More Belgians started investing in exchange-traded funds than in shares last year, the country’s markets regulator said today (Thursday). First-time ETF buyers numbered 96,000 against 83,000 in equities , and their median age was 39 against 45.
Belgium’s Financial Services and Markets Authority (FSMA) published the figures in its latest Retail Investor Dashboard, which tracks how many people trade shares, ETFs and bonds each quarter.
The firms competing hardest for that first account also lost a separate revenue line on June 30, when Germany’s exemption from the EU ban on payment for order flow expired and Trade Republic rebuilt its execution around a one-euro settlement fee.
The First Product Is No Longer the Share
The gap has been widening for two years. Belgium counted 28,000 new ETF investors in 2023, 70,000 in 2024 and 96,000 last year, while first-time share buyers reached 83,000 in 2025.
Age is where the split is sharpest. Just over half of the 2025 ETF newcomers were 40 or younger, and nearly 15% were over 60.
Across the active base the pattern holds. Some 45% of Belgium’s 231,000 ETF investors were under 40 in 2025, against just over 25% of the 397,000 share investors, a gap of roughly 20 percentage points.
Median ages were 43 and 54. About 511,000 Belgians traded any of the three instruments last year, and the individual counts overlap because one person can trade more than one.
Brokers have been building for that client for years. XTB launched zero-commission ETF Investment Plans in 2023, picking its first markets by where client ETF adoption already ran highest.
How Much of This Is Measurement
The FSMA keeps adding brokers to its sample, and discloses it in footnotes, not in the headline numbers. Data from an additional reporting entity entered the series in the first quarter of 2026.
That is what produced the largest figure in the release. ETF transactions rose more than 40% against the fourth quarter of 2025, a jump the regulator attributes to the change in scope rather than to more trading.
The 2025 growth in active investors carries the same qualifier. “Keeping the scope of entities constant throughout time shows similar, albeit milder trends,” the dashboard says.
A second boundary goes unresolved in the published document. It counts trades placed through brokers supervised by the FSMA, and does not set out how Belgians using platforms licensed elsewhere in the European Union are treated.
That distinction is not academic. Trade Republic serves more than 10 million customers across 18 European markets on a single German license.
France Ran the Same Count on a Bigger Market
The French regulator publishes a comparable dashboard, and its 2025 edition points the same way at roughly ten times the scale. Some 1.1 million French investors traded ETFs in 2025, up 83% from 607,000 a year earlier, against 1.9 million who bought or sold shares.
The age curve matches, on a different measure. France reports averages where Belgium reports medians: the French ETF investor averaged 38 at the end of last year and the French equity investor 48, both younger than twelve months earlier.
Neither dashboard shows what the fund is being used for once it is bought. Leveraged ETF assets reached a record $218 billion this year, and global inflows in the first half ran 45% ahead of the same period of 2025.
FinanceMagnates.com reported this week that ETFs are increasingly traded tactically by retail and institutions alike, not held the way a low-cost index product was designed to be.
The Quarter Itself Was Down
Activity fell across all three instruments in the second quarter. About 230,000 Belgians traded shares, 179,000 traded ETFs and 15,000 traded bonds, each below the first-quarter count.
Transaction counts followed. Against the first quarter, equity transactions fell 12% to 1.68 million, ETF transactions fell 5% to 722,000, and bond transactions fell about 20% to 23,000.
The FSMA puts the decline down to seasonality, noting that retail activity climbs in the first quarter of every year and that the same pattern appeared in earlier ones. Belgian retail investors stayed net buyers of all three instruments.
Bonds remain marginal at both ends of the funnel. Some 63,000 Belgians traded one at some point in 2025, and 4,000 bought or sold their first in the second quarter. The dashboard counts investors and transactions only, and does not publish the amounts invested.
More Belgians started investing in exchange-traded funds than in shares last year, the country’s markets regulator said today (Thursday). First-time ETF buyers numbered 96,000 against 83,000 in equities , and their median age was 39 against 45.
Belgium’s Financial Services and Markets Authority (FSMA) published the figures in its latest Retail Investor Dashboard, which tracks how many people trade shares, ETFs and bonds each quarter.
The firms competing hardest for that first account also lost a separate revenue line on June 30, when Germany’s exemption from the EU ban on payment for order flow expired and Trade Republic rebuilt its execution around a one-euro settlement fee.
The First Product Is No Longer the Share
The gap has been widening for two years. Belgium counted 28,000 new ETF investors in 2023, 70,000 in 2024 and 96,000 last year, while first-time share buyers reached 83,000 in 2025.
Age is where the split is sharpest. Just over half of the 2025 ETF newcomers were 40 or younger, and nearly 15% were over 60.
Across the active base the pattern holds. Some 45% of Belgium’s 231,000 ETF investors were under 40 in 2025, against just over 25% of the 397,000 share investors, a gap of roughly 20 percentage points.
Median ages were 43 and 54. About 511,000 Belgians traded any of the three instruments last year, and the individual counts overlap because one person can trade more than one.
Brokers have been building for that client for years. XTB launched zero-commission ETF Investment Plans in 2023, picking its first markets by where client ETF adoption already ran highest.
How Much of This Is Measurement
The FSMA keeps adding brokers to its sample, and discloses it in footnotes, not in the headline numbers. Data from an additional reporting entity entered the series in the first quarter of 2026.
That is what produced the largest figure in the release. ETF transactions rose more than 40% against the fourth quarter of 2025, a jump the regulator attributes to the change in scope rather than to more trading.
The 2025 growth in active investors carries the same qualifier. “Keeping the scope of entities constant throughout time shows similar, albeit milder trends,” the dashboard says.
A second boundary goes unresolved in the published document. It counts trades placed through brokers supervised by the FSMA, and does not set out how Belgians using platforms licensed elsewhere in the European Union are treated.
That distinction is not academic. Trade Republic serves more than 10 million customers across 18 European markets on a single German license.
France Ran the Same Count on a Bigger Market
The French regulator publishes a comparable dashboard, and its 2025 edition points the same way at roughly ten times the scale. Some 1.1 million French investors traded ETFs in 2025, up 83% from 607,000 a year earlier, against 1.9 million who bought or sold shares.
The age curve matches, on a different measure. France reports averages where Belgium reports medians: the French ETF investor averaged 38 at the end of last year and the French equity investor 48, both younger than twelve months earlier.
Neither dashboard shows what the fund is being used for once it is bought. Leveraged ETF assets reached a record $218 billion this year, and global inflows in the first half ran 45% ahead of the same period of 2025.
FinanceMagnates.com reported this week that ETFs are increasingly traded tactically by retail and institutions alike, not held the way a low-cost index product was designed to be.
The Quarter Itself Was Down
Activity fell across all three instruments in the second quarter. About 230,000 Belgians traded shares, 179,000 traded ETFs and 15,000 traded bonds, each below the first-quarter count.
Transaction counts followed. Against the first quarter, equity transactions fell 12% to 1.68 million, ETF transactions fell 5% to 722,000, and bond transactions fell about 20% to 23,000.
The FSMA puts the decline down to seasonality, noting that retail activity climbs in the first quarter of every year and that the same pattern appeared in earlier ones. Belgian retail investors stayed net buyers of all three instruments.
Bonds remain marginal at both ends of the funnel. Some 63,000 Belgians traded one at some point in 2025, and 4,000 bought or sold their first in the second quarter. The dashboard counts investors and transactions only, and does not publish the amounts invested.