not been used up yet: “We have a budget of €39.3 million, based on the ‘provisional twelfths’ system voted by parliament. We have already handled 8,800 premiums for an amount of €35.8 million.”

Currently 1,227 new applications are being processed, out of which 937 are waiting for a response from the applicant. That number is constantly evolving, Brussels Environment said: “It is difficult for us to make statements with certainty about what will happen next, because it depends on external factors, such as parliament’s vote on the last part of the provisional twelfths and the number of applications we will still receive.”

At urban.brussels, the situation is different: “Our budget has been used up since May,” said spokesperson Margaux Rauben.

In total, her service has already spent €19.3 million on Renolution premiums this year. “In the meantime, 1,056 files are on hold,” she said. “The continuation of payments will depend on the guidelines of the new government and the budget allocated to them.”

Urban.brussels gives the following clarifications about renovation dossiers in answer to questions addressed to its website via the Irisbox platform.

Answering the question: "Can I still apply for 2024?" it says: "Yes, a subsidy application for renovation works with a final invoice in 2024 is possible within 12 months of the date of the final invoice and according to the existing conditions explained on the Renolution page of the urban.brussels website."

As for "Can I submit an application for works carried out in 2025 now?" the answer is: "To apply for a premium with a final invoice dated in 2025, a decision is needed on the subsidy system of the new government. Until then, you cannot apply for a grant for work for which the final invoice was drawn up in 2025."

In the absence of a fully functioning Brussels government, the "provisional twelfths" system stipulates that if a government has not adopted a budget for the coming year by 31 December, it can only spend one-twelfth of what it has spent the previous year per month, plus indexation.